Leda Schubert
Writer and Teacher

Actual current photo. Notice portrait of Winnie (partial view) behind me.

Here is teeny me signing in Texas in April for the Bluebonnet list. I flew there! On a plane! I had fun! (It is possible that I hate to fly.)

Older photo. Better.

The anti-author photo: Mary Azarian, illustrator of HERE COMES DARRELL, and I pose with excavator. Try using a magnifying glass.
Photo by Bob Rosenfeld.

Darrell Farnham, the inspiration for HERE COMES DARRELL, digs a pond with his excavator.

Welcome to my web site!

How nice that you have managed to find the virtual me. Please hit a lot of buttons and explore, look at dog photos and other assorted photographs, and CHECK OUT MY BOOKS! I update the pages fairly often.

It is not easy to put up all these pages that are full of information about me and my books for children when I'd rather talk about you, but I do it anyway.

I live in Plainfield, Vermont, the center of the universe, where 1200 other souls and I enjoy our used bookstore, community cafes, gas station-convenience stores, pizza place, food coop, and the glorious Green Mountains. I've been here a long time and the traffic is getting much worse, the winters are long, and the blackflies are terrible. I tell you this to discourage you from moving here. (Underneath my hostile exterior, however, I am a very nice person.)


I practice arabesques at about age four or five. I always wanted to be a ballet dancer. Don't I look exactly like the dancers below? By the way, I still love striped t-shirts.


Houghton Mifflin, Fall, 2005. Cover image c. Mary Azarian.

Throughout the seasons in northern Vermont, Darrell helps his neighbors, never finding time to fix his own barn. When a windstorm passes through town, he finds his kindness to his neighbors returned.

Caldecott Medal winner Mary Azarian knows Darrell's Vermont world well, but this is the first time she's put a backhoe in a book.


Now Available or Coming Soon
(Click on each title for complete information.)

BALLET OF THE ELEPHANTS
A nonfiction picture book illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker.
HERE COMES DARRELL
Illustrated by Mary Azarian, published by Houghton Mifflin
WINNIE PLAYS BALL and WINNIE ALL DAY LONG
Illustrated by William Benedict. Candlewick, 2000.
FEEDING THE SHEEP
To be illustrated by Andrea U'Ren and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in Spring, 2010!
THE PRINCESS OF BORSCHT
To be illustrated by Bonnie Christensen and published by Neal Porter/Roaring Brook Press. Yay!
MONSIEUR MARCEAU
A nonfiction picture book about the great Marcel Marceau, Master of Mime
NATHAN'S SONG
Serial Novel for the Boston Globe's Newspapers in Education
DONNA AND THE ROBBERS
Currently delayed. Stay tuned.

Find Authors