Jan Brett

Born:  December 1, 1949

Jan Brett was born December 1, 1949 in Hingham, Massachusetts.  As a child, she fell in love with picture books, and would spend hours trying to recreate pictures that she loved, or draw her own. 

Jan gets the inspiration for a lot of her books and illustrations by traveling.  She wants to have a definite authentic feel to her books, and so she studies architecture and styles of countries that she visits, and then incorporates them into her work.

Some of the more popular books that she has written are The Gingerbread Baby, The Mitten, and  Berlioz the Bear (which was actually inspired by her husband!).

I chose Jan Brett because of her passion for children’s literature and her desire to help educators.  Her website is filled with everything from crafts to calendar charts.  Her illustrations are beautiful, whimsical, and have a definite “classic” feel to them.  I love that she takes art very seriously and incorporates her love of travel into her books!