Maya Myers
Full bio (150 words)
Maya Myers writes books for kids. Her debut picture book, NOT LITTLE, was named a 2022 ALSC Notable Children’s Book. She’s also a freelance book editor and publishing project manager, working with both authors and publishers on all sorts of books, from phonics readers to memoir and everything in between. She’s a former kindergarten teacher, K-5 literacy teacher, and piccolo player. These days, when she’s not wrangling words, she’s probably cooking, digging in the garden, playing a board game with lots of pieces, or (surprise!) reading.
Maya grew up playing in the woods on the coast of Maine, in a little town that is still almost thirty miles from a stoplight. She attended Duke University and has called North Carolina home ever since. She lives in Charlotte with her husband, author/illustrator Matt Myers, three kids, six chickens, and a twenty-three-pound cat.
Condensed bio (50 words)
Maya Myers writes books for kids and edits books for kids and adults. Maya is a former kindergarten teacher who loves cooking, gardening, board games, and (surprise!) reading. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband, author-illustrator Matt Myers, three kids, six chickens, and a twenty-three-pound cat.
Books
illustrated by Hyewon Yum | Neal Porter Books / Holiday House | Release date: January 2, 2024
Dot is good at a lot of things, but good isn’t perfect. Perfect is her sister’s blue-ribbon painting, or her brothers’ first-place tie in the spelling bee. Dot tries and tries, but nothing she does is perfect.
When Dot and her classmates get an assignment to make a poster about a person they admire, Dot has someone in mind right away: her best friend, Sam. But draft after draft comes out looking all wrong! How will she ever make the perfect poster for her perfect friend?
Fans of Dot and Sam and new readers alike will melt as Dot keeps on trying in this relatable companion to Not Little, featuring Maya Myers’s effortless narrative voice and Hyewon Yum’s irresistible illustrations.
Rosie Woods in Little Red Writing Hood
illustrated by Eleanor Howell | Capstone / Picture Window | Release date: January 1, 2024
Rosie knows all the elements of a great story, and she knows she can write one, but she’s having a hard time coming up with ideas. Meanwhile, Wolfie has so many ideas, he can’t decide which story to write first! When Wolfie himself provides inspiration for Rosie’s story, she’s not entirely sure he will be happy with the results.
Rosie Woods in Jack and the Bean Shock
illustrated by Eleanor Howell | Capstone / Picture Window | Release date: January 1, 2024
Rosie can’t quite figure out her new classmate, Jack. Jack is really great at drawing, and he’s helping with the table’s science experiment, but he doesn’t seem to want to say a word to Rosie. What if he doesn’t like her? What if their science experiment is a flop? And where did their fourth bean plant go, anyway?
Little Kids First Big Book of Baby Animals
National Geographic Kids | Release date: March 25, 2022
This may be the cutest Little Kids First Big Book ever! From panda cubs and prairie dog
pups to beluga calves and fuzzy flamingo chicks, this book is packed with fascinating information about adorable and aww-some baby animals.
Meet more than 40 animal babies from every corner of the globe, from ocean depths to
mountaintops, grassy plains to polar lands.Find out how these wee wild ones are born, where they live, what their fam ilies are like, how they get their food, and how they learn to do things on their own―all the things that are important to young humans, too!
illustrated by Hyewon Yum | Neal Porter Books / Holiday House | Release date: July 6, 2021
Dot is the smallest person in her family and at school; even her name is small! People often mistake her for being younger than she is, but not when she tells them the square root of sixty-four is eight, nor when she orders from the grown-up menu at restaurants or checks out the hard books at the library. She may be small, but she’s not little. When a new boy named Sam joins Dot’s class, she wonders if he’s even smaller than she is. But when she sees him getting bullied by a mean kid twice his size, she knows she has to do the big thing and stand up for him.
Maya Myers’s debut picture book has a pitch-perfect voice that captures the inimitable Dot in all her fierceness, and Hyewon Yum’s delightful pastel-hued artwork is its perfect complement.
REVIEWS:
Myers clearly channels her elementary school teaching experience in empathetically creating Dot and Sam’s recognizable exchanges about unfamiliar classrooms and playgrounds, tiptoeing through social dynamics and navigating new relationships. Yum’s enchanting color-pencil illustrations elevate Myers’s text with ingenious visual enhancements.
Shelf Awareness (read full STARRED review)
Though she’s the smallest, physically, in her (mixed-race) family and in her (diverse) class, Dot insists: “I’m not little.” Her personality is big, as is her intellect (“I tell them that the square root of sixty-four is eight…Jakarta is the capital of Indonesia…my favorite Mars rover is Curiosity”). When a new, also diminutive kid joins the class, he’s teased at recess and lunch by a “mean kid” (hmm—labels, Dot!). Luckily the plucky protagonist is able to use her big voice, conveyed loud and clear in Myers’s conversational text, to stand up for what’s right. Yum’s art (Saturday Is Swimming Day, rev. 7/18; I Am a Bird, rev. 1/21) features lots of vignettes, some panels, full-pages, and occasional spreads, all with plenty of white space and featuring cute patterns, especially in clothing; Dot’s polka-dotted shirt and pants in contrasting colors are accessorized with a bright-red kerchief, giving her a mini-superhero vibe. The brave—and big-hearted—Dot serves as an easy-to-follow model for self-confidence and up-standing.
The Horn Book
Myers describes Dot’s intervention in a second-by-second account, taking careful note of the emotions and sensations that she experiences (“I feel my heart beating very hard”), clearly conveying how it feels to be scared and intervene anyway.
Publishers Weekly (read full review)
Sure to be a big hit!
Kirkus Reviews (read full review)
Maya Myers 
