Kids' books: Picture books

Some picture book authors to check out. I know there are many, many more, so please add suggestions in the comments.

Jacqueline Woodson has a number of picture books, including Coming On Home Soon, a World War II era book with an African American "Rosie the Riveter" mom; and The Other Side, in which two girls become friends in spite of their segregated town.

He's got the Whole World In His Hands , the traditional song illustrated by Kadir Nelson

Pam Munoz Ryan
We've read several of her picture books, my favorites are One Hundred is a Family and When Marian Sang, which is the amazing story of the black opera singer Marian Anderson.

Rachna Gilmore (East Indian, now lives in Canada) has a number of picture books and early readers, including a three-book series about a girl named Gita, a recent immigrant to Canada from India.

Uma Krishnaswami currently lives in New Mexico. Some of her stories are set in the U.S., others are set in India. Her most recent, Many Windows is co-written with Pakistani-Canadian Rukhsana Khan: A collection of seven stories about six children who are in the same class at school, two white boys, a black girl, a Chinese girl, an Indian girl, and a Pakistani boy. They are not friends, but they all come together in one community at the end of the stories. Each story in the collection centers on a different celebration within the faith of that child, and in the appendix at the back of the book, each of the celebrations is explained in more depth, as it is celebrated within that faith community: Bhuddism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism. Each story represents a window into the life of the child, or, from a different point of view, the child's window looking out to the world.

In addition to Many Windows, Khan has written several other children's books, many with Muslim and immigrant protagonists. Coming to Canada, a 52-paged novel the Canadian government commissioned and gives out to immigrant children, will be available to purchase for the first time under the title A New Life, in February, 2009. It focuses on two children, 8 and 10, who leave Lahore, Pakistan and begin a new phase of life with their parents in Canada.

Allen Say has written picture books and short novels; my favorites are How My Parents Learned to Eat, about an American sailor courting a Japanese woman during World War II, and Grandfather's Journey, but there are many more I haven't read.