Kate Berube

Kate Berube (Bear uh bee) grew up in a cow-filled Connecticut town where she dreamed of being an artist. She earned her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and spent a semester studying in Paris. Like many artists, though, her career trajectory wasn't a straight line – along the way she was a nanny, a tax preparer, a scenic painter, a decorative painter, and a bookseller (at Portland's own Powell’s Books). Portland is where she now makes her home with her family. Kate Berube is the author-illustrator of Mae’s First Day of School and Hannah and Sugar, which won the Marion Vannett Ridgway Award and the Oregon Book Award for Children’s Literature, and was shortlisted for the Klaus Flugge Prize. She is the illustrator of Willow the White House Cat, written by Jill Biden, John's Turn written by Mac Barnett, which won the Irma Black Silver Medal, and The Summer Nick Taught His Cats to Read written by Curtis Manley, which won a CLEL Bell Award and was a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year.