Rebecca Bender
Graduating from the Ontario College of Art and Design with the medal for illustration, Rebecca Bender made a big splash with her first picture book, Giraffe and Bird. It won the OLA Blue Spruce Award in 2012, the following year it sequel, Don’t Laugh at Giraffe, was an OLA Blue Spruce honour book. Peach Girl, a picture book written by Raymond Nakamura, is a Cooperative Children’s Book Center best-of-the-year Choice and a Toronto Public Library “First and Best” list selection. An art director and designer as well as an author/illustrator, Rebecca lives in Burlington, Ontario, with her husband and two children.