18th July Felicia Bond (1954) Melanie Walsh (1964)

Felicia Bond is the illustrator of Laura Numeroff's mouse books and their offspins. She has illustrated other books, but in my library we do not have any of them. Felicia says,' "I couldn't wait to grow up and be an artist." Her illustrations of mice, pigs, moose and cats all look like they are having fun, so they send the message that she seems to be having fun doing them.

Melanie Walsh is an English author/illustrator whose books are for very young children. Books such as My World, Your World and My Nose, Your Nose, have minimal text, but very pertinent messages for preschoolers - that differences don't matter! Her newest book 10 Things I Can Do To Help My World makes saving the environment very accessible to very young children.

14th July Peggy Parish (1927 - 1988) Laura Numeroff (1953)

Peggy Parish is well known because of her Amelia Bedelia series of books. She had done 12 titles when she died suddenly. The publishers felt that the series could continue and Peggy's nephew Hermann decided to keep the series going. If you look at the Amelia Bedelia website you can see which are the twelve original titles and which are the newer ones.

Laura Numeroff is also well-known because of a series of books, her If You ... series. They were slow to come to Australia but now that they are here and have accompanying toys they are well-borrowed. The library has a large mouse toy to accompany If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and he makes the book even more appealing. As well as this series illustrated by Felicia Bond Laura has other books such as Beatrice Doesn't Want To and the popular new The Jellybeans and the Big Dance which are illustrated by Lynn Munsinger.