Emma Full of Wonders
2024
Roaring Brook Press (April 2, 2024)
Reading age : 3 - 6 years
EMMA FULL OF WONDERS
Emma is a big dog with a lot of little dreams. She dreams of a cool roll in the grass, a warm spring walk, and food, of course. Every day her dreams get bigger, and bigger, until one day...
A beautiful classic-in-the-making, Caldecott Honor Winner Elisha Cooper’s Emma Full of Wonders is a heartwarming and special read that will be cherished amongst readers young and old.
★ “Blindsidingly moving…”
―Shelf Awareness, starred review
“A beautiful celebration of motherhood...”
– Booklist
“A sweet and unexpected addition to the waiting-for-baby shelf.”
– Kirkus Reviews
Yes & No
2021
Roaring Brook Press (April 13, 2021)
Reading age : 2 - 6 years
Yes & No
This book is about a puppy and a cat and their day together (with a surprise twist at the end). It’s also, I hope, about something more.
I wrote the story at a bakery in Brooklyn, at their communal wood table. Then, as I dreamed about what the book could be, I spent time at the Impressionist Galleries at the Met (looking at clouds and shadows), and the Asian Art Collection (where I fell in love with the mountainous landscape scrolls). I also biked around the city on the lookout for puppies, and if I saw a good one (right age, size, disposition), I’d pull over and ask the owner if I could draw them.
Once I’d assembled my various sketches, I started to paint. I wanted the book to look similar to the black-and-white art of Big Cat, Little Cat, but with a watercolor wash. It took me one summer to paint, possibly longer because of a mistake I made with the paper (one I’m too embarrassed to admit to).
Yes & No is pretty simple: puppy, cat, day. But the emotions, at least for me, became deep. Family, love. Siblings, parent. Sadness, space. The balance within a family, and the rhythm of our days. The longing we all feel – especially now – for a sense of peace.
★ “Yes, indeed.”
―Horn Book, starred review
★ “Delightful.”
―Booklist, starred review
★ “Wonderful.”
―School Library Journal, starred review
★ “Sweetly comic.”
―Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ “It’s hard to imagine a more perfect bedtime story...”
―Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, starred review
River
2019
Publisher : Orchard Books; Illustrated edition (October 1, 2019)
Reading age : 4 - 8 years | Grade level : Preschool - 3
Buy the Book:
River
River is an adventure book, sort of. A young woman launches her canoe in the Adirondacks and paddles three-hundred-miles down the Hudson River to New York City, and home. A modern Odyssey, with fewer monsters and more tugboats.
I did not canoe down the Hudson myself — I’m not a capable enough canoer. But as I explored up and down the river, I think I felt the same wonder of any adventurer. I loved discovering the Hudson’s forested headwaters, or sketching New York harbor from a ferry, or biking over to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to draw boats. My sketchbook filled up. I loved drawing my daughters, too — they modeled as the canoer, sitting on our couch and holding a paddle (I imagine the book’s hero as my daughters, grown up). Then I put everything together and wrote the story.
I don’t know if I’ve enjoyed making a book more. Observation is at the heart of why I love making books. Seeing something new, overcoming that unmoored feeling of being far from home, then coming home. And with luck, when we see the world in all its beauty, whether it’s the Hudson River or our local park, we protect it. That’s my hope for this book.
ROBIN SMITH PICTURE BOOK PRIZE
A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK
A KIRKUS BEST BOOK
HORN BOOK FANFARE LIST
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE PICTURE BOOK
A WASHINGTON POST BEST CHILDREN’S BOOK
“[A] remarkable example of the art of the picture book.”
— The New York Times
★ “Evocative watercolor illustrations.”
— Booklist, starred review
★ “Perfectly suited to the rhythm of a river.”
— Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review
★ Expansive…beautifully rendered.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ “A marvelous vehicle for nature lovers.”
— School Library Journal, starred review
★ “We now notice every detail.”
— Horn Book, starred review
★ “Readers will feel they have traveled a journey themselves.”
— Kirkus, starred review
Big Cat, Little Cat
2017
Roaring Brook Press (March 14, 2017)
Reading age : 3 - 6 years
Order:
Big Cat, Little Cat
I grew up on a farm with a lot of animals. Dogs, cats, horses, goats. They had a way of cycling through. I loved them and they helped me as I grew and it was never easy when they died. They filled my life. Then I left the farm and went to college and then New York, California, Chicago and New York again, and I never had animals. Until a few years ago, when our daughters convinced me to get cats. There were two. This book starts with that experience.
CALDECOTT HONOR
A SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK
HORN BOOK FANFARE LIST
A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A CHARLOTTE ZOLOTOW AWARD HIGHLY COMMENDED TITLE
AN ALSC NOTABLE CHILDREN’S BOOK
A NCTE CHARLOTTE HUCK AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING FICTION FOR CHILDREN RECOMMENDED BOOK
★ “A gentle, loving look at the life cycle of pets.”
— School Library Journal, starred review
★ “[R]ealistic and comforting.”
— Horn Book, starred review
★ “Absolutely cat.”
— Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review
★ “Cooper delivers the message that love persists through loss.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ “Perfect bibliotherapy.”
— Kirkus, starred review
Falling
2016
Anchor (June 14, 2016)
Memoir
Order:
Falling
(first essay below)
It
It starts like this. I am picking up my daughter from day camp on the shores of Lake Michigan and taking her to Wrigley Field. Zoë likes the Cubs so I thought I would surprise her with a game. It’s a pretty day, and as we bike along the brownstone streets of Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, my daughter on the bike-seat behind me with her curly hair blowing in the wind, we are the vision of summer.
We enter the crowd and I buy two tickets behind home plate. Zoë is almost five, small for her age, so she sits on my lap so she can see better. As the game starts, I throw my left arm around her body, my hand cupping her side, and there, under her ribs, I feel a bump.
I don’t make much of it, though at night I mention it to Elise. It feels like an extra rib, though there isn’t one on her right side. Neither of us is concerned, nevertheless in the morning I make an appointment with our pediatrician, just to be safe. The next day I take Zoë to the pediatrician, who feels Zoë’s side and says the bump is probably a cyst, and will go away, though the following day it feels bigger.
★ “A profoundly moving memoir.”
— Kirkus, starred review
“A tough, tender book.”
— Boston Globe
★ “This slim memoir packs a mighty punch.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Elisha Cooper’s Falling is a beautiful book that knows so much about love and uncertainty.”
— Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams
“Cooper’s prose evokes the sharpness — and the melancholy — of his watercolor paintings for his children’s books.”
— The New York Times
“As plainspoken as his beautiful picture books, Elisha Cooper’s Falling sketches out, in moving detail, a father’s ultimate ordeal.”
— Julia Glass, author of Three Junes
“This is a book I will never forget. I recommend it to everyone.”
— Abigail Thomas, author of A Three Dog Life
8: An Animal Alphabet
2015
Orchard Books (July 28, 2015)
Reading age : 3 - 7 years
Order:
8: An animal alphabet
This book is many things. An alphabet book, a counting book, a finding book, a questioning book (there’s a “Did you Know?” fact about each animal at the back of the book). Though I wonder if this book may have been just an excuse to draw animals.
For research I drew on references like The Sibley Guide to Birds by David Allen Sibley. I spent more than a few afternoons sketching in front of the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History. Children’s books often make animals appear “cute.” But I think children are too smart to fall for that. More curious. Because the reality — the strangeness and diversity of animals in our world— can be eye-opening.
★ “It’s a feast of fauna!”
— Booklist, starred review
★ “[W]orth adding to any collection.”
— School Library Journal, starred review
★ “Skillfully blending counting and matching elements…”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ “Great fun.”
— Kirkus, starred review
Train
2013
Orchard Books (September 24, 2013)
Reading age : 4-8 years
Order:
Train
I rode a lot of trains for this book. Commuter trains in and out of New York, passenger trains to Chicago, an overnight train to California. I drew freight trains — massive and rumbling — at rail yards in New Jersey. I sketched commuters in Grand Central Station. Then I took the sketches and put them into one narrative — the story of five trains making their way across America. Even though the book is about trains, I hope it’s about something deeper. Adventure, discovery. How we start in one place, and disembark a few hours later someplace else, and find ourselves different. Travel, at its best, is transformative.
★ “A poetic, beautifully conceived book.”
— Booklist, starred review
★ “Kids…will clamor to hear this one.”
— BCCB, starred review
★ “[A] distinguished addition to most collections.”
— School Library Journal, starred review
★ “[A] valentine to the sweep of American geography.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ “Kids will be all aboard for this one.”
— Kirkus, starred review
Homer
2012
Greenwillow Books (May 29, 2012)
Reading age : 4-8 years
Order:
Homer
An old dog sits on a porch looking out at a beach. Other dogs in his family — and the children and parents in the family — head out for the day. Then the dog welcomes them back, and follows them inside. That’s it. For this story I drew on childhood animals (I had a dog named Homer), and our summer house on Long Island Sound. I thought how sitting in one place and observing the world is not a bad place to be. Dogs don’t live long; they go from puppies to old dogs fast. But they’re often the center around which a family orbits.
★ “Dog lovers will adore this quiet portrayal of companionship.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ “Perfect for reading on the porch.”
— Kirkus, starred review
★ “Wonderful.”
— Booklist, starred review
Farm
2010
Orchard Books (April 1, 2010)
Reading age : 4 - 8 years
Order:
Farm
I grew up on a farm in New England. It was a farm out of a children’s book, with goats and an apple orchard, and very different from Midwestern farms with their flat cornfields and John Deere tractors. This book is about those working farms. For research I drove around DeKalb County, in Illinois, sketching barns and talking with farmers. I became friends with one farmer; during the corn harvest he let me drive his combine harvester. This book tells the story of the seasons on one farm. Children’s books about farms, with cute pigs and red tractors, undersell farms. The reality is more interesting.
SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS GOLD MEDAL WINNER 2006
★ "A joyful tribute to family farms.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ "It's as thorough and pleasing an introduction to a farm as one could ask of a picture book."
— Horn Book, starred review
“It’s the best farm book, the best realistic farm book, I have ever read for kids.”
— Elizabeth Bird, School Library Journal
Beaver is Lost
2010
Schwartz & Wade (November 26, 2013)
Reading age : 4 - 5 years
Order:
Beaver is lost
There’s not much to say about a book with four words. The idea came to me at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. I was with my daughters at the beaver exhibit. The beavers were large and round, moving through the water with great purpose. Grace, even. These were wild creatures in the city: what if one were lost here and had to find its way back home? I went around Chicago and drew watery places a lost beaver would have to navigate: fountains, swimming pools, sewers. I don’t think I’m giving too much away to say that this beaver eventually finds his way home.
“It's a neat, circular adventure."
— The Horn Book
★ “These pictures speak a thousand words."
— Kirkus, starred review
ridiculous/hilarious/terrible/cool: A Year in an American High School
2008
Dial (March 13, 2008)
Reading age : 12 - 15 years
Order:
ridiculous/hilarious/terrible/cool: A Year in an American High School
For this book, I spent a year back at Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago. Eight students were kind enough to let me follow them around with a notebook. We talked about drama with friends, upcoming parties, and college applications. These students’ stories made this book. The book is also a journal of the day-to-day life of one American high school, from homecoming to prom.
★ “The considerable strengths of the work come from Cooper’s genius for observation and confident refusal to dramatize what he finds.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
“[A] wonder of a book.”
— Chicago Sun-Times
Crawling
2007
Anchor (September 18, 2007)
Memoir
Order:
Crawling
This book is a collection of essays about my first year as a father. Our daughter was born in California, and that year brought a whirlwind of plastic gifts, dining adventures, sleepless nights, and wonder. I kept a notebook and after we moved to Chicago I edited those notes into essays at a café in Lincoln Square. When the book was published it was amazing to hold this orderly thing in my hands, as the time it represented was so messy.
(first essay below)
Birth
There’s a head sticking out of my best friend. This is insane. Anybody who says this moment is the most precious wonderful thing in the world is delusional. This isn’t a miracle, it’s assault. I’d call 911 but we’re already in a hospital.
I didn’t know it would be like this, not even the day before. After Elise’s water broke in the morning we went for a walk. Elise’s belly was poking out from her small body like a melon. We hiked up in the hills and looked out at the San Francisco Bay shimmering in the distance. In the afternoon we drove to the hospital and were given a room with a view of the Oakland hills, and backless gowns. This was nice, I thought.
We walked the halls kicking a ball of tinfoil in an improvised game of soccer. As Elise’s contractions increased we stopped playing soccer and just did laps, my arm on her waist. We’d pass the door with the male doctor inside reading O, The Magazine and Elise would not say much and a minute later when we passed the same door (the doctor a few pages further along in O) another contraction would hit, right on time.
Evening became night and night became that time that is neither night nor morning. Elise’s contractions got big and painful and the nurse didn’t like the baby’s heartbeat. She made hushed calls to the attending physician and Elise was hooked to an IV and given oxygen and painkillers. The mood in the room became desperate. Or, I felt desperate. As Elise curled on her side and closed her eyes I felt her slipping from me. My favorite person in the world lay there humming to herself and I could not reach her. I could only hold her hand and be alone with my worry in the dim light of an anonymous hospital room with the tail lights of the early morning traffic on the highway outside slowly blinking past.
It got light. Elise got an epidural, I got a coffee. Our ageless Chinese midwife showed up looking rested and cheerful. I like her, but didn’t then. After an hour of checking Elise’s dilation she said, “Okay, feel like pushing?” Elise, opening her eyes, said, “Yes, please.”
Elise pushed and turned red. She pushed more and turned burgundy. I held one of her legs and mopped her brow and tried to give her water out of a bottle whose straw kept popping out and onto the floor. And though I had gone to birthing class and done all the correct things to prepare for this exact moment, I couldn’t have felt less competent had I been handed three lively cats and told to juggle them. Elise was muttering and I was saying things like “You’re doing great” and “You call that a push?” Well, no, but it crossed my mind. Everything that shouldn’t have been crossing my mind was: how the traffic on the highway outside looked bad today, how soft and pillowy the clouds were, how juggling cats would be difficult, how Elise now was the color of a beet.
Maybe I was trying to distract myself from what was happening. Our ageless Chinese midwife was doing the same, bouncing on the big purple birthing ball across the room between pushes in an attempt to distract Elise who wanted to push all the time.
Time got tight, focused. Elise was yelling like a wounded animal. I saw the head and thought about calling Emergency. Elise was yelling louder and I was holding her leg and saying God knows what and nurses were circling and hands were reaching in and out and twisting this being that seemed to want to stay right where it was, not ready to join us yet. Then out it came, a gangly thing covered in blood. The thing was turned to me and it looked into my eyes with the hugest most startled eyes I have ever seen and our eyes locked. I thought, I know you.
And in that instant, in the moment when the baby was wrapped and swaddled and brought to Elise’s chest, there was a sense that all the pain that had been in that room was already being repaired, the night of tension disappearing in a soothing wash of forgetfulness, memory stitched together so that we could inaccurately look back on this experience with fondness. Indeed, a miracle.
Elise was beaming. I rested my face against hers and we looked into the baby’s eyes. Neither of us said anything for a long time. We were too stunned to remember to check the sex. But as the baby was carried across the room, Elise asked, “What is it?” and I can still hear a voice saying, almost as an afterthought, “It’s a girl.”
The girl is lying three feet to my right now. She’s in her bassinet, taking a nap next to my desk. Her hair is dark with light highlights. It waves in places, curling at the back of her neck. She has a round belly, a dimple on her chin like me. She just took a bath and is wrapped in a white blanket. She’s making small noises. Her name is Zoë.
“Cooper's journal is a gift to all new parents...”
— Publishers Weekly
“A bravely honest memoir of parenthood.”
— The New York Times
“Hilarious and beautiful…”
— Chicago Tribune
Beach
2006
Orchard Books (June 01, 2006)
Reading age : 3 - 5 years
Order:
Beach
I did most of the drawings for this book on Lake Michigan. Our home in Chicago was near the lake, and I’d go there with my daughters to play and swim. And sketch. Since there are salty aspects to beaches, I flew back East and drew seaweed and crabs. I remembered beaches I loved when I was young, from Fire Island to Cape Hatteras. Then I put all these drawings together into one summer day at the beach. So the beach in this book looks like the Hamptons, but has Midwestern roots (the lighthouse here is at the headwaters of the Chicago River). Even a city beach has details that make a beach a beach: sand, seagulls, and bathers in funny swimsuits.
SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS GOLD MEDAL WINNER
“Elisha Cooper's lovely, sophisticated watercolors create a day at the beach.”
— USA Today
“It’s hard to imagine a book more evocative of summer than this one…”
— The New York Times
★ “Another charmer from Cooper.”
— Kirkus, starred review
Bear Dreams
2006
Greenwillow Books (August 29, 2006)
Reading age : 4 - 8 years
Order:
bear dreams
This book started as a sequel to Magic Thinks Big, my book about a cat who sits in a doorway. I wanted to write about the cat imagining himself joining a migration of geese. That idea didn’t work. But one image stuck: a furry mammal in a V of flying geese. I reworked the story — out with the cat, in with a bear — and came up with a book about a bear cub who doesn’t want to hibernate (or a child who doesn’t want to sleep). His friends are playing outside, but he cannot, so he has to dream.
“Cooper captures the indignation of a youngster who does not want to go to bed.”
— School Library Journal
“A charming bedtime tale.”
— Kirkus
A good night walk
2005
Orchard Books (September 1, 2005)
Reading age : 4 - 8 years
Order:
a good night walk
When my daughter was an infant she cried in the evenings so I took her for walks. I walked along our street in the Berkeley hills and pointed out things, from recycling bins to sprawling oak trees. The walks calmed her, and me. After half an hour she fell asleep and we came home to bed. That was the start of this book. Before we left California, I sketched our neighborhood — trees and houses — and tried to notice the shifting sights and sounds of a place as it approached bedtime. This book is about small changes, and also about the big change for me as I became a father.
“A lovely choice.”
— School Library Journal
★ “Beautifully captures the soft, slow-down rhythms of dusk.”
— Booklist, starred review
Magic Thinks Big
2004
Greenwillow Books (April 1, 2004)
Reading age : 3 - 5 years
Order:
Magic thinks big
Years ago I spent a week at a house on a lake in Maine. There was a cat there named Magic, and one morning we saw him sitting in a doorway, looking out. My wife said, “Magic is contemplating his next move.” I liked that line and thought it would be a good start to a book. When we flew home to California I found a cat to sketch. An immense cat named Orangey, who according to his owner’s vet was, at thirty-four pounds, the largest cat in Alameda County. I drew him, and drew on memories of the Maine lake, and wondered what a cat would think about while sitting in a doorway. I like the idea that imagination can be its own adventure.
★ “Magic is the ultimate cat.”
— Kirkus, starred review
“Elisha Cooper’s watercolors, like his sentences, are simple and quiet and essentially perfect.”
— The New York Times
Ice Cream
2002
HarperCollins (April 1, 2002)
Reading age : 4 - 8 years
Order:
ice cream
I had trouble drawing cows when I was a child, even though I lived on a farm and was surrounded by them. I tore up a lot of drawings. Now I like drawing cows — they’re funny-looking, bony and expressive. Writing this book may have been an excuse for me to draw cows, and to drive to Point Reyes and explore its beautiful dairies. I also went to the Clover Stornetta Creamery in Petaluma to see milk separated from cream, and Dreyer’s ice cream factory in Hayward to see ice cream production itself. It was so fun following the milk trail.
BEST OF THE BAY AREA — ILLUSTRATED CHILDREN’S BOOK
“Throughout, the text is crystal clear, all facts summoned up and then tweaked with personality. A real person with a wry sense of humor shaped this information into a good story.”
— The New York Times
★ “Cooper’s deliciously diverting book tackles a subject of intrinsic appeal to kids.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
Dance!
2001
HarperCollins (August 1, 2001)
Reading age : 6 - 8 years
Order:
Dance!
I took a ballet class in college to improve my football. Years later, I returned to dance. This book is about how one dance performance comes together, from choreography to opening night. I went to Alvin Ailey and Mark Morris shows, and a modern dance class at Berkeley. Watching the dancers in that class — stretching, sweating, drinking water, practicing each move until they got it right — gave me such appreciation for the athleticism and work that goes into creating dance.
A NEW YORK TIMES BEST ILLUSTRATED CHILDREN’S BOOK
“[A] thoroughly contemporary look at a modern dance company at work.”
— The New York Times
★ “Few illustrators, save perhaps James Stevenson, can coax quite so much expression and animation from a few dashes of fine brushwork and a smear or two of watercolor fill.”
— Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review
“Cooper’s illuminating depiction of the many steps leading up to the grand event are deserving of enthusiastic applause.”
— Publishers Weekly
California: A Sketchbook
2000
Chronicle Books (March 1, 2000)
Order:
CALIFORNIA: A SKETCHBOOK
After moving to California, I spent a year driving around the state. I went to some great places: a cattle ranch in Fresno, a Silicon Valley startup, Chez Panisse, the big waves of Mavericks, Sequoia and Joshua Tree. I met people like Mayor Jerry Brown of Oakland, and the LA rapper Funk Doobiest. California is beautiful and diverse, open for exploration. I spent a lot of time on the phone trying to convince people to let me see inside their studio, farm, or prison.
Building
1999
Greenwillow Books (April 30, 1999)
Reading age : 5 - 10 years
Order:
Building
After moving to California, I decided to write a children’s book about how a building gets built. In downtown Oakland I found construction sites filled with scaffolding and hammering. I also worked at a Habitat for Humanity site to get a deeper feel for construction. I love the progression of building: how it starts with an idea and an empty plot of land, then months of sawdust and sweat later, a structure is standing.