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Brian Lies

Author profile

born

Princeton, New Jersey, The United States

gender

male

website

http://www.brianlies.com/

genre

Children's Books

About this author

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I was born in 1963 in Princeton, New Jersey, which back then was a quiet college town, surrounded by old farmland slowly giving way to housing developments. I spent a lot of time building dams and forts in the woods across the street with my best friend, inventing things, and writing and drawing with my older sister. At various times during my childhood, we had newts, gerbils and rabbits as pets. When I was in fifth grade, an author and illustrator visited my school, and I was amazed that one could have a job writing and drawing. I wished it could be my job! But I didn’t think I was good enough at either writing or drawing to even try.

I had always liked to draw, though, and kept doing it just for fun. During high school, I also painted with...more I was born in 1963 in Princeton, New Jersey, which back then was a quiet college town, surrounded by old farmland slowly giving way to housing developments. I spent a lot of time building dams and forts in the woods across the street with my best friend, inventing things, and writing and drawing with my older sister. At various times during my childhood, we had newts, gerbils and rabbits as pets. When I was in fifth grade, an author and illustrator visited my school, and I was amazed that one could have a job writing and drawing. I wished it could be my job! But I didn’t think I was good enough at either writing or drawing to even try.

I had always liked to draw, though, and kept doing it just for fun. During high school, I also painted with oil paints and made stained glass windows. I actually sold some, too—my first taste of self-employment. I went to Brown University after high school, where I studied Psychology and British and American Literature. I began to think about what I really wanted to do for a career, and what I really wanted was something that involved art. So after graduation from college in 1985, I moved to Boston to study drawing and painting at the Boston Museum School (also known as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

At the Museum School, I started getting paintings in exhibitions and won a few prizes, and then was able to get political illustrations published in the Christian Science Monitor and the Boston Globe.

Suddenly I had a career as an editorial and political illustrator, working with a lot of magazines and newspapers. In 1989, I illustrated my first book, Flatfoot Fox and the Case of the Missing Eye, with Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston.

Since then, I've illustrated some twenty books, including my newest one, Bats at the Library, which I also wrote. My other three written-and-illustrated books to date are the New York Times bestseller, Bats at the Beach, Hamlet and the Enormous Chinese Dragon Kite, and Hamlet and the Magnificent Sandcastle.

I also get lots of work published in Cricket, Spider, Ladybug and Babybug magazines, and I enjoy visiting schools to work with students on writing and illustrating stories.

I live in a seaside town in Massachusetts with my wife, my daughter, two cats and a hamster. My hobbies are bicycling, woodworking, and tending a big vegetable garden behind the house. I’m very interested in old-fashioned food preparation, too, and sometimes make my own cheese, kimchi and other things (including a drink called switchel, which I kind of liked but which everybody else in my family thought was nasty).

I also read a lot, which I think is important—it keeps my imagination going, and leaves me feeling much more relaxed than television does!(less)

combine editions
Books by Brian Lies

Average rating: 4.11 · 2,103 ratings · 469 reviews · 22 distinct works

	Bats at the Library 4.15 avg rating — 1,199 ratings — published 2008 — 8 editions	My rating:
	Bats at the Beach 4.18 avg rating — 410 ratings — published 2006 — 7 editions	My rating:
	Bats at the Ballgame 3.79 avg rating — 191 ratings — published 2010 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Hamlet and the Magnificent Sandcastle 3.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2001 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Hamlet and the Enormous Chinese Dragon Kite 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 1994 — 2 editions	My rating:
	More by I. C. Springman, Brian Lies (Illustrator) 4.12 avg rating — 124 ratings — published 2012	My rating:
	Finklehopper Frog by Irene Livingston, Brian Lies 4.31 avg rating — 59 ratings — published 2003 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Finklehopper Frog Cheers by Irene Livingston, Brian Lies (Illustrator) 3.10 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 2005	My rating:
	Flatfoot Fox and the Case of the Missing Eye by Eth Clifford, Brian Lies (Illustrator) 3.67 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 1990 — 2 editions	My rating:
	See the Yak Yak (Step-Into-Reading, Step 1) by Charles Ghigna (Goodreads Author), Brian Lies (Illustrator) 4.33 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1999 — 2 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by Brian Lies

“practice makes better”
― Brian Lies

tags: art , drawing , improving , practice

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