Bootsie Barker Bites

Barbara Bottner grew up wanting to paint, dance, and tell stories. She went to college, studied in Paris as a painter and then, got lucky. She was asked to do sets for an Off Broadway Company called Café LA Mama, with the famous Ellen Stewart, who fostered the talents of people such as Tom O'Horgan, (Hair) Stacy Keach, Sam Shepherd, and Leonard Melfi who were creating experimental new works. The sets created by Bottner, alas, were too large; they overshadowed the actors. She was fired as a set designer and hired as an actress.

For two years she worked with an ensemble group which toured the US and Europe but was based in New York City. During that time she became a substitute teacher to augment her income. Because she had no training in early education, she was forced to make up her own curriculum. ("Couldn't play the piano or sing," she sighs.)

"Within a year, she had changed directions. "From out of nowhere," she says, "I decided to pursue children's book illustration. I thought I could do original work, rather than go into advertising, or starve as an unproved painter."

Bottner never dreamed of becoming a writer. But after an award-winning playwright wrote a manuscript for her, which was not accepted, she decided to try for herself. "It was a big surprise, getting to meet editors and receive encouragement," she says. "That was the old days, when people really had time to foster new talent. I had a few book 'dummies' before the first one was accepted. I had so little encouragement as an artist, that I was astonished. It's really been a wonderful experience for me. The other things I've done, journalism, animation, television and script writing, book reviewing, humor essays, non-fiction, all were born from the careful guidance of my editors through the years.

"I also began to teach. Since I was really an uneducated writer, I had to figure out for myself why stories worked or not. I'm proud to say that many writers, full of talent, passed through my doors and through the doors of my heart and learned along with me."

Barbara Bottner has written and illustrated more than twenty books for children, including Bootsie Barker Bites, which was named a Junior Library Guild Selection for 1992. She also writes for both film and television.

Ms. Bottner lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Gerald, whose music can also cause changes in the weather.

copyright 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

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Caldecott-medalist Peggy Rathmann was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in the suburbs with two brothers and two sisters. Ms. Rathmann graduated from Mounds View High School in New Brighton, Minnesota, then attended colleges everywhere, changing her major repeatedly. She eventually earned a BA in psychology from the University of Minnesota. Ms. Rathmann studied commercial art at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, fine art at the Atelier Lack in Minneapolis, and children's-book writing and illustration at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. The resulting book, Ruby the Copycat, earned Ms. Rathmann the "Most Promising New Author" distinction in Publishers Weekly's 1991 annual Cuffie Awards. In 1992 she illustrated Bootsie Barker Bites for Barbara Bottner, her teacher at Otis. A homework assignment produced an almost wordless story, Good Night, Gorilla, inspired by a childhood memory. That story, however, was only 19 pages long, and everyone agreed that the ending was a dud. Two years and ten endings later, Good Night, Gorilla was published and recognized as an ALA Notable Children's Book for 1994. The recipient of the 1996 Caldecott Medal, Officer Buckle and Gloria, is the story of a school safety officer upstaged by his canine partner. Ms. Rathmann lives and works in northern California, on a ranch she shares with her husband, John Wick. View titles by Peggy Rathmann