Michael Dooling
Well known for his dramatic and historically accurate illustrations, Michael Dooling is the illustrator of over sixty-five books for numerous publishers including Scholastic, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Henry Holt, and Holiday House.
Books about George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Lewis and Clark, Ellis Island, the first automobile race, pilgrims, fossils, dinosaurs, the Civil War, and Young Thomas Edison, that School Library Journal said, “Belongs in every library.” Horn Book praised his work as “noteworthy—and handsome—examples of the illustrator as historian.”
Michael is the recipient of over fifty awards and acknowledgements including Pennsylvania’s Carolyn Field Award, Michigan’s Young Reader Award Honor, a Smithsonian Magazine Notable Book, New Hampshire’s Cochecho Reader’s Award, a Kansas State Reading Circle Recommended List, a Mountain and Plains Bookseller’s Nominee, an Orbis Pictus Honor Book, a New York Public Library Best Book of Year, a Horn Book Best Book of Year, Maryland State’s Black-Eyed Susan Picture Book List, New Mexico’s The Land of Enchantment Book Award List, Tennessee’s Volunteer State Book Award Master Reading List, and Bank Street College List of The Best Children’s Books of the Year.
In 2013, Michael was selected to a TOP TEN LIST OF GREAT AUTHOR VISITS by the Pennsylvania School Library Association.
“You have truly made a difference in the life of a child,” said one librarian. “He is still writing!”
His educational and entertaining assemblies are a behind the scenes look at creating pictures: how to tell a story with a picture using emotion, perspective, value, facial expression, and body posture, how he researches at libraries and museums, and how family and friends pose in costume for characters, and most importantly, how he corrects his many mistakes as he goes along. The 40-45 minute teaching assembly is interactive: He shows PowerPoint asking questions, draws a picture with a child’s help, and allows time for questions. He may even bring in a 40″ dinosaur bone!
A few of Michael’s books
