Author/Illustrator D. B. Johnson
I am the author/illustrator of 11 children's picture books, including the Horn Book Award-winning, Henry Hikes to Fitchburg (Houghton Mifflin, 2000). My work has also been awarded the New York Times Best Illustrated Book, The Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award, a Society Of Illustrators Silver Medal, and The Thoreau Society Award for Distinguished Service.
Since publishing my 2012 surreal picture book, Magritte’s Marvelous Hat, I've written, illustrated, and animated two digital picture books, Polly Wolly Willy Woggle and POTS, REBBOR!, available on the Apple Bookstore.
Polly Wolly Willy Woggle
Pictures come alive to the gentle sounds of nature in Polly Wolly Willy Woggle, written, illustrated and animated for the iPad. This multimedia book brings the sound of birds and bees and rustling leaves indoors and adds humor and surprise to its simple animations.
In 2023, I launched Lost Woods online as an independent daily dose of the natural world so necessary to restore our collective sense of humor. The story revolves around Henry, a bear, who is caretaker and chronicler of the last tract of untouched woods in comics land where he lives in a small house-tree. He talks to plants and ruminates to himself about the wonders and annoyances of swamps and friends. One day he finds Auk, orphan of a Great Auk and a Dodo, wandering lost in the woods and rescues him. Or, perhaps in the end, Auk rescues Henry and all of us from the collective unease of our changing world.
Lost Woods, while rooted in nature-loving ideals, is not a polemic, nor in any way didactic. In Henry's woods, time is measured, not by current events or holidays, but by currant events and bug season. In these woods, the trees talk, the plants have secrets, and an eccentric cast of friends brings argument, invention, innocence, and mischief to the woods, as well as humor and hope for the future. Lost Woods is both an idea and a place. Henry sums it up this way:
"I'm not afraid to be lost in the woods; I'm afraid that the woods will be lost to me." Henry
If you subscribe (it's FREE), you'll receive five of my latest week's strips in your email Inbox each Wednesday morning. I hope you enjoy these adventures of Henry, Wally, Lydia, Auk, and Eddie. I'm growing my readers one by one through word of mouth, so please forward your weekly Lost Woods email to a friend. I depend on you to spread the love and laughs!