Wendy Halperin’s educational outreach program, Drawing Children into Reading, trains teachers how to teach children the correct hand positioning used in writing and drawing in order to foster creativity, cognitive development, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skill development. Halperin has received a 2010 Excellence in Education Award from the Michigan Association of School Boards for her work. Additionally, she is just finishing up a three-year field study in Chicago with 161 children.
As a children’s book illustrator, Halperin has received numerous awards including the Boston Globe Best Book of the Year, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and the New York Public Libraries 100 Best Books of the Year (twice). Halperin has studied anatomy, cadaver work, commercial art, illustration, painting, pastel, oil painting, and figure drawing; additionally, she has worked for Simon & Schuster, Penguin—Dutton and Dial, Candlewick Press, Scholastic—Orchard Book, and Edco Publishing.