Mo Willems
, b. 1968
Although his official birthdate is February 11, 1968, at one of his website (accessed: January 31, 2017) Mo Willems claims to have been alive already when the dinosaurs were – but they “didn’t go to the same restaurants”; he also claims that he is not dead yet – but he is “working on it”. This can serve as a sample of Willems’ ironical sense of humor, widely used in his works. A graduate in Animation of the New York University–Tisch School of the Arts, Willems is a scriptwriter and animator of numerous TV shows, such as Sesame Street (which brought him four Emmy awards) or The Off-Beats (1996–1998) and Sheep in the Big City (2000–2002), both individually created by him. In 2003 he ended his TV career and became a stay-at-home dad, and at the same time a very successful author and illustrator of children’s books, starting with his most popular Pigeon series’ first volume Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! To-date he has published dozens of books and won several book awards: 3 Caldecott Honors, 2 Theodor Seuss Geisel Medals, 5 Geisel Honors. Willems feels very devoted to his writing activity, because according to him the experience of is one of the most creative and engaging ones, as it requires interactivity with the very book itself and lets the imagination work, making the reader create the story once again after the author has done it.
Willems also designs bubble gum cards, and runs a few websites and blogs for his fans, including gomo.net (accessed: January 31, 2017) with games and videos about the characters of his Cat the Cat (2010–2014) book series, and pigeonpresents.com devoted to his Pigeon (2003–2014) series.
Ofificial website, which includes links to his several websites (accessed: January 30, 2017).
Faceebok profile (accessed: January 30, 2017).
Bio prepared by Joanna Kłos, University of Warsaw, joanna.klos@student.uw.edu.pl
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