Sometime around second grade

I have twenty-one books to my credit including being the illustrator of the hugely successful PUNCTUATION TAKES A VACATION. Some of my other titles include BASIL’S BIRDS, THELONIUS TURKEY LIVES!, BEAR’S BIG BREAKFAST, and BENNY SHARK GOES TO FRIEND SCHOOL.

My books have been published by New York’s finest: HarperCollins, Farrar Straus Giroux, Random House, Holiday House, Disney and Amazon/Two Lions.

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I live outside Austin, Texas, and I work in a studio in my backyard.

I’m originally from Indiana. A small Midwestern state full of corn and basketball hoops. When I was a kid, I was a really good basketball player with a nice jump shot. I wanted to be a professional basketball player. But I guess being an author is pretty good, too.

I was in the U.S. Army for two years. Yep, left-right-left-right! I wrote a column and drew cartoons for the newspaper at Fort Polk, Louisiana. I met my future husband on an armored personnel carrier.

I like to play golf. I’m not actually very good at it. I've been known to have hit other golfers with an errant shot. But it’s a lot of fun to be outdoors and have friends laugh at my bad shots.

I love making all kinds of art. These are welded steel sculptures, painted and placed in my back yard. 

My garden is another work of art, as well as a labor of love.