MO WILLEMS AWARD-WINNING CHILDREN’S AUTHOR AND ANIMATOR CHAPTER ONE 4 PASSION AND PERSISTENCE Mo Willems is the creator of many successful children’s books He is the mind behind such popular characters as the Pigeon Knuffle Bunny and Elephant and Piggie He is a gifted artist and Mo Willems enjoys reading his books out loud This book is Leonardo the Terrible Monster
5 PASSION AND PERSISTENCE a funny person How ever Willems needed other qualities to have such well-loved char acters make the leap from his imagination to a finished book He had passion He had PERSISTENCE Willems had always loved drawing He really wanted to write words to go with his PERSISTENCE means sticking to a goal and not giving up Vocabulary Box Doodling helps an artist develop ideas Sometimes it takes lots of doodles to figure out what a picture will be
6 MO WILLEMS AWARD-WINNING CHILDREN’S AUTHOR AND ANIMATOR pictures He was passionate about making a picture book Willems tried for many years He was persistent about making his dream come true Then one day his AGENT saw Willems’s sketches of a pigeon She The Pigeon is the star of Mo Willems’s first book Now there are several books about the Pigeon
7 PASSION AND PERSISTENCE liked them and asked him to turn them into a book Those sketches became Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus That was the first of Willems’s many books The Caldecott Medal is given every year to the best new picture book A few books are named Caldecott Honor Books Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus was a Caldecott Honor Book in 2004 Quick Fact An AGENT is someone who helps writers find a publisher to produce their books Vocabulary Box
