Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Robert Sabuda
Robert Sabuda is a self-taught pop-up book artist who is well-known for his three-dimensional books. Elaborate dinosaurs leap off the page. Colorful Christmas trees rise up and blink. Knights in shining armor joust before the king and...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Robert Neubecker
Robert Neubecker's picture books have zip - they burst with color, energy, and fun. Neubecker can really capture the world through a kid's eyes, whether it's the first day of school, a first trip to the big city, or the trials and...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Megan Mc Donald
Megan McDonald, the youngest of five sisters, had a stutter as a child, and her mother gave her a notebook to write down what she wanted to say. Many of the anecdotes in her Judy Moody books are based on real incidents - like the time...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Sarah Stewart and David Small
Writer Sarah Stewart and artist David Small, married more than 30 years, like to occasionally collaborate on books. Over the years, they've published a number of award-winning picture books, including The Journey, The Library, and the...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Rosalyn Schanzer
Children's author and illustrator Rosalyn Schanzer views history as series of grand adventures full of fascinating people - stories just waiting to be told. And she loves to tell them, bringing real-life characters like George Washington...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Bill Martin Jr.
Bill Martin Jr's Brown Bear, Brown Bear book is almost required reading for parents of young children. In video clips from A Visit With Bill Martin Jr (1996), he talks about his "jazzy" writing. Watch the interview to learn more about...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Audrey Wood and Don Wood
Audrey and Don Wood have collaborated on more than 50 children's books. Their internationally known books - including The Napping House, Heckedy Peg, and King Bidgood's in the Bathtub - have been translated into many languages. Both...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Anita Silvey
The author of 100 Best Books for Children and 500 Great Books for Teens, Anita Silvey has devoted 35 years to promoting books that inspire children to become lifelong readers. She published her own nonfiction book for children about...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Allen Say
Allen Say writes and illustrates picture books about family, culture, creative expression, dreams, and the immigrant experience. His story Grandfather's Journey tells of his father's own journey from Japan to the U.S. and back again. In...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Ashey Bryan
Ashley Bryan uses painting, poetry, music, collage, and prose to tell his stories. Bryan is known for retelling African folktales in a distinct, rhythmic prose that is heavily influenced by African-American poetry. Watch the interview to...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Andrea Beaty
Andrea Beaty is the author of the popular STEAM-themed picture books about curious kids who love asking questions, inventing, and making things. She has also written a rhyming series for very young readers starring Ted the bear, and...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Betsy Lewin
Betsy Lewin, the illustrator of Click, Clack, Moo, takes a playful approach to her work. In this video interview, Betsy Lewin discusses her career goals as a child and the inspiration she gets from exotic trips abroad. Watch the...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Carole Boston Weatherford
Carole Boston Weatherford is a children's book author and poet who has written books about African-American historical figures such as Harriet Tubman, Jesse Owens, and Billie Holiday. Other books recount historical events such as the...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Chris Van Dusen
Author/illustrator Chris Van Dusen brings humor, adventure, lively language, and richly colored, kinetic illustrations to all of his children's books. He's created a number of unforgettable literary characters, including Mr. Magee (and...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Charles Smith
Charles R. Smith is a talented children's book author and photographer. His expressive poetry - frequently about sports and music - has been praised for its playful language and clever rhymes, while his expressive photographs beautifully...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Candace Fleming
Candace Fleming has always been a storyteller. As a preschooler, she told neighbors all about her three-legged cat named Spot, and in kindergarten, she told classmates about the ghost living in her attic. Her parents encouraged these...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Chris Raschka
Chris Raschka has written and illustrated more than 50 books for children. Raschka has received several awards, including a Caldecott Honor Award for Yo? Yes! His lively illustration style captures the experiences of young children, the...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Chris D'lacey
Chris d'Lacey has written more than 25 books for kids. Though he's best known for his dragon novels, he's also written about polar bears, pigeons, squirrels, snails, pirates, ducks, and soccer (called football outside the U.S.) Some...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Bryan Collier
Illustrator Bryan Collier began creating art at the age of 15. Using his signature style, a vibrant mix of watercolor and collage, he brings stories to life. Collier is the winner of numerous Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards. Watch...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Beverly Cleary
In this video [18:07], Beverly Cleary answers a baker's dozen out of 500 questions submitted by her readers. Listen in as Mrs. Cleary talks about her favorite teddy bear, where the character Ralph came from, the pleasures of reading and...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Cece Bell
Meet Cece Bell, the award-winning author/illustrator of children's books including the Rabbit and Robot stories, the Sock Monkey series, and the graphic novel memoir, El Deafo, which won a Newbery Honor and the Geisel Award in 2015....
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Buzz Aldrin
Mechanical engineer, U.S. Air Force pilot, decorated war veteran, graduate of MIT with a PhD in Astronautics, Gemini 12 and Apollo 11 astronaut, inventor, Presidential Medal of Freedom awardee, author of books for children, teens and...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Deborah Heiligman
Deborah Heiligman writes fiction and nonfiction for kids of all ages. She's published more than 26 books, exploring topics as diverse as religious celebrations around the world, babies, butterflies, honeybees, and a particularly charming...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Christopher Paul Curtis
Christopher Paul Curtis only became a published author in his 40's. Before that, he worked in an automobile factory, which became so unbearable that he began having semi-hallucinations at night of car doors and assembly lines moving...