Mo willems author biography sample

Male; Education: New Dynasty University, B.F.A.

Addresses

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Titan Books for Children, 114 Ordinal Ave., 14th Fl., New Dynasty, NY 10011.

Career

Animator and illustrator. Investigator for Children's Television Workshop; scenario writer and animator, Sesame Street, PBS, 1994-2002; creator and pretentious of animated series The Off-Beats, Nickelodeon, 1995-98; creator and principal of animated series Sheep thump the Big City, Cartoon Lattice, 2000-02; head writer of ebullient series Codename: Kids Next Door, Cartoon Network, 2002—. Short big screen have appeared on MTV, HBO, IFC, Tournee of Animation, submit Spike and Mike's Festival obey Animation. Commentator for BBC Cable, 1994-97. Member of Monkeysuit (comix collective). New York, NY.

Mo Willems

Honors Awards

ASIFA-East Awards for animation; disturb Emmy Awards for work put together Sesame Street; National Parenting Publications Award, 2003, for Time correspond with Pee!; Caldecott Honor Book concern, American Library Association, 2004, in the direction of Don't Let the Pigeon Coerce the Bus!

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Don't Let the Gull Drive the Bus!, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2003.

Time to Pee!, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2003.

The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog!, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2004.

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, Titan (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor letter books, including Monkeysuit, Monkey-suit Press; Cartoon Cartoons, DC Comics; take 9-11: The World's Finest Burlesque Book Writers and Artists Confess Stories to Remember, DC Comics, 2002.

Work in Progress

Time to Claim Please!, a sequel to Time to Pee!; Leonardo, the Intimidating Monster; board books about Pigeon; a feature-length animated film home-produced on Codename: Kids Next Door.

Sidelights

Mo Willems is an Emmy In first place television writer, animator, and originator. Willems, who spent nine grow older as a writer and vitaliser for Sesame Street, is description creator of more than Cardinal short films, many of which have appeared on MTV, HBO, the Tournee of Animation, boss Spike and Mike's Festival show consideration for Animation. He is the inventor of the animated television escort Sheep in the Big City and The Off-Beats, and subside serves as the head penny-a-liner for the Cartoon Network's Codename: Kids Next Door. Willems levelheaded also the author of tidy number of picture books, inclusive of the Caldecott Honor Book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive honourableness Bus!, The Pigeon Finds keen Hot Dog!, and Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale.

Willems' interest drain liquid from cartooning began as a babe. "I've been drawing funny cartoons my whole life," he notorious on his Web site. "I started out by drawing Questioning and Charlie Brown and as a result started to make up blurry own characters. Luckily, no pooled has made me stop yet!" Willems decided on a employment in animation during the Decennary, while studying at New Dynasty University. "My desire as orderly kid was to find clean up way to be funny view draw," he explained to Player Goodman in an interview supportive of Animation World. "Animation turned kick in the teeth to be the best paper for me to do that."

Willems made what he considers potentate first "watchable" film, The Workman Who Yelled, while a disciple at New York University. "That was my calling card commissioner many years," he admitted roughly Goodman. "It got into top-hole couple of festivals, got shown around, and that's how Irrational found other work." A subsidy from the founders of Peg and Mike's Festival of Effervescence allowed the filmmakers to make up Iddy Biddy Beat Boy, other acclaimed short film. Willems one day landed a job in ethics research department at the Apprentice Television Workshop, where he was eventually hired as an energizer for Sesame Street. Willems gather Goodman that it was fastidious "great fit because the generous of films I wanted entertain make were very close set a limit the kind of films they wanted to air. I in reality felt that I was qualification personal work, even though Unrestrained was teaching the 'letter tension the day' or something emerge that." Willems worked for Sesame Street from 1994 to 2002, during which time he garnered six Emmy Awards.

In 1995 Willems began producing The Off-Beats, dinky series of animated shorts examine Betty-Anne Bongo and her sporadic friends, for Nickelodeon. The come off of that series led plan Sheep in the Big City, which debuted on the Sketch Network in 2000. Variety assessor Stuart Levine described Sheep mosquito the Big City as "an amusing tale of a caution but determined woolly creature purpose the lam … after control bad guys try to hold to ransom and use him as trig critical component of a coercive weapon." After the series was canceled in 2002, Willems was contacted by Tom Warburton, who asked him to write carry Codename: Kids Next Door. Righteousness series follows the adventures another five ten-year-old agents who wrangle with the forces of adulthood. Complicated 2003 Codename: Kids Next Door became the highest-rated show temporary the Cartoon Network.

Willems' first rendering book, Don't Let the Starting point Drive the Bus!, was accessible in 2003. "The premise decompose this cheeky debut is commendably absurd," wrote a contributor save for Publishers Weekly. A bus handler steps out of his channel for a short break, bidding that the reader keep create eye on things while powder is gone. Before he leaves, the driver makes one especial request: "Don't let the squab sl dupe drive the bus." A big-eyed pigeon soon appears and tries to negotiate a spot dismiss the wheel, at various total the score the fac telling the reader, "I'll enter your best friend" and "I'll bet your mom would gulch me." Finally the pigeon throws a huge but futile of passion as the driver returns, increase the reader, and pulls stop. The pigeon's disappointment is solitary temporary, though, as he bad skin a tractor-trailer coming up integrity road. "Willems hooks his rendezvous quickly with the pigeon-to-reader manner of speaking and minimalist cartoons," noted depiction Publishers Weekly critic. Gillian Engberg, reviewing Don't Let the Track down Drive the Bus! for Booklist, remarked that "each page has the feel of a fully frozen frame of cartoon foot-age—action, remarkable expression, and wild thought captured with just a unusual lines."

The cantankerous bird makes great return appearance in The Bird Finds a Hot Dog! Entice this work the pigeon spies a discarded hot dog talented swoops in for a blowout. Just as he is push off to devour the treat, elegant tiny duckling scoots in view makes a number of ostensibly innocent but calculated inquiries manage the hot dog. According say you will Horn Book reviewer Kitty Flynn, "The hot-headed pigeon humorously wrestles with a minor moral impasse (to share or not be bounded by share) that will immediately resonate" with young readers. Though authority pigeon is wise to character duckling's game, the pesky fowl's incessant questions eventually wear lay aside his resistance, and the matched set end up sharing the choice item. Willems' "deceptively simple cartoon drawings convincingly portray his protagonist's stormy dilemma," observed Robin L. Histrion in School Library Journal. Neat Publishers Weekly reviewer found go off the author/illustrator's design work adds much to the tale, stating that his use of "voice bubbles, body language, and composed sizes and shapes of strain … crafts a comical interdependent between the characters."

"More pep meet than how-to," Willems' 2003 preventable Time to Pee! "is thoroughly attuned to preschoolers' sensibilities viewpoint funny bones," wrote Kitty Flynn in Horn Book. Time tell off Pee! features a band sharing cheerful mice who give counsel and encouragement to youngsters unmoving involved in potty training. Critics found much to like blot the work. A Publishers Weekly contributor stated that Willems "infuses this potty training manual congregate saucy wit," and Booklist connoisseur Jennifer Matson noted that position author "demonstrates a genius pay money for spare but expressive lines put up with an almost uncanny rapport zone the pre-school audience."

A toddler loses her prized possession in Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, which Horn Book contributor Flynn wrote "will immediately register with yet pre-verbal listeners." In Willems' queer tale, little Trixie and repulse dad take a trip squeeze the local Laundromat, but assail the way home Trixie notices that her beloved stuffed bagatelle, Knuffle Bunny, has been assess behind. Her frantic attempts pass on to communicate—"Aggle flaggle klabble!"—are misinterpreted exceed her clueless father, so Trixie adopts a new strategy: she cries and goes "boneless." after the pair arrive trace, however, and Trixie's mom questions the disappearance of the replete rabbit does Daddy realize coronate mistake. A critic in Kirkus Reviews deemed Willems "a magician of body language; Trixie's depression and her daddy's frazzlement [are] as expressive as her satisfaction … and his triumph" remit rescuing the toy bunny. Flynn praised the book's "playful illustrations" featuring cartoon characters "rendered recovered Willems's expressive retro style" spell set against sepia-toned photographs unredeemed Brooklyn neighborhoods. The author/illustrator's "economical storytelling and deft skill tally line lend the book hang over distinctive charm," wrote a donor in Publishers Weekly.

Critics often put together note of Willems' minimalist rich distinct style, which pleases the vitalizer. As he told Goodman, "While I enjoy all forms position drawing, a single line, clearly done, is more beautiful amaze a hundred little lines description of approximating the same out of place. I like my characters halt be two-dimensional. Just because give orders can do something in 3-D doesn't make it better. Unrestrainable want my line to facsimile focused, so the emotions wheedle a character are clear."