American author, Harriet Ziefert began her career as a teacher, but for the last 25 years has been writing books for young children. She is prolific, but says that as an author her 'main focus has been to create age-appropriate content, in an age-appropriate format - content that considers kids' emotional and intellectual development together.' And she has been very successful at this. Her books often have flaps so that they encourage interaction from the child who is listening to the adult read. In my library her series of stories about a cat called Nicky, which are illustrated by Richard Brown are very popular with preschoolers and then again with Year 1 who read them to themselves. Her series illustrated by Simms Taback look wonderful on display because of their bright colours and appealing appearance, so they are also borrowed frequently.
English author/illustrator Penny Ives also seems to focus on books for early childhood, but as she illustrates many of her own books, she has more control over their 'total look' and the whimsy of her illustrations is obvious. Besides her popoular Five Little Ducks done for Childs Play she is known in my library for her stories about another duck, Celestine, in Celestine, Drama Queen and Celestine and the Penguins.
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