Lauren Castillo is an author and illustrator of children's literature. In 2015, she won the Caldecott Honor for her watercolor illustrations in her book Nana in the City . [1]
In 2005, she graduated from the School of Visual Arts. [2] Her first self-written and self-illustrated book, Melvin and the Boy, was published in 2011. [3] In 2012, her work was exhibited at the Bruce Museum in their "Let It Snow! Children’s Book Art" show. [4] In 2020, Castillo's book Our Friend Hedgehog: The Story of Us was published, which is planned as the first book in a series. [5]
Sonia Manzano is an American actress, screenwriter, and author. She is best known for playing Maria on Sesame Street from 1971 to 2015. She received a Lifetime Achievement Daytime Emmy Award in 2016.
Simon & Schuster LLC is an American publishing company owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster is considered one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers. As of 2017, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publisher in the United States, publishing 2,000 titles annually under 35 different imprints.
Lives of the Mayfair Witches is a trilogy of supernatural horror/fantasy novels by American novelist Anne Rice. It centers on a family of witches whose fortunes have been guided for generations by a spirit named Lasher. The series began in 1990 with The Witching Hour, which was followed by the sequels Lasher (1993) and Taltos (1994). All three novels debuted at No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Lauren Weisberger is an American writer and author of the 2003 bestseller The Devil Wears Prada, a roman à clef of her experience as an assistant to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Weisberger worked as a writer and editor for Vogue and Departures magazines prior to authoring The Devil Wears Prada, which was adapted into a film of the same name in 2006. She has since published seven other novels.
The Lightning Thief is a 2005 American fantasy-adventure novel based on Greek mythology, the first children's novel by Rick Riordan. The opening installment in the series Percy Jackson & the Olympians, the book was recognized among the year's best for children. Riordan followed the novel with various books and spin-off series, spawning the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles media franchise.
Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. is an American independent book publishing company founded in 2006 and headquartered in New York City, with a satellite office in Brattleboro, Vermont.
Lauren Groff is an American novelist and short story writer. She has written five novels and two short story collections, including Fates and Furies (2015), Florida (2018), Matrix (2022), and The Vaster Wilds (2023).
Alexandra Bracken is an American author known for The Darkest Minds series and Passenger series.
Susanna Mary Clarke is an English author best known for her debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004), a Hugo Award-winning alternative history. Clarke began Jonathan Strange in 1993 and worked on it during her spare time. For the next decade, she published short stories from the Strange universe, but it was not until 2003 that Bloomsbury bought her manuscript and began work on its publication. The novel became a best-seller.
Penguin Random House Limited is a British-American multinational conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, with the merger of Penguin Books and Random House. Penguin Books was originally founded in 1935 and Random House was founded in 1927. It has more than 300 publishing imprints. Along with Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House is considered one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers.
Lauren Grodstein is an American novelist and professor at Rutgers University-Camden who is known for her use of male characters and family narratives. Her novels include the Today Show Read with Jenna pick We Must Not Think of Ourselves, the New York Times-bestsellingA Friend of the Family, along with The Explanation for Everything were Washington Post Books of the Year, and A Friend of the Family was a New York Times Editors' Choice. Girls Dinner Club made the New York Public Library "Book for the Teen Age" list in 2006.
Barbara Rosenblat is a British actress. She is best known as a prolific narrator of audiobooks, for which AudioFile named her a Golden Voice. She has also appeared on screen such as in the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black as the character Miss Rosa.
El Deafo is a graphic novel written and illustrated by Cece Bell. The book is a loose autobiographical account of Bell's childhood and life with her deafness. The characters in the book are all anthropomorphic bunnies. Cece Bell, in an interview with the Horn Book Magazine, states "What are bunnies known for? Big ears; excellent hearing," rendering her choice of characters and their deafness ironic.
Nana in the City is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Lauren Castillo. It was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2014. Nana in the City was awarded a Caldecott Honor in 2015.
Alex Gino is a genderqueer American children's book writer. Gino's debut book, Melissa, was the winner of the 2016 Stonewall Book Award and the 2016 Lambda Literary Award in the category of LGBT Children's/Young Adult.
Jason Reynolds is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle grade audiences. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in neighboring Oxon Hill, Maryland, Reynolds found inspiration in rap and had an early focus on poetry, publishing several poetry collections before his first novel in 2014, When I Was the Greatest, which won the John Steptoe Award for New Talent.
The Darkest Minds, written by American author Alexandra Bracken, is a young adult dystopian fiction series consisting of four novels and several novellas compiled in Through the Dark.
The Meaning of Mariah Carey is a memoir by Mariah Carey, released on September 29, 2020. It was written with Michaela Angela Davis, and was published by Andy Cohen Books, an imprint of Henry Holt, as well as in an audiobook format read by Carey herself on Audible. The book navigates the complex racial, social, cultural and familial tensions associated with Carey's upbringing as a biracial woman in Long Island, New York. This is framed alongside first-hand descriptions of the singer's personal and professional triumphs and struggles, and is interspersed with fragments of Carey's songwriting output.
The Tristan Strong series is a mythology book trilogy written by Kwame Mbalia. The series currently consists of three books. The first book, Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, was published on October 15, 2019, and the second installment, Tristan Strong Destroys the World, was released a year later on October 6, 2020. Book three, the last in the trilogy, Tristan Strong Keeps Punching, was announced on February 8, 2021, and released on October 5, 2021. All three books are about African-American folktales.
We Are Water Protectors is a 2020 picture book written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade. Written in response to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, the book tells the story of an Ojibwe girl who fights against an oil pipeline in an effort to protect the water supply of her people. It was published by Roaring Brook Press on March 17, 2020. The book was well received. Critics praised its message of environmental justice, its depiction of diversity, and the watercolor illustrations, for which Goade won the 2021 Caldecott Medal, becoming the first Indigenous recipient of the award. The book also received the 2021 Jane Addams Children's Book Award winner in the Books for Younger Children category.