A girl makes her own dollhouse in this picture book that celebrates creativity and imagination!

A little girl proudly walks the reader through her handmade dollhouse, pointing out the bricks she painted on the outside, the wallpaper she drew on the inside, the fancy clothes she made for her dolls, and the little elevator she made out of a paper cup. She’s proud of her house and has lots of fun using her imagination to play with it—until she discovers her friend Sophie’s “perfect” storebought house. Sophie thinks her house, with everything matching and even a toilet seat that goes up and down, is pretty perfect too, until both girls discover that the narrator’s handmade dollhouse is really a lot more fun.

"Celebrates the best of free play, capturing what it's like to be fully engaged and inspired." —The New York Times

"Readers will feel right at home with this cozy tribute to imagination." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred

"The realization that creative, outside-the-box artistry can be more inspiring than anything manufactured makes for a wonderful story." —Publishers Weekly, Starred

Author Bio

My parents and grandparents were all artists so it’s not surprising that I became one too. I spent a lot of time in my grandfather’s studio, where he let me add to his abstract paintings and music. When I was three, my parents started a puppet theater company called “The Mystic Paper Beasts” and my sister and I traveled and performed with them through out the United States and Europe. My drawings and illustrated journals from my travel and experiences with the Beasts, inspire me still and led to the children’s books “The Year I Didn’t Go To School” and “Chloe’s Birthday..and me”

I graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 1994 and spent my last year in Rome with RISD’s European Honors Program. Chronicle Books then published “Lucy’s Eyes and Margaret’s Dragon;Lives of the Virgin Saints” a book of saint paintings and stories I made while I was in Rome.

After moving to Brooklyn, I got my first freelance illustration job with the New Yorker. My New Yorker illustrations inspired a lucky chain of work with many magazines and children’s books.

My first children’s book, “Mr. Semolina-Semolinus; a Greek folk tale” was published in 1997, and I have illustrated more than thirty books since then. I have illustrated stories by such authors as Toni Morrison, Mary Pope Osborne, Ursula Hegi, Mathea Harvey and Gertrude Stein. I illustrated and wrote my two most recent books;Tell Me What to Dream About and This is My Dollhouse.

I have also continued to do editorial illustration too and I currently illustrate a weekly column for the New York Times called Ties.

I live with my husband and two daughters in the Hudson Valley.