Henkes, Kevin

Kevin Henkes remembers drawing at a very early age, having been encouraged by his parents and teachers. He also loved books, reading and rereading them until the pages were dog-eared and the covers coated with stale peanut butter.

When he was nineteen, he became an author-illustrator, flying from his home in Racine, Wisconsin to New York City with his portfolio, hoping to find a publisher. Fortunately, Susan Hirschman at Greenwillow Books saw his talent and his first picture book, All A

Kevin Henkes has had a long career as a writer-illustrator of children’s books. With titles like Kitten’s First Full Moon and Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse he has captured the imagination of generations of children. As a recipient of the Caldecott Award and Newbery Medal Honors, he has built an impressive resume over the three decades that span his work.

As a child himself, Kevin fondly remembers reading Harry the Dirty Dog, by Gene Zion and Margaret Bly Graham, The Little Fish that Got Away by Bernadine Cook and Crockett Johnson and Rain Makes Applesauce by Julian Scheer and Marvin Bileck. Most impactful however was the book Is This You? by Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson that he described as “essentially a guide for making a book of one’s own.”  It is these books along with a love of art and reading that paved the path for thirty years of writing and illustrating his expansive bibliography, 55 books in all. Imagine having such an impactful inspiration as a kid that it created a lifelong career path as this is the only job Kevin has ever had.

Over the years, Kevin has been able to incorporate family into his career by collaborating with his wife, Laura Dronzek, a painter and award-winning children’s book illustrator. He speaks fondly of their collaborative efforts and explains that it all works because of the mutual trust they have between each other. Luckily, it transferred from personal to a professional collaboration beautifully. He enjoys bearing witness to seeing things as they progress while working together.

Although Kevin doesn’t, as a normal course of action, draw on his family and friends to model characters in his books, Laura will, on occasion, pose for him so he can refine a proper body position for a particular illustration while avoiding capturing any of her likeness. He even returns the favor for her, continuing that sense of collaboration between them. He has however, in one book, used his children as inspiration. While creating the characters Billy and his sister Sal, in The Year of Billy Miller, Kevin’s children were in the periphery of his thoughts.

Where does he rank in the family with his kids? They may be a little less impressed with having a dad as an author than one may think.  He notes that his creations were just books among a sea of other books on the shelf. He surmises that his kids most likely “assumed that everyone’s parents made books.” What he did for a living was no big deal in their eyes.

Currently, Kevin is working on illustrations for his next book called A House which is a picture book for very young children. Although he has illustrated his own books and invited others, including his wife, to create the imagery for his titles, he has never been tempted to illustrate another author’s work. He does keep an eye on other illustrators and has a current admiration for Jon Agee, Lynne Rae Perkins, Marla Frazee, Christian Robinson and Douglas Florian.

With a career 30 years strong, one cannot help but have occasional retrospective moments. In looking back on his early books, Kevin avoids focusing a critical eye on how he could have done them better. Instead he has a certain reverence for them being “the very best I could at the time.” As far as his work goes, he tends to be constantly looking to the future and being most excited about what’s next. When put to the task of choosing his favorite books, he cites The Year of Billy Miller and Julius the Baby of the World. He also holds a fondness for his school visits although he does them less frequently these days. Kevin says, “his most wonderful memories are those of walking into a big room filled with young children wearing handmade mouse ears in honor of my books. It always takes my breath away.”  What an amazing reward for work well done! If Kevin hadn’t chosen the path of children’s author-illustrator, he imagines he would have been a teacher, adult fiction writer or a painter although we certainly hope he continues to add to his enchanting collections of children’s titles engaging the imagination of future young readers.

lone, was published in 1981. Since then he has written and published many picture books and several novels.

Although he used to live with his parents, brothers, and sister and work at a card table in his bedroom, he now lives with his wife, son, and daughter in their own house and works at a drawing table in his own studio.

Henkes states: “My main goal is to create books that please me. But of course I’m happy when teachers, parents, or librarians thank me because for them one of my books says something important about tolerance, loyalty, or individuality. But I’m most pleased when children tell me that they loved one of my books, that it made them laugh, that they sleep with it under their pillow.”

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