Mo Willems


Photo of Mo Willems
Mo Willems’ works in children’s books, animation, television, theater, and bubble gum card painting have garnered him 3 Caldecott Honors, 2 Geisel Medals, 6 Emmy Awards, 4 Geisel Honors, a Helen Hayes nomination, and multiple bubble gum cards.

He is best know for his characters Knuffle Bunny, The Pigeon, and Elephant and Piggie. He is worst known for his characters in Sheep in the Big City and The Off-Beats.

Mo lives with his family in Massachusetts where he spends most of his time making funny drawings that hopefully will make you laugh.



Author's Comment: I have a running machine in my house, and if I set that machine for twenty minutes of fast running and leave the room to get some tea and fried eggs, it doesn’t know the difference! Nor, I might add, does it care.

And I think that’s what most enhanced digital books are at this point. With all their bells and whistles and word jumbles and assorted narrative killers, after we turn them on, they don’t need us. Turn it on and leave the room, and the book will read itself.

But a real book is helpless. It needs us desperately. We have to pull it off the shelf. We have to open it up. We have to turn the pages, one by one. We even have to use our imagination to make it work. What does Elephant Gerald sound like? Is the Pigeon a boy or a girl? Does Leonardo the Terrible Monster live in the city or in the country?

We have to do all of that, we have to do the work with our little minds and our flapping flights of fancy. So, suddenly, that book is not just a book; it’s our book. We’re the ones making it work. We’re the ones making it sing. Right there in our chairs as we gently flip the pages, we are, at our own pace, creating a living story just by reading.

Nationality: American

Featured series by Mo Willems


Elephant and Piggie - Age 5 & up