Butterfly Buddies

Blanche Sims is the illustrator of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction for young readers, including the popular "Kids of the Polk Street School" and "New A collaboration with writer Judy Cox, Cool Cat, School Cat focuses on a stray cat who adopts the new kid on the block and helps build a friendship.Kids of the Polk Street School" series by writer Patricia Reilly Giff. Sims has also contributed her pen-and-ink and watercolor skills to books by a variety of other writers, among them Eric A. Kimmel, Jean Marzollo, and Suzy Kline, the last with whom Sims has collaborated on books featuring spunky second grader Mary Marony. Sims often illustrates series of easy-reading books in which elementary graders can follow a likeable group of characters. In Butterfly Buddies, one of several beginning chapter books Sims has illustrated for writer Judy Cox, the "inky drawings add a pleasant and humorous touch," according to School Library Journal writer Debbi Whitbeck, the reviewer also comparing the work favorably with Beverly Cleary's "Ramona" series.Sims once told SATA: "I am self-taught. My grandfather on my father's side was an Italian painter. He was a professor of art at Mount Holyoke College and died at ninety-six years of age. When I was a child in Cleveland, he would send me assignments-'draw a hand,' 'draw a foot,' etc.-and reward me with chocolate bars, lockets, and rings."I remember my elementary school teacher, Miss Cassatt. She knew I couldn't bring lunches and would always have me drawing maps or historical figures at lunchtime to 'feed' me. I once drew the Taj Mahal in colored chalk and it reached across the whole back wall of the class."I had a wonderful high school art teacher, Mr. Paul Ulen, who had studied in London. In my first year of high school we were learning at an art-school level. He stressed drawing and that's what we did-from live models to plaster casts. A scholarship was certain, but I had to drop out of school and get out on my own due to an unpleasant home life."I left Cleveland and moved to New York City, married an illustrator, had four wonderful children, and now have eight grandchildren. I divorced long ago and needed to work to support my brood...This pulled me together and I became a book illustrator."She lives in Sandy Hook, CT.Cox, Judy is the author of 'Butterfly Buddies', published 2001 under ISBN 9780823416547 and ISBN 0823416542.