Katherine Tillotson

I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and grew up near lakes and surrounded by trees. Now I live in San Francisco, with my husband, in a house on a hill.

My studio is in a cozy corner of the house, in a space filled with brushes and bottles, scraps of paper and paints. Our two dogs, Alex and Samantha, keep me company while I work. They nap and watch out the window for visitors, then nudge me with their cold black noses in the late afternoon when it is time for their walk.

I remember the first time I painted a picture and the paint went where I wanted it to go. I was in third grade, working with watercolors and was very excited by the experience. Now, I render most of my work in oil paint. It mixes and flows in many different ways, providing seemingly endless possibilities for expression.

Picture books fill many of the bookcases in our house and have always held a special place in my heart. I love this form of storytelling that pairs carefully chosen words with imaginative illustrations and binds them together in a package for hands to hold.

Currently, I am working on my fifth picture book and the work continues to give me the same pleasure and excitement I felt so long ago in grade school when I brushed paint on paper and watched it form a tree.

When the Library Lights Go Out
written by Megan McDonald
Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books, 2005
ages 10 and up, ISBN 978-0-689-86170-3

CLOSED may mean "closed" to you. But for three story-hour puppets, CLOSED means "open for adventure."

At first there are only Rabbit and Lion. Hermit Crab is missing. Where can she be in the library darkness? Find out for yourself when—magically—only puppets are up and about.

Penguin and Little Blue
written by Megan McDonald
Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books, 2003
ISBN 978-0-689-84415-7

Most of us agree—penguins included—that there is no place like home. Also no business like show business.

For Penguin and Little Blue, home is Antarctica and far, far away. They are both missing all one million three hundred twenty-eight thousand and forty-eight of their feathered friends.

And show business is hard work. The only homelike treats anywhere in their Kansas hotel are an ice machine and a bathtub (much more fun than the pool they have to dive, dive, dive into for spectators). After long days signing autographs Little Blue and Penguin dream of enjoying the white ice, blue ice, pancake ice, pencil ice, ice cakes, ice falls, and fast ice of home.

But how oh how can they escape show business and reach Antarctica?

Nice Try, Tooth Fairy
written by Mary W. Olson
Simon & Schuster, 2000
ISBN 978-0-689-82422-7

Dear Tooth Fairy,

My grandfather is here for a visit. Could you please return my tooth so I could show it to him?

Emma

But instead of Emma's tooth, the Tooth Fairy brings...and more—and the animals come to Emma's room to get teeth back!

This gently humorous story is sure to have children looking closely at what's under their pillows.