Mo Willems

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For the basketball player, see Maurice Williams (basketball).
Mo Willems
Mo Willems

Mo Willems (born February 11, 1968) is an American writer, animator, and children's books author/illustrator.

After graduating from New York University's Tisch School for the Arts, Willems spent a year traveling around the world drawing a cartoon every day, all of which have been published in the book You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When it Monsoons. Returning to New York, he went on to write Emmy Award-winning scripts for Sesame Street from 1993 to 2002, perform stand-up comedy in NYC, and record essays for BBC Radio. He later created two animated television series: The Off-Beats for Nickelodeon's Kablam, and Sheep in the Big City for Cartoon Network. Sheep in the Big City was a success with the critics but ultimately failed to attract sufficient viewership and was cancelled after two seasons.

Willems later worked as head writer on the first four seasons of Codename: Kids Next Door, created by one of his colleagues from Sheep, Tom Warburton. He left the show to pursue his writing career. He has authored several books for young children, three of which (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, and Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity) were awarded a Caldecott Honor. Recently he has been creating the Elephant and Piggie books, an early reader series about a friendly elephant and pig. Elephant and Piggie won the Theodor Seuss Geisel Medal in 2008.

Willems' books have been translated into myriad languages, spawned Carnegie Medal winning animated shorts, and theatrical musical productions. His illustrations, wire sculpture, and carved ceramics have been exhibited in galleries and museums across the nation.

Willems no longer resides in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York, where he lived from 1993-2008. He now lives in Massachusetts.

Contents

[edit] Trivia

  • Based the family from Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale on his daughter, wife, and himself.
  • Provided the voices of September and Grubby Groo on The Off-Beats.
  • The Pigeon's birthday is on April 1st, and that appears at least once in every book he writes.
  • A new Pigeon book titled The Pigeon Wants a Puppy was released on April 1st 2008.

[edit] Bibliography

Willems has worked on a number of books on his own, as well as submitting work for other compilations.

[edit] As author

[edit] As contributor

[edit] External links

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