Our cup overflows this year with wonderful kids authors and illustrators, including a Newbery Award winner (Tae Keller, whose Newbery winner, When You Trap a Tiger, was also just included in this year’s Global Reading Challenge for local elementary readers), a Caldecott Honoree (Corey Tabor, who in addition to picture books like Mel Fell and Ursula Upside Down also writes and draws the Fox early reader series), and an Emmy winner (Lynn Brunelle, who won Emmys for “Bill Nye the Science Guy” and now produces hands-on marvels like the Pop-Up Planetarium), as well as Amanda Abler, whose most recent local nonfiction tale is Big Bertha: How a Massive Tunnel Boring Machine Dug a Highway Under Seattle; Laurie Ann Thompson, whose picture books let us imagine life as a raccoon, garter snake, robin, and honey bee; and Ben Clanton and Andy Chou Musser, who collaborate on the Ploof books while doing their own things as well: Andy with, among other things, his lovely little pamphlet Trees of the Pacific Northwest, and Ben (of course) with his massively popular Narwhal and Jelly graphic novel series.