the author

Patrick McDonnell is the creator of the Mutts comic strip, which recently celebrated its eleventh anniversary. He has illustrated for the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Reader's Digest, Time, Parents, and other journals, done CD covers for the Greatest Hit classical music series, and created a license plate for his home state of New Jersey.

Patrick has been hailed as "the next Charles Schulz," sits on the board of directors of the Humane Society of the United States, and has won numerous awards for both Mutts and his animal welfare work. He is the co-author of Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman and also contributed a story to Little Lit: It Was a Dark and Silly Night, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly (HarperCollins, 2003). This is his first children's book.

Favorite books and authors:

Childhood books: A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh (with illustrations by E.H. Shepard), anything by Dr. Seuss, H.A. Rey's Curious George, L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz (esp. as drawn by W.W. Denslow), anything Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.

Adulthood: Any books on George Herriman's Krazy Kat, Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now and Stillness Speaks, Daniel Ladinsky's Love Poems from God, The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold.

learn more about Patrick

READ "THE JOY OF NOTHING"