Tomie dePaola (b. 1934) is best known for his books for children. He has written and/or illustrated nearly 250 books. Over 15 million copies of his books have sold. The Birds of Bethlehem is his newest book. Strega Nona Does it Again will be published in fall 2013.
Born in Meriden, Connecticut, dePaola received his BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and his MFA from the California College of Arts in Oakland, California. He received a doctoral equivalency in fine arts from Lone Mountain College in San Francisco.
In addition to writing and illustrating children’s books, dePaola taught for several years in art and theater departments in colleges in California, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.
DePaola has received many prestigious awards, including the Smithson Medal from the Smithsonian Institution, the Kerlan Award from the University of Minnesota, the Regina Medal from the Catholic Library Association, and the Sarah Josepha Hale Award, a prestigious distinction in writing by a New Englander.
He was also the United States nominee in 1990 for the international Hans Christian Andersen Award in illustration. The American Library Association named Strega Nona a Caldecott Honor Book and 26 Fairmount Avenue a Newbery Honor Book. He was the 2011 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award recipient for “substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.” He received the Society of Illustrators Original Art Show Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.
The University of Connecticut, Georgetown University, and Pratt Institute, among others, have granted him honorary doctoral degrees. Pratt Institute, in 2012, named him “one of the top 125 Pratt icons of all time.” In 1999, he was selected for the New Hampshire Governor’s Arts Award of Living Treasure.
DePaola makes his home in New London, New Hampshire, where he works in a renovated 200-year-old barn. Visit the author at www.tomie.com andwww.tomiesblog.blogspot.com. 
Tomie dePaola (b. 1934) was born in Meriden, Connecticut, to a family of Irish and Italian background. By the time he could hold a pencil, he knew what his life’s work would be. His determination to create books for children led to a BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and an MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California. This resolve drove him through the years of teaching, designing greeting cards and stage sets, and painting church murals, until 1965, when he illustrated his first children’s book, Sound, by Lisa Miller, for the publisher Coward-McCann. Eventually, freed of other obligations, he plunged full time into both writing and illustrating children’s books. He names Fra Angelico, Giotto, Georges Rouault, and Ben Shahn as major influences on his work, but he soon found his own unique style. His particular way with color, line, detail, and design have earned him many of the most prestigious awards in his field, among them a Caldecott Honor award for Strega Nona, the Smithsonian Medal from the Smithsonian Institution, the Kerlan Award from the University of Minnesota for his “singular attainment in children's literature,” the Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal for his “continued distinguished contribution,” and the University of Southern Mississippi Medallion. He was also the 1990 United States nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for illustration. DePaola has published more than two hundred children’s books in fifteen different countries. He remains one of the most popular creators of books for children, receiving more than 100,000 fan letters each year. Tomie lives in an interesting house in New Hampshire with his four dogs. His studio is in a large, renovated two-hundred-year-old barn.  

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