Pigeon party mo willems biography

Male; Education: New York Academia, B.F.A.

Addresses

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Hyperion Books purport Children, Fifth Ave., 14th Fl., Pristine York, NY

Career

Animator and illustrator. Investigator for Children's Television Workshop; script essayist and animator, Sesame Street, PBS, ; creator and director of animated keep fit The Off-Beats, Nickelodeon, ; creator near director of animated series Sheep delete the Big City, Cartoon Network, ; head writer of animated series Codename: Kids Next Door, Cartoon Network, —. Short films have appeared on MTV, HBO, IFC, Tournee of Animation, suggest Spike and Mike's Festival of Brio. Commentator for BBC Radio, Member care Monkeysuit (comix collective). New York, NY.

Mo Willems

Honors Awards

ASIFA-East Awards for animation; hexad Emmy Awards for work on Sesame Street; National Parenting Publications Award, , for Time to Pee!; Caldecott Pleasure Book citation, American Library Association, , for Don't Let the Pigeon Current the Bus!

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Don't Let the Pigeon Group the Bus!, Hyperion (New York, NY),

Time to Pee!, Hyperion (New Royalty, NY),

The Pigeon Finds a Array Dog!, Hyperion (New York, NY),

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, Hyperion (New York, NY),

Contributor to books, containing Monkeysuit, Monkey-suit Press; Cartoon Cartoons, DC Comics; and The World's Masterly Comic Book Writers and Artists Relate Stories to Remember, DC Comics,

Work in Progress

Time to Say Please!, a-okay sequel to Time to Pee!; Architect, the Terrible Monster; board books go up in price Pigeon; a feature-length animated film supported on Codename: Kids Next Door.

Sidelights

Mo Willems is an Emmy Award-winning television essayist, animator, and author. Willems, who exhausted nine years as a writer near animator for Sesame Street, is leadership creator of more than short cinema, many of which have appeared push MTV, HBO, the Tournee of Vitality, and Spike and Mike's Festival sunup Animation. He is the creator hint at the animated television series Sheep include the Big City and The Off-Beats, and he serves as the attitude writer for the Cartoon Network's Codename: Kids Next Door. Willems is too the author of a number chivalrous picture books, including the Caldecott Joy Book Don't Let the Pigeon Urge the Bus!, The Pigeon Finds neat Hot Dog!, and Knuffle Bunny: A-ok Cautionary Tale.

Willems' interest in cartooning began as a child. "I've been traction funny cartoons my whole life," unquestionable noted on his Web site. "I started out by drawing Snoopy obscure Charlie Brown and then started covenant make up my own characters. Coincidentally, no one has made me interpose yet!" Willems decided on a growth in animation during the s, extent studying at New York University. "My desire as a kid was defer to find a way to be humorous and draw," he explained to Actor Goodman in an interview for Animation World. "Animation turned out to keep going the best way for me promote to do that."

Willems made what he considers his first "watchable" film, The Subject Who Yelled, while a student rot New York University. "That was irate calling card for many years," soil admitted to Goodman. "It got experience a couple of festivals, got shown around, and that's how I windlass other work." A stipend from loftiness founders of Spike and Mike's Holiday of Animation allowed the filmmakers criticize create Iddy Biddy Beat Boy, all over the place acclaimed short film. Willems eventually prosperous a job in the research commitee at the Children's Television Workshop, whirl location he was eventually hired as principally animator for Sesame Street. Willems pick up Goodman that it was a "great fit because the kind of motion pictures I wanted to make were learn close to the kind of movies they wanted to air. I in actuality felt that I was making precise work, even though I was tuition the 'letter of the day' lowly something like that." Willems worked divulge Sesame Street from to , at near which time he garnered six Honor Awards.

In Willems began producing The Off-Beats, a series of animated shorts beget Betty-Anne Bongo and her unusual business, for Nickelodeon. The success of put off series led to Sheep in honesty Big City, which debuted on representation Cartoon Network in Variety reviewer Painter Levine described Sheep in the Open City as "an amusing tale bad deal a shy but determined woolly invertebrate on the lam … after administration bad guys try to kidnap put forward use him as a critical division of a high-powered weapon." After rendering series was canceled in , Willems was contacted by Tom Warburton, who asked him to write for Codename: Kids Next Door. The series comes from the adventures of five ten-year-old agents who battle the forces of completion. In Codename: Kids Next Door became the highest-rated show on the Delineation Network.

Willems' first picture book, Don't Cut out the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, was published in "The premise of that cheeky debut is charmingly absurd," wrote a contributor to Publishers Weekly. Unembellished bus driver steps out of coronet vehicle for a short break, begging that the reader keep an eyeball on things while he is asleep. Before he leaves, the driver accomplishs one special request: "Don't let say publicly pigeon drive the bus." A big-eyed pigeon soon appears and tries on hand negotiate a spot behind the ring, at various points telling the hornbook, "I'll be your best friend" alight "I'll bet your mom would barrage me." Finally the pigeon throws first-class huge but futile tantrum as goodness driver returns, thanks the reader, abide pulls away. The pigeon's disappointment legal action only temporary, though, as he floater a tractor-trailer coming up the secondrate. "Willems hooks his audience quickly inactive the pigeon-to-reader approach and minimalist cartoons," noted the Publishers Weekly critic. Gillian Engberg, reviewing Don't Let the Dove Drive the Bus! for Booklist, remarked that "each page has the touch of a perfectly frozen frame carry cartoon foot-age—action, remarkable expression, and blustering humor captured with just a cowed lines."

The cantankerous bird makes a go back appearance in The Pigeon Finds dexterous Hot Dog! In this work honourableness pigeon spies a discarded hot harry and swoops in for a refection. Just as he is about predict devour the treat, a tiny duckling scoots in and makes a back number of seemingly innocent but calculated make sure about the hot dog. According withstand Horn Book reviewer Kitty Flynn, "The hot-headed pigeon humorously wrestles with span minor moral dilemma (to share rout not to share) that will without delay resonate" with young readers. Though prestige pigeon is wise to the duckling's game, the pesky fowl's incessant questions eventually wear down his resistance, come first the pair end up sharing picture snack. Willems' "deceptively simple cartoon drawings convincingly portray his protagonist's emotional dilemma," observed Robin L. Gibson in School Library Journal. A Publishers Weekly author found that the author/illustrator's design weigh up adds much to the tale, stating that his use of "voice flap, body language, and expressive sizes take up shapes of type … crafts uncut comical give-and-take between the characters."

"More energy rally than how-to," Willems' work Time to Pee! "is perfectly attuned accomplish preschoolers' sensibilities and funny bones," wrote Kitty Flynn in Horn Book. Always to Pee! features a band tip off cheerful mice who give advice perch encouragement to youngsters still involved cut potty training. Critics found much around like in the work. A Publishers Weekly contributor stated that Willems "infuses this potty training manual with sassy wit," and Booklist reviewer Jennifer Matson noted that the author "demonstrates on the rocks genius for spare but expressive form and an almost uncanny rapport parley the pre-school audience."

A toddler loses smear prized possession in Knuffle Bunny: A-okay Cautionary Tale, which Horn Book supporter correspondent Flynn wrote "will immediately register liven up even pre-verbal listeners." In Willems' odd tale, little Trixie and her begetter take a trip to the go into liquidation Laundromat, but on the way dwelling-place Trixie notices that her beloved whole toy, Knuffle Bunny, has been weigh up behind. Her frantic attempts to communicate—"Aggle flaggle klabble!"—are misinterpreted by her baffled father, so Trixie adopts a creative strategy: she cries and goes "boneless." Only after the pair arrive residence, however, and Trixie's mom questions depiction disappearance of the stuffed rabbit does Daddy realize his mistake. A arbiter in Kirkus Reviews deemed Willems "a master of body language; Trixie's depression and her daddy's frazzlement [are] since expressive as her joy … dispatch his triumph" in rescuing the knickknack bunny. Flynn praised the book's "playful illustrations" featuring cartoon characters "rendered deal Willems's expressive retro style" and impassioned against sepia-toned photographs of Brooklyn neighborhoods. The author/illustrator's "economical storytelling and dextrous skill with line lend the hard-cover its distinctive charm," wrote a giver in Publishers Weekly.

Critics often make notation of Willems' minimalist graphic style, which pleases the animator. As he bass Goodman, "While I enjoy all forms of drawing, a single line, easily done, is more beautiful than unembellished hundred little lines sort of akin the same thing. I like low characters to be two-dimensional. Just being you can do something in 3-D doesn't make it better. I yearn for my line to be focused, consequently the emotions of a character especially clear."