Eric Rohmann was born in Riverside, Illinois in 1957. He grew up in Downers
Grove, a suburb of Chicago. As a boy, Eric played Little League
baseball, read comic books, collected rocks and minerals, insects, leaves,
and animal skulls.

Eric has his BS in Art and an MS in Studio Art from Illinois State
University, and an MFA in Printmaking/Fine Bookmaking from Arizona State
University. He also studied Anthropology and Biology. Eric taught
printmaking, painting, and fine bookmaking at Belvoir Terrace in
Massachusettes and introductory drawing, fine bookmaking, and printmaking at
St. Olaf College in Minnesota.

Eric has created book jackets for a number of novels, including His Dark
Materials, by Philip Pullman. He won a Caldecott Honor Book award for Time Flies, and a Caldecott Medal award for My Friend Rabbit. Eric has written four children's books: My Friend Rabbit, The Cinder-Eyed Cats, Pumpkinhead, and A Kitten's Tale.

Eric currently resides in a suburb of Chicago.

A Kitten Tale
Knopf, 2008
ages 4 to 8, ISBN 978-0517709153

Once there were four kittens who had never seen snow. The first three kittens are wary—snow is cold, it’s wet, it covers everything. As the seasons pass and winter begins to loom, the three skittish kittens worry. But the fourth kitten is getting excited. Snow will cover everything! “I can’t wait!”

Clara and Asha
Roaring Brook Press, 2005
ages 4 to 8, ISBN 978-1596430310

Clara y Asha
Juventad, 2006
ISBN 978-8426135476

In Clara and Asha—as in Eric Rohmann's Caldecott Medal-winning My Friend Rabbit—a simple storyline becomes the basis for fun and sophistication. Clara's friend Asha is an enormous fish, which means that hide-and-seek, Halloween, snow days, and afternoons in the park offer surprising opportunities for adventure. With oil paintings that playfully suggest stories within stories and convey great emotional range, this is a captivating book about the special world of a child's imagination—where a giant fish might come to visit, and the things you do and the things you feel with an imaginary friend are intensely real.

Awards
ALA Notable Children's Books (Younger Readers Awards)

The Prairie Train
written by Antoine O Flatharta
Dragonfly, 2004
ages 4 to 8, ISBN 978-0613866798

"Once upon a time there was a train that dreamed of being a boat."

It was the train that took immigrants seeking a better life in the New World across the endless flat prairies to San Francisco. And it was the train that took Conor, a small homesick boy from Ireland, on the voyage he would remember for the rest of his life. While on that train, Conor dreams of being back in Connemara, Ireland, with his grandfather when suddenly, to his amazement, the waving prairie grass becomes the sea and the train on which he is traveling, like a boat, sails across it right back to his home. How Conor comes to realize that the home he's left behind will always be with him provides a reassuring and deeply satisfying resolution to this poignant tale. The dreamlike paintings by Caldecott Honor artist Eric Rohmann combine with the lyrical text of Irish playwright Antoine Ó Flatharta to make this one of the most memorable books of this—or any—season.

Pumpkinhead
Knopf, 2003
ages 4 to 8, ISBN 978-0375924163

Otho was born with a pumpkin for a head. And despite what one might think, he was not seen as a curiosity by his family. So begins this brilliantly droll tale of a very unusual boy. Otho loses his pumpkin head—quite literally—when a bat decides it would make a good home. And despite what one might think, this is not the end for Otho, but the beginning of a great adventure. Is Otho’s story a parable? A cautionary tale? A celebration of the individual? A head trip? That is something each reader (and Otho) will have to decide...

My Friend Rabbit
Henry Holt, 2003
ages 4 to 8, ISBN 978-0761315353

When Mouse lets his best friend, Rabbit, play with his brand-new airplane, trouble isn't far behind. Of course, Rabbit has a solution—but when Rabbit sets out to solve a problem, even bigger problems follow.

Every child who's ever had someone slightly bigger or slightly older over to play will recognize this story about toys and trouble and friendship. Eric Rohmann's third picture book is illustrated with robust, wonderfully expressive hand-colored relief prints—the perfect vehicle for a simple, heartfelt tale about childhood.

Awards
Caldecott Medal, 2003

The Cinder-Eyed Cats
Knopf, 1997
ages 4 to 8, ISBN 978-0517708972

Eric Rohmann transports a young boy in a magical sailboat to a lush tropical island inhabited by six cats with eyes like blazing coals. Rohmann's magnificent oil paintings draw the eye seamlessly from page to page, adding layers of complexity to a deceptively simple storyline. His palette reaches effortlessly from the brilliance of a tropical day to the glow of a starlit night, while his scenes range from breathtaking ocean vistas to the meticulously detailed and expressive creatures. The Cinder-Eyed Cats is both a sumptuous feast for the eye and a virtuoso feat of picture storytelling.

Time Flies
Scholastic, 1995
ages 4 to 8, ISBN 978-0517885550

Time Flies, a wordless picture book, is inspired by the theory that birds are the modern relatives of dinosaurs. This story conveys the tale of a bird trapped in a dinosaur exhibit at a natural history museum. Through Eric's use of color, readers can actually see the bird enter into a mouth of a dinosaur, and then escape unscathed.

Awards
Caldecott Honor, 1999; ALA Notable Book

King Crow
written by Jennifer Armstrong
Random House, 1995
ages 4 to 8, ISBN 978-0517596340

Jailed by an evil foe, a king receives invaluable help from a crow that regularly brings him the latest news.