Mark Teague likes to find humor in the everyday events of childhood. In this exclusive video interview with Reading Rockets, Teague talks about his books, the kids he meets when visiting schools, and his books Dear Mrs. LaRue: Letters from Obedience School and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?

Lois Lowry is the highly acclaimed author of more than 30 books for young people. Over the years, she has received numerous awards, including two Newbery Medals. Lowry has written such a wide range of books that her body of work cannot be categorized easily.

Her genres range from contemporary fiction to historical fiction to fantasy to autobiographical. Her audiences range from elementary school children all the way up to young adults. Some of Lowry’s books are light-hearted, but others deal with serious and somber topics. Her most well-known novel, The Giver, is set in a future dystopia where sameness and conformity rule.

Lois Ehlert created numerous inventive, celebrated, and bestselling picture books, including Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Waiting for Wings, Planting a Rainbow, Growing Vegetable Soup, and Color Zoo, which received a Caldecott Honor. Her unique books reflected her creative and curious mind. In this exclusive video interview with Reading Rockets, Ehlert discussed her early love for art and how she continually worked to create highly original children’s books. Ehlert was an artist who wasn’t afraid to wire, sew, glue, cut, paint, or photograph.

Linda Sue Park brings Korean history and culture vividly to life through her richly imagined stories for young readers. She creates unforgettable characters that cross centuries and continents, yet still feel fresh and relevant – like the 12th century orphan, Tree Ear, from A Single Shard, her Newbery-winning novel. Prairie Lotus was recognized as the 2021 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature honor book. We also love her lively, clever sijo poems from Tap Dancing on the Roof.

“I’ve never won an argument with watercolor,” Jon J Muth admits. The trick, he explains, is paying attention to the medium and working with it instead of against it. Muth begins each day doing giant brush drawings on the floor of his studio to loosen up his arm and generate a sense of “still-pointedness”. He then moves to the more specific tasks of painting the pages in his books. For his 2006 Caldecott Honor book, Zen Shorts, Muth repainted one page seven times before it had the exact feel that he wanted. “I don’t even know what it was,” he says, “but I knew when the page was right.”

Joanna Cole created everyone’s favorite science teacher when she wrote her first Magic School Bus book starring Ms. Frizzle. In this exclusive video interview with Reading Rockets, Joanna Cole talks about her writing, Ms. Frizzle’s appeal, and her collaboration with illustrator Bruce Degen.

Jane Yolen has written stories about toads in space, dinosaurs at bedtime, and much more. In this exclusive video interview with Reading Rockets, Jane Yolen recites the first poem she ever wrote and talks about how to encourage creative writing in kids.

Jacqueline Woodson writes picture books (The Other Side) as well as books for middle graders (Locomotion) and young adults (Hush). She tackles tough issues head-on: race relations, foster care, and incarceration are just some of the issues that her characters confront. In 2014, Woodson won the National Book Award for young people’s literature, the Newbery Honor, and the Coretta Scott King Award for her memoir-in-verse, Brown Girl Dreaming.

In 2018, Woodson was inaugurated as the sixth National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress. During her tenure (2018-2019), Woodson will travel nationwide over the course of her two-year term promoting her platform, “READING = HOPE x CHANGE (What’s Your Equation?),” which encourages young people to think about how reading can help them create the hope and the change they want to see in the world. And in 2020, Woodson was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow (the “genius grant”).

Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver are the co-authors of the very popular Hank Zipzer series about a young boy with learning differences who is funny, resourceful, and smart. Henry and Lin have also created a new series for younger kids called Here’s Hank, chronicling Hank’s life as a second grader. In 2019, Henry and Lin launched the first book in a new series, Alien Superstar, a science fiction story that takes a humorous look at what it’s like to be a stranger in a strange land (in this scenario, a Hollywood backlot!).

In this exclusive interview, Henry and Lin talk about how they create a safe, fun space for collaboration, being funny … with a heart, Henry’s tough childhood growing up with (undiagnosed) dyslexia, the joy of school visits, why it’s so important to really listen to kids, and more.

Eric Carle (1929-2021) was the creator of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. But that’s not the only reason why he received nearly 10,000 fan letters every year. Carle wrote or illustrated more than 70 other children’s books, including favorites such as Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and The Very Quiet Cricket. Carle made these friendly insects and animals by painting on tissue paper, cutting out shapes, and pasting them together. The bold, eye-catching collages pop off the page in vibrant colors and rich textures. Even so, it is the “simple, simple feelings,” Carle believed, that have made his books so popular with young children.