Bloom, Suzanne 1950–

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Bloom, Suzanne 1950–

Personal

Born 1950; children: sons. Education: Cooper Union, B.F.A.

Addresses

Home—McDonough, NY. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Boyds Mills Press, 815 Church St., Honesdale, PA 18431. E-mail—bloombateman@frontier.net.

Career

Children's writer and illustrator.

Awards, Honors

Theodor Seuss Geisel Award Honor Book, 2006, for A Splendid Friend, Indeed.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

We Keep a Pig in the Parlor, C.N. Potter (New York, NY), 1988.

A Family for Jamie: An Adoption Story, C.N. Potter (New York, NY), 1991.

The Bus for Us, Boyds Mills Press (Honesdale, PA), 2001.

Piggy Monday: A Tale about Manners, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 2001.

No Place for a Pig, Boyds Mills Press (Honesdale, PA), 2004.

A Splendid Friend, Indeed, Boyds Mills Press (Honesdale, PA), 2005.

ILLUSTRATOR

Eve Bunting, Girls: A to Z, Boyds Mills Press (Honesdale, PA), 2002.

Eve Bunting, My Special Day at Third Street School, Boyds Mills Press (Honesdale, PA), 2004.

Pat Brisson, Melissa Parkington's Beautiful, Beautiful Hair, Boyds Mills Press (Honesdale, PA), 2006.

Sidelights

Suzanne Bloom is a children's writer and illustrator who introduces readers to unusual piggy pets and school bus events in her own books, while also contributing artwork to tales by other picture-book authors. In Bloom's The Bus for Us, big brother Gus must keep explaining to his little sister that each vehicle that passes is not their school bus. While it is clearly the excited young girl's first day of school, readers soon suspect that she is also gently teasing her older brother. While her text relates this simple vignette, Bloom's illustrations show other goings-on nearby, such as a runaway turtle switching the children's school lunches. "Though the bright watercolors spread against crisp white backgrounds are eyecatching," wrote Thomas Pitchford in School Library Journal, readers will really be drawn in by the "repetitive chorus" of the girl's questionings. Ilene Cooper noted in Booklist that young readers will "really enjoy" Bloom's "watercolor art, alive with hijinks and humor."

Piggy Monday: A Tale about Manners features a classroom of children who are so poorly behaved that they

start to turn into pigs; reverting to the use of proper manners will allow them to become children again and shed their piggy ears and curlicue tails. "The charming illustrations of pigs will draw young children to this moralistic but enjoyable bit of fun," wrote Kathy Broderick in a Booklist review, while in Kirkus Reviews a contributor praised the author's ability to relate "a needed theme with enough wit to make it palatable." According to School Library Journal critic Doris Gebel, Bloom's "comical, cartoon-style illustrations … add to the fun of the humorous, rhymed, if somewhat didactic text."

A woman with a passion for collecting anything featuring pigs wins a real porker for a pet in No Place for a Pig. Though she loves her new housemate, Serena the Pig, Ms. Taffy is worried that her small apartment is not big enough for the growing piglet. While contemplating a move to the country, she is relieved when her neighbors get together and transform a small outdoor lot into a garden where Serena can live. "The busy, colorful illustrations are heavy on amusing detail, and Serena is a pig with personality," wrote Catherine Threadgill in School Library Journal. Describing Bloom's illustrations in her Booklist review, Louise Brueggemann noted that their "bright, vividly colored settings … capture the warmth and joy of the community."

Bloom's A Splendid Friend, Indeed was selected as an honor book for the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award. Goose and Bear are best friends, but sometimes Goose gets on Bear's nerves. Just when Bear thinks he has had it, he sees how much Goose appreciates their friendship, and realizes that he really cares for Goose as well. "A more perfect union between giggle-inducing but reassuring images and a text of very few words is hard to conjure," wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor. As Cooper noted in Booklist, the author/illustrator gets "maximum effect with minimum words, in part because of Goose's energetic dialogue." Shawn Brommer, in School Library Journal, considered A Splendid Friend, Indeed to be "an ideal book for storytimes about friendship and sharing."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 2001, Ilene Cooper, review of The Bus for Us, p. 1400; August, 2001, Kathy Broderick, review of Piggy Monday: A Tale about Manners, p. 2127; January 1, 2994, Louise Brueggmann, review of No Place for a Pig, p. 872; February 15, 2005, Ilene Cooper, review of A Splendid Friend, Indeed, p. 1082.

Childhood Education, winter, 2003, Sue Grossman, review of No Place for a Pig, p. 90.

Horn Book, March-April, 2006, "Theodor Seuss Geisel Award," p. 236.

Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2001, review of Piggy Monday, p. 1353; February 15, 2005, review of A Splendid Friend, Indeed, p. 226.

Publishers Weekly, November 10, 2003, review of No Place for a Pig, p. 61; February 9, 2004, review of My Special Day at Third Street School, p. 81.

School Library Journal, June, 2001, Thomas Pitchford, review of The Bus for Us, p. 102; January, 2002, review of Piggy Monday, p. 95; November, 2003, Catherine Threadgill, review of No Place for a Pig, p. 88; May, 2005, Shawn Brommer, review of A Splendid Friend, Indeed, p. 77.