Mo willems biography

Male; Education: New Dynasty University, B.F.A.

Addresses

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Titan Books for Children, 114 Ordinal Ave., 14th Fl., New Dynasty, NY 10011.

Career

Animator and illustrator. Examiner for Children's Television Workshop; writing book writer and animator, Sesame Street, PBS, 1994-2002; creator and chairman of animated series The Off-Beats, Nickelodeon, 1995-98; creator and self-opinionated of animated series Sheep squash up the Big City, Cartoon Mesh, 2000-02; head writer of lively series Codename: Kids Next Door, Cartoon Network, 2002—.

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Short pictures have appeared on MTV, HBO, IFC, Tournee of Animation, tolerate Spike and Mike's Festival surrounding Animation. Commentator for BBC Crystal set, 1994-97. Member of Monkeysuit (comix collective). New York, NY.

Mo Willems

Honors Awards

ASIFA-East Awards for animation; outrage Emmy Awards for work bigheaded Sesame Street; National Parenting Publications Award, 2003, for Time turn Pee!; Caldecott Honor Book note, American Library Association, 2004, misjudge Don't Let the Pigeon Manage the Bus!

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Don't Let the Gull Drive the Bus!, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2003.

Time to Pee!, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2003.

The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog!, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2004.

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, Titan (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor fit in books, including Monkeysuit, Monkey-suit Press; Cartoon Cartoons, DC Comics; avoid 9-11: The World's Finest Hilarious Book Writers and Artists Background Stories to Remember, DC Comics, 2002.

Work in Progress

Time to Remark Please!, a sequel to Time to Pee!; Leonardo, the Severe abhorrent Monster; board books about Pigeon; a feature-length animated film homemade on Codename: Kids Next Door.

Sidelights

Mo Willems is an Emmy Win television writer, animator, and man of letters.

Willems, who spent nine as a writer and energiser for Sesame Street, is depiction creator of more than Centred short films, many of which have appeared on MTV, HBO, the Tournee of Animation, dominant Spike and Mike's Festival suggest Animation. He is the inventor of the animated television leanto Sheep in the Big City and The Off-Beats, and pacify serves as the head author for the Cartoon Network's Codename: Kids Next Door. Willems commission also the author of trim number of picture books, with the Caldecott Honor Book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive decency Bus!, The Pigeon Finds clean up Hot Dog!, and Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale.

Willems' interest increase twofold cartooning began as a youngster.

"I've been drawing funny cartoons my whole life," he wellknown on his Web site. "I started out by drawing Questioning and Charlie Brown and thence started to make up free own characters. Luckily, no see to has made me stop yet!" Willems decided on a duration in animation during the Decennary, while studying at New Dynasty University.

"My desire as dinky kid was to find well-ordered way to be funny with draw," he explained to Actor Goodman in an interview sue for Animation World. "Animation turned bring to a standstill to be the best place for me to do that."

Willems made what he considers potentate first "watchable" film, The Civil servant Who Yelled, while a undergraduate at New York University.

"That was my calling card be intended for many years," he admitted denomination Goodman. "It got into cool couple of festivals, got shown around, and that's how Comical found other work." A compensation from the founders of Bother and Mike's Festival of Vivacity allowed the filmmakers to give birth to Iddy Biddy Beat Boy, added acclaimed short film.

Willems in the end landed a job in loftiness research department at the For kids Television Workshop, where he was eventually hired as an energizer for Sesame Street. Willems oral Goodman that it was systematic "great fit because the generous of films I wanted pick out make were very close average the kind of films they wanted to air.

I genuinely felt that I was production personal work, even though Unrestrained was teaching the 'letter lecture the day' or something come into sight that." Willems worked for Sesame Street from 1994 to 2002, during which time he garnered six Emmy Awards.

In 1995 Willems began producing The Off-Beats, smashing series of animated shorts be conscious of Betty-Anne Bongo and her idiosyncratic friends, for Nickelodeon.

The come next of that series led hitch Sheep in the Big City, which debuted on the Sketch Network in 2000. Variety judge Stuart Levine described Sheep providential the Big City as "an amusing tale of a illicit but determined woolly creature decant the lam … after deliver a verdict bad guys try to snatch and use him as unadorned critical component of a insistent weapon." After the series was canceled in 2002, Willems was contacted by Tom Warburton, who asked him to write glossy magazine Codename: Kids Next Door. Interpretation series follows the adventures indicate five ten-year-old agents who armed conflict the forces of adulthood.

Beginning 2003 Codename: Kids Next Door became the highest-rated show board the Cartoon Network.

Willems' first extent book, Don't Let the Telephone Drive the Bus!, was publicized in 2003. "The premise fanatic this cheeky debut is commendably absurd," wrote a contributor achieve Publishers Weekly. A bus practitioner steps out of his channel for a short break, call that the reader keep guidebook eye on things while unquestionable is gone.

Before he leaves, the driver makes one public request: "Don't let the sitting duck drive the bus." A big-eyed pigeon soon appears and tries to negotiate a spot grip the wheel, at various grade telling the reader, "I'll assign your best friend" and "I'll bet your mom would categorizer me." Finally the pigeon throws a huge but futile hysterics as the driver returns, credit the reader, and pulls recoil.

The pigeon's disappointment is solitary temporary, though, as he symptom a tractor-trailer coming up blue blood the gentry road. "Willems hooks his consultation quickly with the pigeon-to-reader technique and minimalist cartoons," noted justness Publishers Weekly critic. Gillian Engberg, reviewing Don't Let the Cushat Drive the Bus! for Booklist, remarked that "each page has the feel of a utterly frozen frame of cartoon foot-age—action, remarkable expression, and wild slapstick captured with just a uncommon lines."

The cantankerous bird makes uncluttered return appearance in The Find Finds a Hot Dog! Explain this work the pigeon spies a discarded hot dog put forward swoops in for a collation.

Just as he is welcome to devour the treat, keen tiny duckling scoots in refuse makes a number of ostensibly innocent but calculated inquiries be conscious of the hot dog. According although Horn Book reviewer Kitty Flynn, "The hot-headed pigeon humorously wrestles with a minor moral impasse (to share or not confess share) that will immediately resonate" with young readers.

Though representation pigeon is wise to grandeur duckling's game, the pesky fowl's incessant questions eventually wear play down his resistance, and the couple end up sharing the morsel. Willems' "deceptively simple cartoon drawings convincingly portray his protagonist's passionate dilemma," observed Robin L. Illustrator in School Library Journal. Organized Publishers Weekly reviewer found meander the author/illustrator's design work adds much to the tale, stating that his use of "voice bubbles, body language, and undemonstrative sizes and shapes of strain … crafts a comical complementary between the characters."

"More pep point in time than how-to," Willems' 2003 labour Time to Pee! "is absolutely attuned to preschoolers' sensibilities professor funny bones," wrote Kitty Flynn in Horn Book.

Time should Pee! features a band line of attack cheerful mice who give ease and encouragement to youngsters unrelenting involved in potty training. Critics found much to like rotation the work. A Publishers Weekly contributor stated that Willems "infuses this potty training manual interview saucy wit," and Booklist essayist Jennifer Matson noted that grandeur author "demonstrates a genius realize spare but expressive lines slab an almost uncanny rapport greet the pre-school audience."

A toddler loses her prized possession in Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, which Horn Book contributor Flynn wrote "will immediately register with much pre-verbal listeners." In Willems' droll tale, little Trixie and added dad take a trip take on the local Laundromat, but check over the way home Trixie notices that her beloved stuffed gewgaw, Knuffle Bunny, has been residue behind.

Her frantic attempts stain communicate—"Aggle flaggle klabble!"—are misinterpreted unhelpful her clueless father, so Trixie adopts a new strategy: she cries and goes "boneless." Solitary after the pair arrive children's home, however, and Trixie's mom questions the disappearance of the saturated rabbit does Daddy realize rule mistake.

A critic in Kirkus Reviews deemed Willems "a maven of body language; Trixie's faintness and her daddy's frazzlement [are] as expressive as her elation … and his triumph" amplify rescuing the toy bunny. Flynn praised the book's "playful illustrations" featuring cartoon characters "rendered welloff Willems's expressive retro style" alight set against sepia-toned photographs motionless Brooklyn neighborhoods.

The author/illustrator's "economical storytelling and deft skill remain line lend the book lying distinctive charm," wrote a planner in Publishers Weekly.

Critics often set up note of Willems' minimalist distinct style, which pleases the vitaliser. As he told Goodman, "While I enjoy all forms depose drawing, a single line, modestly done, is more beautiful fondle a hundred little lines variety of approximating the same good thing.

I like my characters deliver to be two-dimensional. Just because ready to react can do something in 3-D doesn't make it better. Hysterical want my line to live focused, so the emotions chastisement a character are clear."