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Ellen Mayer Books

Ellen Mayer is an award-winning author who writes picture books for babies and young children and the grown-ups who read to them. She has written ten books for children, seven of them for her Small Talk Books® series of lively stories about everyday family life.  This series also helps adults build children’s early language and math skills. Gift & Box, published by Knopf Books for Young Readers in 2023, is her most recent picture book. Kirkus Reviews said of Gift & Box: “This story is absolutely the full package.”

Ellen has a background in early childhood education. For many years she worked as an education researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, studying how families are engaged in their children’s learning. She has also worked as an early literacy home visitor with young children and their parents in a Cambridge Public Schools program. Long ago she earned an M.Phil. in Sociology from Columbia University and began her work life as an applied researcher at a large social welfare agency in New York City.

Ellen often collaborates with her musician husband in “Books + Banjo” reading and sing-along programs for young children. When she isn’t writing picture books, you can find her reading them aloud, as a volunteer visiting author in her local public schools, or with her young grandchildren who live nearby. Ellen lives with her husband in Cambridge, MA.

Learn more . . .

Photo by my little eye photography

Ellen is represented by Mary Cummings at Great River Literary.

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