2013 Book Festival Authors and Illustrators

Matt Luckhurst, a descendant of Canadian loggers, is originally from Nanaimo, British Columbia. He is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts MFA design program. This is his first picture book. He lives in Brooklyn.

Parents' Choice Award Recommended Title

New York Public Library's Children's Books 2012: 100 Books for Reading and Sharing list

1. Matt is a descendant of Canadian loggers.
2. He is originally from British Columbia but now lives in Brooklyn.
3. This is his first picture book.

Michaela MacColl, author of Nobody's Secret, Prisoners in the Palace and Promise the Night, attended Vassar College and Yale University, earned degrees in multi-disciplinary history. Unfortunately, it took her 20 years before she realized she was learning how to write historical fiction. Her favorite stories are about the childhood experiences of famous people. What made them great? Michaela has two daughters so she's hoping to identify those moments firsthand. She and her family live in Connecticut, but she will travel at the drop of hat to do local research.

Kirkus, SLJ , Historical Novel Review starred reviews, ALA Amelia Bloomer List , Indie Next, Junior Library Guild, Bank Street Best Books, Notable Book for a Global Society by the IRA

1. Each year I host a party for 300 people from 30 + countries
2. I studied Russian in St. Petersburg.
3. I always wanted to be a writer, until I forgot for 20 years. Then I remembered.

Voted a "2012 Top 10 Author", CNN & more have spotlighted Maldonado & his hit ALA Quick Pick, Secret Saturdays. Born & raised in a Brooklyn projects, he overcame neighborhood poverty & violence to be the first immediate family member to attend college. Graduating Vassar, he trained schools to implement Conflict Resolution programs through the U.S.'s largest victim-services agency. He also holds a Master's Degree in Educational Administration. A veteran teacher, his cross-cataloged YA & MG debut is praised for its current-feel & timeless themes, made states' reading-lists, & is assigned alongside classics in colleges.

1. I was voted a "2012 Top Ten 'New' Latino Authors to Watch (and Read)" by LatinoStories.Com, which has the longest tradition of picking top ten Latino authors in the U.S.

2. The American Library Association chose Secret Saturdays for its 2011 Quick Picks List for Reluctant Young Adult Readers (12-18)

3. The Kansas National Education Association (NEA) placed Secret Saturdays on its recommended 2011 reading-list for its Junior/Middle High Schools.

4. Secret Saturdays made the Top Forty 2011 list for Young Adults in the Pennsylvania School Library Association

5. Secret Saturdays was selected as the official book of the National Night Out Against Violence and Crime

Steve Metzger is the bestselling author of over seventy children's books, including Detective Blue, The Great Turkey Race, and Pluto Visits Earth! Before becoming an author, Steve was a teacher of young children for fifteen years. He currently lives in New York City with his wife, daughter, and a talkative cat named Biscuit.

Pluto Visits Earth!: 2012 ABC Best Books for Children

Detective Blue: 2012 IRA-CBC Children's Choice Selection

2013 Kansas Bill Martin Jr. Children's Picture Book Award Nominee

1. Before becoming an author of children's books, I was a taxi driver in New York City.
2. I eat a piece of chocolate after most every meal - except breakfast.
3. My daughter and I love the Beatles!

Lyn Miller-Lachmann is most recently the author of Rogue, a middle grade novel about a girl with Asperger's syndrome and an X-Men obsession in search of a friend and her own special power. Her previous novel, Gringolandia, received multiple distinctions and awards. She is the former editor of MultiCultural Review and currently reviews children's books about social justice for the website The Pirate Tree. She is a graduate of the MFA program at Vermont College. She teaches seventh grade in the religious school at Congregation Gates of Heaven in  Schenectady and is the assistant host of a weekly show on WRPI.

ALA Best Books for Young Adults

Bank Street Best Children's Books

Americas Award Honor Book

TayshasHigh List (Texas)

1. I have built an entire town with Legos with a dystopian underworld underneath the town, and I create and photograph stories with the minifigures.
2. I am the assistant host of a radio show on WRPI that features Latin American and Spanish music and poetry.
3. I spent the past fall in Lisbon, Portugal.

Following a very gratifying career as a film editor for ABC News in New York, Florence now writes books for children and is fortunate enough to have them illustrated by her husband Wendell. In Christmas Tree! their first collaboration, young readers are taken on an imaginative journey across America to explore the different forms a Christmas tree (a triangle) can take: "A tree so high it would touch the sky" (Lady Liberty's torch) ... "or a tree so small it would fit in the wall" (a cheese tree for mice). When their second book, If You Were a Penguin was selected for Pennsylvania's "One Book, Every Young Child" early literacy program in 2009, Florence and Wendell spent four weeks traveling across that state, talking with children in schools and libraries about the importance, and the pleasure, of books in their young lives. It was a very gratifying experience for them.  If You Were a Panda Bear, Florence and Wendell's third collaboration, featuring the eight species of bears, will be published on June 25th. They live in rural Connecticut with their cats Sofie and Cinder.

Visit them at  www.minorart.com  or on Facebook.

1. Reading "Heidi" as a child inspired me to visit Switzerland after I graduated from college, and I loved it so much, I've gone back three times!
2.Beaches, aqua-blue water, and books (especially at the same time) make me very happy.
3. I love cats, and dogs, and chipmunks, and meerkats, and koalas, and dolphins, etc. ... and one of these days I am definitely going to swim with dolphins.

Wendell Minor is an internationally known illustrator and author of over fifty award winning children's books. He has collaborated with, among others,  Jean Craighead George, Robert Burleigh, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and Mary Higgins Clark. He and his wife Florence are dedicated to creating books that will entertain, teach and inspire children. His most recent books include If You Spent a Day with Henry David Thoreau, The Eagles are Back, the third in the Jean Craighead George trilogy, If You Were a Panda Bear, with Florence, and How Big Could Your Pumpkin Grow, to be published in August 2013. His classic, The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow, has been featured on the PBS-TV program "The Reading Rainbow."

In November 2013, the Norman Rockwell Museum will host "Wendell Minor's America" featuring 25 years of his children's book art.

Among the awards his books have garnered are: Notable Children's Trade Books in Social Studies, ALA Booklist Children's Choices, International Reading Association Teacher's Choices, Parents Choice Foundation "Silver Honor," Smithsonian's Notable Books for Children, the John Burroughs List of Nature Books For Young Readers, and Publishers Weekly Best Books.  

Wendell lives and works in rural Connecticut with his wife, Florence, and their cats Sofie and Cinder. Visit them at   www.minorart.com

1. I'm a cloud watcher and a day dreamer and I love walking in the woods.
2. I love to draw and paint animals of all kinds.
3. I love books!

Barbara Ann Mojica is an historian and retired educator living in New York State. She holds a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in History. Barbara spent more than 40 years teaching in NYC and holds New York State teacher certifications in Elementary, Special Education, and Administration. She also spent several years as a Special Education Administrator and principal of a special education preschool for developmentally delayed children. Barbara, although retired from teaching, is staying busy: along with her forthcoming series of Little Miss History travel books she writes historical pieces for The Columbia Insider, Pat Fisher and Ed Pollack Editors, under the banner "Passages". Marrying her love of history and teaching, Barbara hopes her Little Miss History character will inspire children to learn about historical people, and visit landmarks such as the one covered in this book, Mount Rushmore.

1. I have taught every grade from preschool to grade 7.
2. I have traveled to more than half the USA states and 30 foreign countries.
3. I have 6 grandchildren, including 2 sets of twins!

VICTOR RAMON MOJICA was born and raised in Manhattan, New York, but has lived in the Hudson Valley region since 1986 and now resides in Craryville, New York with his wife Barbara. He is an illustrator, cartoonist and writer with such works to his credit as the critically acclaimed, comic book series eugenus®... The Next Step In Human Evolution!, which he created, wrote and illustrated. Victor has also written and illustrated his first children's book titled Captain Crossbones™in The Treasure Hunt, based on the comic strip appearing in The Columbia Insider, Pat Fisher and Ed Pollack, Publishers.

Hollywood Book Festival's Winner in Comic Book Category for 2012!

1. Chess Player: I have beaten college campus champions, a math genius and those old men you see in parks that play chess all day.
2. Movie Buff: of all the movies I have ever seen, I do have 3 favorites: Jose Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac, Michael Renie in The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Kirk Douglas in Lonely are the Brave. These are "must see movies"! All black and white movies too.
3. Love cooking: I have a special dish I call Puerto Rican Chili, which has nothing to do with Puerto Rican cuisine except that a Puerto Rican makes it - me!

With a prolific 17 books published in her first 8 years as an author, Coleen Murtagh Paratore is best known for her:  1/2 million-selling debut novel, The Wedding Planner's Daughter, now a 6-book series, published internationally, and optioned for a movie; the middle-grade novel, Sunny Holiday, a New York Public Library "Best Book for Reading and Sharing," and the sequel, Sweet and Sunny, an ALA Notable title; the character-building picture book, BIG, a Mom's Choice Gold Award Winner; and the critically acclaimed YA-adult novel, Dreamsleeves, inspired by the author's experiences growing up in a troubled family, circa 1970's, Troy NY, dreaming one day of being a teacher.

Awards

BIG-Mom's Choice Gold Award & Amazon Top 10 Picture Book

Sunny Holiday-New York Public Library "Best Book"

Sweet & Sunny-ALA Notable

1. I have a girl cat named "Bro"
2. I love to dance.
3. My favorite sport is reading.