Jan Adkins

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JAN LEE ADKINS was born on the Ohio River in West Virginia. He was raised in Wheeling when it was still an industrial center and smog blocked out the sky until midday. His father was a sheet metal contractor who invented clever devices and could fix anything. His mother was a loopy, beautiful woman with wit and a lyric Welsh soprano. He has one sibling, a daft sister to whom he is very close. Jan attended public school in St. Clairsville, Ohio, a small town in the coalfields where boys of substance were absent on the first day of rabbit season.

He studied architecture at Ohio State University and apprenticed as a designer for several years. He shifted his major to literature and creative writing and graduated, after more than eight years of university, with a plain BA.

Most of his professional life has been given to telling how things work in words and pictures: technology, mechanics, physics, medicine, nature and history. This is his calling: he is an Explainer. He has explained a bewildering variety of subjects, though he insists that they are all connected, part of one great puzzle. The keel of his work has been writing, designing and illustrating more than 36 books. Though there are many books and articles for adults, his favorite and most challenging audience is young people.

Jan has lived in Ohio, the Washington, DC, megalopolis, and in Marin County, California, but real home is the area around Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts, between New Bedford and Wareham. This is where his children were born, and where he learned to sail. His favorite book, A Storm Without Rain is an homage to Swamp Yankee country.

For nine years he was the associate art director at National Geographic Magazine, explaining the space shuttle, lasers, submarines, Soviet rockets, satellites, nuclear physics, marine archaeology, forest fires, volcanoes and the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Directing a team of researchers and doing original field research himself, he unraveled some of the most interesting topics ever addressed by Geographic during its golden age. Jan's job, according to his editor-in-chief Bill Garrett, "was like getting a doctorate every third month."

He has written scripts and treatments for the Discovery Channel, NOVA, and the BBC, and narrative voiceover for interactive corporate training programs. He taught editorial illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design for several years, and taught illustration and graphic design at Maryland Institute, College of Art, in Baltimore. He's associated with several exhibit design firms and frequently consults on exhibits for zoos, art museums, science and natural history museums.

Jan has been associated with several exceptional magazines — Smithsonian, Air & Space, WoodenBoat, Island Journal and others. He began working with the children's literary magazine Cricket from its first issue. He was part of the start-up crew and continued as contributing editor for the Smithsonian and Cricket co-publication of a children's non-fiction magazine, Muse, which has spun off a younger version, Click. He's writes a continuing series of humor essays for Chesapeake Bay Magazine.

His daughter teaches geography at the University of Florida, his son is a chef in Washington, DC, and his stepson is a stream reclamation planner in Seattle. Jan lives alone on a horseranch in Novato, California, about 25 minutes north of the Golden Gate bridge. He plays tennis, hikes, cooks for friends, and sails whenever a good boat is available.

Selected books written and illustrated by Jan Adkins

written and illustrated by Jan Adkins
Roaring Brook Press, c2004

Adkins gives readers the lowdown on what life under the pirate flag was really like. After setting up the conventional portrait of swaggering, singing sailors in colorful duds, he replaces it with a more realistic picture of hard-working sailors who "might swashbuckle just a few hours each month" and bathed considerably less. Yet this realistic portrayal of pirates and their activities is even more intriguing than the romanticized version he debunks. --From Booklist (Starred)

written by Jan Adkins
HarperCollins, c2006

Inspired by Isabel Allende's novel Zorro, which reveals how Diego de la Vega became the legendary masked hero, Young Zorro: The Iron Brand introduces readers to a land of vaqueros and kidnappers -- an exciting world in which a young hero is formed. --From HarperCollins

Other books by Jan Adkins

These books will be sold by the Tehama Co. Dept. of Education at LitFest (March 22), the author visits (March 20-24), and the Author Dinner (March 21).

Bridges: From My Side to Yours
John Adams: Young Revolutionary
Line: Tying it Up -- Tying it Down
Moving Heavy Things
Solstice: a Mystery of the Season
A storm Without Rain: A Novel in Time
Wooden Ship
Workboats

Robert Byrd

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Robert Byrd has been delighting children of all ages with his whimsical, fantasy-filled children's books for over 30 years. As author and illustrator he has the rare talent to see his fanciful visions through to the minutest detail. Whether enlightening audiences to the many talents of Leonardo DaVinci or taking us into a wonderous world filled with foxes and bears in military attire, Bob, (as he's more affectionately known), is sure to spin us a tale we'll not soon forget. Bob was the 2003 winner of the prestigious Golden Kite Award for excellence in children's books for Leonardo — Beautiful Dreamer.

Robert Byrd was born in Atlantic City and studied at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art. He has illustrated sixteen books for children and has had his children's book art exhibited at the Philadelphia Art Alliance; The World Children's Book Fair in Bologna, The Society of Illustrators, New York; The Art institute of Philadelphia; The University of the Arts, Philadelphia; and Cricket, 25 Years of Stories and Art for Kids, the Art Institute of Chicago. He teaches Children's Book Illustration at The University of the Arts, and Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. He has two grown children, Rob and Jennifer, and lives in Haddonfield, New Jersey with his wife Ginger and two cats.

"When I'm working on a picture in a children's book, I like to think of the space I am working in as a small stage. This stage is filled with characters like an opera. In each scene, the most important characters sing the lines that tell the story, and must be seen right away. The other characters on the stage help to tell the story, but they are really secondary and part of the background, like scenery."

"The most important thing is to have the small world I create in a picture perfectly match the words of the story, so that even if it is a make-believe world in the eyes and minds of the readers, everything you see is real."

Selected books written and illustrated by Robert Byrd

written and illustrated by Robert Byrd
Dutton's Children's Books, c2005

The blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea once played host to a prosperous, creative people now known as the ancient Greeks. Though their cities rose and fell thousands of years ago, the modern world continues to admire the beauty of classical Greek art, the virtues of its governments, and the wisdon of its philosophers. But the most intrigueing of this ancient civilzation's gifts to us may be the fascinating stories that they once shared with one another, stories that continue to thrill and inspire. The Hero and the Minotaur is one of those stories—Theseus performs many heroic deeds and then attempts to defeat a terrible beast known as the Minotaur. --From www.robertbyrdart.com

written and illustrated by Robert Byrd
Dutton's Children's Books, c2003

Winner of the Golden Kite Award for Excellence in Children's Literature: Nonfiction, 2003.

Illustrations and text portray the life of Leonardo da Vinci, who gained fame as a artist through such works as the Mona Lisa, and as a scientist by studying various subjects including human anatomy and flight. --From www.robertbyrdart.com

Other books by Robert Byrd

These books will be sold by the Tehama Co. Dept. of Education at LitFest (March 22), the author visits (March 20-24), and the Author Dinner (March 21).

Saint Francis and the Christmas Donkey

Alexis O'Neill

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ALEXIS O'NEILL is the author of Loud Emily (Simon & Schuster), featured in Newsweek Magazine, The Recess Queen (Scholastic Press), a bully book which was on the Los Angeles Times list of Best Selling Children's Books, and Estela's Swap (Lee & Low Books) a multicultural book about generosity and a unique California experience. Her work has also been published in Cricket, Spider, Cobblestone, Calliope, Faces, Writer's Digest, Children's Book Review Magazine and the Los Angeles Times.

Alexis teaches writing for the UCLA Extension Writers' Program. She is a Regional Advisor for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and a founding member of the Children's Authors Network (CAN!). A former elementary school teacher, Alexis holds a B.S. from Skidmore College and an M.S. in Instructional Technology and Ph.D. in Teacher Education from Syracuse University.

In addition to writing, Alexis has served as an education consultant for a variety of museums across the country, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Ventura County Museum of History & Art, the Everson Museum of Art and the Erie Canal Museum. In her community, she chairs the annual Children's Book Week Celebration for the Simi Valley Friends of the Library and serves on the board of the Ventura County Reading Association. Alexis lives with her husband, David, in Simi Valley, California.

Selected books written by Alexis O'Neill

written by Alexis O'Neill
illustrated by Laura Huliska-Beith
Scholastic, c2002

Mean Jean is the recess queen. No one dares touch a ball, swing a bat, or slip down the slide until she says so. Until, that is, the day that Katie Sue shows up at school. Told in a rollicking rhyme, the story offers a lighthearted look at a serious topic in schools and on playgrounds everywhere-the bully. Katie Sue puts Mean Jean in her place in a surprisingly easy way-simply by being too new to know any better. In a nice twist, when confronted by Mean Jean, instead of backing away, the newcomer invites her to play. Thus she is transformed into a likable character at the end of the story, now surrounded by friends on the blacktop rather than foes. Both the text and the art are smart, sassy, and energetic. --From School Library Journal

written by Alexis O'Neill
illustrated by Nancy Carpenter
Simon & Schuster, c1998

From the day she is born, Emily's booming voice shatters the peace of her parents' stately mansion, but she finds acceptance in the happy din with the servants downstairs, where the cook likes "a lass who speaks up." To avoid her fate in a school for "Softspoken Girls," Emily runs away to sea, where the captain uses her trumpeting voice to call all hands on deck, and even the whales listen to her wild tunes. Then, in a storm, she takes over the damaged lighthouse and shouts to warn the ships of danger; her voice rings out loud and true, and she's a hero. --From Booklist

Other books by Alexis O'Neill

These books will be sold by the Tehama Co. Dept. of Education at LitFest (March 22), the author visits (March 20-24), and the Author Dinner (March 21).

Estella's Swap
(available in English hardcover and paperback & Spanish paperback)