Hope Anita Smith
Hope Anita Smith is the author of The Way a Door Closes, its sequel, Keeping the Night Watch and her most recent, My Daddy Rules the World. She is the recipient of The Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award, The Coretta Scott Honor, Lee Bennett Hopkins Honor and a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. Hope teaches innovative poetry-writing workshops to all grade levels. She is also a professional story-teller, A native of Akron, Ohio, Ms. Smith lives in Southern California.
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Caroline Arnold
Caroline Arnold is the author of a new series of books, the first of which is Hatching Chicks in Room 6, and the second one is due out mid-March. Over the years she has written more than 160 books, both fiction and nonfiction and has illustrated some. She grew up in Minnesota and was an art major in college but didn’t begin writing books until after her children were born. Her Habitats series about A Day and Night in the Forest…and other places show her love of animals and of so many places in world, many of which she has been to. Her school and classroom visits are very popular. She has taught writing classes and is an active member of SCBWI and many professional organizations.
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Michelle Markel
Michelle Markel is the author of many books and teaches classes in writing at UCLA Extension’s Writer’s Program. Her new book, which just came out this January, Out of This World: The Surreal Art of Leonora Carrington is one of many nonfiction picture books that cleverly help us understand art and the opinions of the time. Some of the other books are Hanukkah Hamster, Balderdash!, John Newbery and the Boisterous Birth of Children’s Books, When You Grow Up to Vote, the updated edition by Eleanor Roosevelt, and Hillary Rodham Clinton: Some Girls Are Born to Lead, and they have done well. She received the 2013 PEN award plus three others for her book The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau. And, she enjoys visiting classrooms.
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