Christmastime!
Arthur decides to make Mother and Father special Christmas cookies as a present. But when the cookies are finally finished, they are hard as rocks! Can Arthur think of a way to turn this disaster into the best Christmas present ever?
Lillian Hoban's books for children have been working magic for nearly thirty years. Her illustrations can help change an unfamiliar setting-like a museum filled with dinosaurs and whales-into a wondrous adventure, and her words and pictures together can transform chimpanzees and badgers into very real companions for the youngest reader.
Ms. Hoban was born and raised in Philadelphia. Among the first books she illustrated were the ever-popular "Frances" books, and several years later she wrote and illustrated Arthur's Christmas Cookies, thereby ushering in her beloved 'Arthur" series.
In 1967 Ms. Hoban was asked to illustrate Will I Have a Friend? by Miriam Cohen. It was the beginning of an enormously popular collaboration that produced more that a dozen books about Jim, Paul, Danny, Anna Maria, and the rest of the first-grade classcharacters as familiar to children as their own classmates.
Perhaps the key to the unfailing popularity of Ms. Hoban's stories and illustrations is that she's long been a keen observer of children, having had firsthand experience raising four of her own.
Lillian Hoban lives in Connecticut.
