Matt de la Peña

Author Matt de la Peña writes, he tells us, for “that old version of me. Self-defined nonreaders who spend all day reading the world... that tough, hoodied kid in the back of the auditorium [in need of] a secret place to feel.” Through four picture books, including Love; and six young adult novels, including Mexican White Boy; Matt de la Peña offers his readers many such secret places to feel. In his Newbery Award-winning picture book, Last Stop on Market Street, young CJ’s grandmother shows how “Sometimes when you’re surrounded by dirt…you’re a better witness for what’s beautiful.” In We Were Here, a 2011 ALA/YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, the character Mei-Li wonders “if growing up isn’t the saddest thing that can happen to a person.”
Throughout his diverse body of work, Matt de la Peña creates spaces where the experience of complex emotions makes a reader “more likely be in tune with emotional nuance out in the real world.”  De la Peña’s wit and engaged connection with audience, along with his experience teaching creative writing and visiting high schools and colleges throughout the US, promise for an informative and lively presentation to the 32nd Annual Swiacki Children’s Literature Festival.
 

Wendell Minor

“It was the land speaking to the young reader,” Wendell Minor recounts about his first reading of Diane Siebert’s Mojave, the book that would begin his children’s book illustration career. “I am a landscape painter in my soul and I thought, ‘This is an opportunity I shouldn’t pass up.’”
Thirty years later, we recognize Wendell Minor as a consummate chronicler of America’s history and environments in his children’s book illustrations. He has traveled across the country, drawing directly from sources to ensure that his illustrations accurately represent historical details and the particulars of vastly varied landscapes. His depicted subject matter ranges from the Everglades to Alaska, and from Amelia Earhart’s transatlantic flight to Buzz Aldrin’s journey to the moon. Over the course of his career, Minor has illustrated over 2,000 book covers including numerous titles by the historian David McCullough. Since 1988, he has illustrated more than 50 children’s books, teaming with both naturalists (such as Tony Johnston in Sequoia and Jean Craighead George in Galapagos George) and historians (such as Nathaniel Philbrick in Ben’s Revolution and Robert Burleigh in Edward Hopper Paints His World).