David Slonim 
David Slonim has been drawing and making up stories since he was a kid growing up in New Jersey. Thanks to his elementary school art teacher, he worked with papier-mache, puppetry, stained glass, ceramics, 2-D and clay-animation films by age eleven. "Mrs. Hulsizer,” David says, “invited some of us to hang out in her art-supply closet during lunch and make stuff while she munched tuna sandwiches and cracked us up with stories about her dogs. It was great."
He continued writing stories and making films, puppets, and costumes through junior high and high school, going on to study illustration at Rhode Island School of Design. After about ten years creating images for clients like Tony's Frozen Pizza, UPS, and T.G.I. Friday's, David was asked to illustrate his first children's book. At about the same time, he began exhibiting fine art oil paintings in art galleries. (You can see his oil paintings at DavidSlonimFineArt.com.)
After working with editor Susan Pearson on Moishe's Miracle (Chronicle), David asked her to look at his story ideas for Oh Ducky! A Chocolate Calamity (Chronicle). "With her coaching Ducky finally became a book after a year and a half of effort. I had no idea writing was so much work!" Susan and David went on to work together again on He Came with the Couch (Chronicle) and other books.
David and his wife Bonnie have four kids and a dog named Maggie who matches the carpet. "If the kids are in their pajamas a little early, sometimes we turn out the lights and I make up new stories. Who knows, maybe someday they will become books."
More books by David Slonim:
Silly Tilly (Marshall Cavendish) (2009)
You Think it's Easy Being The Tooth Fairy? by Sheri Bell-Rehwoldt (Chronicle Books)
Haym Salomon: American Patriot by Susan Goldman Rubin (Abrams)
Who Swallowed Harold? by Susan Pearson (Marshall Cavendish)
Squeal and Squawk by Susan Pearson (Marshall Cavendish)
Emily and Albert by Jan Ormerod (Chronicle Books)
Old Jake's Skirts by C. Anne Scott (Rising Moon)