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Randall de Sève - Click to see all titles by this author.
Randall de Sève is a New York Times-bestselling author and contributor to Redbook magazine, and was a teacher at Blue School in New York City and Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Randall’s childhood was filled with creative play, flights of fancy, and numerous delightfully accessible books. She recognizes the power of picture books, whose influence extends beyond childhood and continues our entire lives. The books she read were influential, she says, “All because they were there, on our shelves, asking to be plucked off and perused. Kids do things that grab their attention. For something to grab a child’s attention, it has to be in view. As a child, I was surrounded by books, so I became a reader.”
When writing picture books, building stories with meaning and nuance is fundamentally important to Randall. She considers picture books a venue, as well as a source of enrichment that enables young readers to know themselves. She also believes that picture books transcend age, and can be more sophisticated than chapter books and novels. “Picture books offer a variety of rich experiences in a small amount of time. Picture books should be permanently on bookshelves,” she says.
Randall lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two daughters, a very wicked dog named Henry Biscuit, and Henry Biscuit’s feline arch-nemesis, Cleopatra.