Deborah Freedman was trained to be an architect, but what she loves to do most is build worlds in books. Her first picture books were tiny ones, written and illustrated almost twenty years ago for her own young children. Deborah became especially inspired when her girls grew old enough to draw, after they began to create recognizable and fantastic beings with endearing back-stories. She began then to play with their pictures by photocopying them and doodling around them, developing ideas that eventually matured, many years later, into her first picture book, Scribble, published by Knopf in 2007.

Interested and involved in the arts for as long as she can remember, Deborah majored in art history in college at Yale and went on to earn a masters degree in architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. When she isn’t working on picture books, she loves spending time with her family at home in Connecticut, and hanging around at the library.

To learn more, look at or listen to the interviews listed below. Or visit Deborah's blog Writes With Pictures and follow her on twitter; if you do, don't forget to say hello!

age 5