Alumni News: Eleanor Davis

Eleanor's book Stinky was just named a Geisel Honor Book by the American Library Association at its annual convention last week.

The winner of the Newbery Award always gets the most attention, but the ALA makes awards in other categories, like the Caldecott for illustrated books and the Geisel, named for Dr. Seuss, which recognizes the most distinguished books for beginning readers. In addition to the winner, there were four honor books.

Eleanor started drawing comics early on at Kino. As a junior high student doing writing with Jack, she wrote a series called The Caped Sucker, inspired by the fact that a half-unwrapped tootsie roll pop looks like it is wearing a cape -- and is easy to draw, too. For her senior project (she graduated in 2001 after 11 years at Kino), she produced a comic book every month.

Stinky is Eleanor's first commercially published book. She was approached about writing and drawing it when she was still in college at Savannah College of Art and Design, where she was majoring in sequential art and illustration. It is one of a series of books in comic book format published by Toon Books for young readers .

There's an interview with Eleanor here.