Jan Brett

With over thirty four million books in print, Jan Brett is one of the nation's foremost author illustrators of children's books. Jan lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts, close to where she grew up. During the summer her family moves to a home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. As a child, Jan Brett decided to be an illustrator and spent many hours reading and drawing. As a student at the Boston Museum School, she spent hours in the Museum of Fine Arts. "I'm delighted and surprised when fragments of these beautiful images come back to me in my painting," she says. Travel is also a constant inspiration. Together with her husband, Joe Hearne, who is a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Jan visits many different countries where she researches the architecture and costumes that appear in her work. "From cave paintings to Norwegian sleighs, to Japanese gardens, I study the traditions of the many countries I visit and use them as a starting point for my children's books."