About Chris Barton

I'm the author of picture books including bestseller Shark vs. Train, Sibert Honor-winning The Day-Glo Brothers, and Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson's Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions, which has been included on 21 state reading lists. Other well-known titles of mine include How to Make a Book (About My Dog), Fire Truck vs. Dragon, Dazzle Ships, The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch, and What Do You Do with a Voice Like That? My new books include Moving Forward: From Space-Age Rides to Civil Rights Sit-Ins with Airman Alton Yates (illustrated by Steffi Walthall; a School Library Journal Best Book of 2022) and Glitter Everywhere! Where It Came From, Where It's Found & Where It's Going (illustrated by Chaaya Prabhat; June 2023). I visit schools by the score and also love speaking to professional gatherings of librarians, educators, and fellow writers. I'm married to middle-grade/YA novelist Jennifer Ziegler (Worser, How Not to Be Popular). Jennifer and I have four adult children and one dog, and we co-host the children’s literature video series “This One’s Dedicated to…” in which we talk with other authors and illustrators about the dedications they’ve written for their books. Jennifer and I live in Austin, where I serve as a council member of the Texas Institute of Letters, a 501(c)(3) non-profit honor society founded in 1936 to celebrate Texas literature and to recognize distinctive literary achievement. For more information about me, please visit www.chrisbarton.info.