Minnie and Moo Go Dancing

Cow friends, Minnie and Moo, decide to dress up and attend a party at the farmer's house

Denys Cazet, an accomplished author and illustrator, says that it is by listening to himself and others that he gets his book ideas. "I try to pay attention to the human condition and how the daily dramas, our daily encounters and experiences, our sorrows and joys, change our lives. It is not easy to pay attention, but if you want to learn to write or draw well you will have to learn."

He also says that writing is hard work. "I spend a lot of time rewriting my stories. I'm very happy when I've finished a new story. After all I am the proud mother and father of all the characters who live there."

His most recent children's books, Minnie and Moo Go to Paris and Minnie and Moo Save the Earth (DK Ink 1999) chronicle the continuing adventures of a hilarious bovine duo. The couple debuted with two books in 1998, which both received Publishers Weekly starred reviews and were chosen as Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon books for 1998. Booklist noted in a boxed review that "Cazet knows how to milk the humor in his terrific artwork, too." Minnie and Moo and the Thanksgiving Tree and Minnie and Moo and the Musk of Zoro, forthcoming from DK Ink in Fall 2,000, will continue this series.

Mr. Cazet's first book, a drawing book for children, was published in 1973, and he has published well over a dozen books since. He has written and illustrated two School Library Journal Best Books of the Year: A Fish in His Pocket and "I'm Not Sleepy!" His best-selling "Never Spit on Your Shoes" won the California Young Reader Medal.

Mr. Cazet and his family live in Pope Valley in Northern California.