Bird test. 🐦‍⬛

Getting art back from the printer feels a bit like seeing a loved one again after a long time away. Only eight more months until pub day! (Patience is a virtue, especially when making books!) EARTH: ONE PLANET’S EPIC STORY (Abrams) is available for preorder and will be out November 10, 2026. 📚💕

Monday driveabout. You can see my favorite city in the world, teeny-tiny on the horizon. 💙🍎

Time for a cover reveal! Very happy to share that EARTH: ONE PLANET’S EPIC STORY will be out November 10th, 2026! I’m still fascinated to think about the length of time this planet has existed. We humans are lucky to call it home! 🌏🌍🌎 (Available for preorder now.) 📚💕 #kidlit #abramskids #earth

Everyone has the right to bear witness. #sketchbook #drawing #sentineltree

A bird for these days. #illustration #kidlitart #bird #pencil #sketch

Hard to see due to the angle of the sun, but my daughter snapped this pic of a Bald Eagle yesterday in my backyard!! What a magnificent creature. ♥️🦅

This country has a long history of disparaging the newest immigrants. I wish more descendants of the earlier ones remembered that. Book spread from A PLACE CALLED AMERICA (Abrams, 2023). #kidlit #kidlitart #bookswithmaps

Sunday sketchbook scribble.

Happy to be at the printer’s proofs stage for EARTH: ONE PLANET’S EPIC STORY! Not sure of the exact pub date yet, but it is soon. (Relatively speaking, in publishing time!!) 🌎🌍🌏🙂 #kidlit #nonfictionforkids #earthoneplanetsepicstory

Flight path. #illustration #kidlitart #sketch #birds

A little atmospheric detail. #illustration #kidlitart #sky

If you haven’t been watching Ken Burns’s The American Revolution on PBS this week I highly recommend it. History is layered, and complex, and there’s always more to learn. I especially enjoyed last night’s episode about New York! Spread from MANHATTAN: Mapping the Story of an Island (Abrams, 2019).

Mood! 🪶 #illustration #kidlitart #sketch

Hooray for waves! 💙🌊

Honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day today and every day. From MANHATTAN: Mapping the Story of an Island (Abrams, 2019). #mapmonday #illustration #kidlitart #indigenouspeoplesday

My reading companion. (Also, happy for wool sock season!) #saturday #studiocat #authorlife #illustratorlife #autumn

Happy #MapMonday! Here’s my favorite island on the planet from way back in time. Look familiar? From MANHATTAN: MAPPING THE STORY OF AN ISLAND (Abrams, 2019). #illustration #kidlitart #maps #illustratedmaps #manhattan #iheartnyc

The art is en route to the publisher! It’s always hard for me to let it go. This book was especially intense, and it was so very satisfying to get lost in the making. (Random studio cat agrees.) EARTH: One Planet’s Epic Story coming soon with @abramskids. Yay! 🌎🌍🌏 #kidlitart #earth

Final final touches! Though the art is never *truly* done. Ah well. #illustration #kidlitart #earth

Almost done. 🙂 #illustration #kidlitart #earth

Blues. 🌎🌍🌏 #illustration #kidlitart #earth

We had a visitor tonight. 🕊️

Good day to float in a pond.☀️☁️💙

Behind-the-scenes art-in-progress. 🌎🌍🌏 #illustration #kidlitart #earth

Fly away! #illustration #kidlitart #workinprogress #earth

BIG bug. #workinprogress #kidlitart #earth

These two. 👀👀 #workinprogress #kidlitart #earth

THE WOLF EFFECT is on the Best Children’s Books of the Year list, 2025 edition, as selected by the Children’s Book Committee of the Bank Street College of Education. Glad for some good news. 🙂📚💕

If you were too young in 2003 here is what Bush told the American people: 1) The Iraq War won’t cost a lot of money 3) We won’t need a lot of troops 4) We’ll bring peace and freedom to Iraq 5) We’ll find WMDs 6) We’ll be welcomed as liberators 7) It will be easy 8) It won’t take long All lies.

Don’t look up! #illustration #kidlitart #wip #earth

Work-in-progress… #illustration #kidlitart #earth

Spring! (Rose-breasted grosbeak photo courtesy of my daughter!) 🪶🌺♥️

Celebrating #MapMonday with the Korean edition of THE INDESTRUCTIBLE TOM CREAN! 💙❄️🌊

Poofy. ☁️🌋☁️🌋 #illustration #kidlitart #detail #earth

Somehow I missed the Publisher’s Weekly newsletter last week, with a new book announcement! This one has been in the works for an eon or so. Or at least an epoch. 😊🌎📚💕 #EarthOnePlanetsEpicStory

Miscellaneous penguins. 🐧

I haven't seen a study that shows causation, but the states that ban the most books also have the worst rates of literacy and that isn't a coincidence. book bans don't protect kids, they're about defunding public institutions of learning, & are often paired with vouchers, which are *also* unpopular

I think about this all the time

i truly think humans will never realize how much we underestimate the complex interiority and capacity for love that other animals possess also the last line of this made me burst into tears

“The writer Mark Twain called this era the Gilded Age for its immense excess of wealth and greed. It was a time of sharp contrast between those who had more than they needed and those who got by with very little.” From MANHATTAN: Mapping the Story of an Island (Abrams, 2019).

Estados Unidos Mexicanos, circa 1847. Map spread from A PLACE CALLED AMERICA (Abrams, 2023). #mapmonday #kidlit

Reading leads to empathy leads to love. Happy Valentine’s Day. 🖤🤍📚

Keep. Making. Art.

It’s the Gulf of Mexico. Cowards.

For Superb Owl Sunday. I see you, little guy. (From GRANDMA GATEWOOD HIKES THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL, Abrams 2018.)

Map lovers rejoice! The Boston Public Library's Leventhal Map & Education Center is on Bluesky @bplmaps.bsky.social

I really really need you guys to make a conscious rejection of generative AI tools part of your ongoing political resistance. Don't use ChatGPT. Turn off Gemini. Don't read the AI results forced upon you at the top of Google search. Don't use AI art generators or support anyone who does. Please.

1/ OK, Democratic members of Congress in the US Senate. It’s time for some tough love. I am aware your pollsters and consultants tell you things like “the American people want us to work together” and “ focus on prescription drug prices in the economy.”