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David Wiesner

Born

in Bridgewater, New Jersey, The United States

February 05, 1956

Website

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/authors/wie...

Genre

Children's, Art

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During David Wiesner's formative years, the last images he saw before closing his eyes at night were the books, rockets, elephant heads, clocks, and magnifying glasses that decorated the wallpaper of his room. Perhaps it was this decor which awakened his creativity and gave it the dreamlike, imaginative quality so often found in his work.

As a child growing up in suburban New Jersey, Wiesner re-created his world daily in his imagination. His home and his neighborhood became anything from a faraway planet to a prehistoric jungle. When the everyday play stopped, he would follow his imaginary playmates into the pages of books, wandering among dinosaurs in the World Book Encyclopedia. The images before him generated a love of detail, an admirati During David Wiesner's formative years, the last images he saw before closing his eyes at night were the books, rockets, elephant heads, clocks, and magnifying glasses that decorated the wallpaper of his room. Perhaps it was this decor which awakened his creativity and gave it the dreamlike, imaginative quality so often found in his work.

As a child growing up in suburban New Jersey, Wiesner re-created his world daily in his imagination. His home and his neighborhood became anything from a faraway planet to a prehistoric jungle. When the everyday play stopped, he would follow his imaginary playmates into the pages of books, wandering among dinosaurs in the World Book Encyclopedia. The images before him generated a love of detail, an admiration for the creative process, and a curiosity about the hand behind the drawings.

In time, the young Wiesner began exploring the history of art, delving into the Renaissance at first — Michelangelo, Dürer, and da Vinci — then moving on to such surrealists as Magritte, de Chirico, and Dalí. As he got older, he would sit, inspired by these masters, at the oak drafting table his father had found for him and would construct new worlds on paper and create wordless comic books, such as Slop the Wonder Pig, and silent movies, like his kung fu vampire film The Saga of Butchula.

Wiesner has always been intrigued by and curious about what comes before and after the captured image. His books somehow convey the sequence of thoughts leading up to and following each picture, and that quality explain why they are frequently described as cinematic.

At the Rhode Island School of Design, Wiesner was able to commit himself to the full-time study of art and to explore further his passion for wordless storytelling. There he met two people who would figure prominently in his life: Tom Sgouros, to whom Tuesday is dedicated, and David Macaulay, to whom The Three Pigs is dedicated. These two men not only taught Wiesner the fundamentals of drawing and painting but also fostered his imaginative spirit and helped him comprehend the world around him. Sgouros's and Macaulay's artistic influences were vital to Wiesner's development into the acclaimed picture-book author he is today.

David Wiesner has illustrated more than twenty award-winning books for young readers. Two of the picture books he both wrote and illustrated became instant classics when they won the prestigious Caldecott Medal: Tuesday in 1992 and The Three Pigs in 2002. Two of his other titles, Sector 7 and Free Fall, are Caldecott Honor Books. An exhibit of Wiesner's original artwork, "Seeing the Story," toured the United States in 2000 and 2001. Among his many honors, Wiesner holds the Japan Picture Book Award for Tuesday, the Prix Sorcières (the French equivalent of the Caldecott Medal) for The Three Pigs, and a 2004 IBBY Honour Book nomination for illustration, also for The Three Pigs. Flotsam, his most recent work, was a New York Times bestseller and was recently named winner of the 2007 Caldecott Medal, making Wiesner only the second person in the award’s long history to have won three times.

Wiesner lives with his wife and their son and daughter in the Philadelphia area, where he continues to create dreamlike and inventive images for books. ...more

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David Wiesner’s books

Average rating: 4.12 · 109,809 ratings · 12,721 reviews · 107 distinct works • Similar authors

	Flotsam 4.24 avg rating — 27,211 ratings — published 2006 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tuesday 4.16 avg rating — 27,686 ratings — published 1991 — 28 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Three Pigs 4.16 avg rating — 20,815 ratings — published 2001 — 35 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Art & Max 4.07 avg rating — 7,228 ratings — published 2010 — 26 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mr. Wuffles! 3.96 avg rating — 7,263 ratings — published 2013 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sector 7 4.21 avg rating — 5,480 ratings — published 1999 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Free Fall 3.93 avg rating — 2,700 ratings — published 1988 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	June 29, 1999 4.11 avg rating — 2,530 ratings — published 1992 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hurricane 3.77 avg rating — 1,038 ratings — published 1990 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	I Got It!: A Near-Wordless Picture Book about Suspenseful Baseball from Three-Time Caldecott Winner David Wiesner for Children (Ages 4-7) 3.22 avg rating — 742 ratings — published 2018 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by David Wiesner (?)

“Before they read words, children are reading pictures.”
― David Wiesner, Free Fall

tags: mo-willems, picture-book-winners, picture-books, rosemary-wells, yumi-heo

44 likes

Polls

Now that we have a winner, Journey, lets choose an honor award. Which book should receive our first honor award?

Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown

17 votes 29.8%

Locomotive by Brian Floca

9 votes 15.8%

The Dark by Lemony Snicket

7 votes 12.3%

Mr. Wuffles! by David Wiesner

6 votes 10.5%

Hank Finds an Egg by Rebecca Dudley

5 votes 8.8%

How to Train a Train by Jason Carter Eaton

4 votes 7.0%

If You Want to See a Whale by Julie Fogliano

4 votes 7.0%

On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne

3 votes 5.3%

The Tortoise & the Hare by Jerry Pinkney

2 votes 3.5%

57 total votes

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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Mock Caldecott 2027: The year is coming to a close.	34	119	Jan 11, 2011 03:40PM
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Children's Books: Best Picture Book Ever???	18	50	Mar 15, 2011 10:19AM
Children's Books: Criteria for Good Children's Books?	16	185	May 07, 2011 05:25AM
Caldecott Books: Wordless books	3	51	Jul 25, 2011 08:09AM
Children's Books: Wordless Books by David Wiesner	5	44	Sep 02, 2011 05:40AM
Chicks On Lit: Title and Author Game	4041	1751	Apr 16, 2013 09:48AM

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