Mo Willems Research Paper

Mo Willems began his career as a writer and animator for the show Sesame Street on PBS. During this time, he earned 6 Emmy Awards for his writing. Willems worked on Sesame Street for nine seasons and created two animated series The Off-Beats for Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network’s Sheep in the Big City. Codename: Kids Next Door was another show where Willems served as head writer at Cartoon Network, it was during this time that Willems began writing and illustrating books for children (Willems, Mo. FAQ). “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!” was Willems debut book. It became a New York Times Bestseller and was awarded a Caldecott Honor in 2004 the Carnegie Medal for animated versions of books and the NAPPA Award Winner for animated version of …show more content…
This book does just what the title says, Piggie and Gerald thank all the characters that have been in their books and most importantly the readers saying, “we could not be ‘us’ without you,” and “you are the best!” With this series ending Willems began collaborating with other authors such as Laurie Keller, Charise Mericle Harper, and Caldecott winner Dan Santat to create a new easy reader series dubbed the Elephant and Piggie Like Reading. Unlike any other series Willems has written these books center around a variety of characters. The general idea around these books is that Elephant and Piggie are retired and are now sharing the books that they love to read in their spare time with others. The books in this series are similar to the original Elephant and Piggie series as they are told mostly through speech bubbles and use the same visual text details. The illustrations also use visual clues showing the characters emotions through body language and facial features to help readers read with feeling. The stories range in storyline, style and reading level but still use humor to engage the reader (Rdurso). Some books in this series are; “We Are Growing Up”, “The Cookie Fiasco” and “The Good for Nothing