Gitty and Kvetch

Caroline Kusin Pritchard grew up as the youngest of four children in Dallas, Texas, where she spent her childhood writing poems and reciting them to her loyal fanbase of stuffed animals. She is the author of many children’s books, including Gitty and Kvetch, The Day the Books Disappeared, and The Keeper of Stories, which is a Sydney Taylor Book Award Picture Book Honor, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, and received three starred reviews. She has an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and their four kiddos. Visit CarolineKusinPritchard.com to learn more.

As soon as Ariel Landy learned how to draw a sky beyond a blue scribbled line, she knew she wanted to be an illustrator. Raised on coloring books and crayons outside of Boston, she now lives in France with her husband and dog. Visit her online at ArielLandy.com.

"Debuting author Pritchard’s sweet-natured storytelling makes a strong case for friendship’s resilience—and balancing capabilities—while Landy’s  digital cartooning and washlike textures have plenty of bounce and bubble." -- June 2021

"Landy’s pic­tures are buoy­ant, with many bright col­ors against a back­ground of vio­let and rose hues....Young read­ers learn that per­son­al­i­ties may not be as fixed as they seem. The most elat­ed child, con­front­ed by dis­ap­point­ment, often feels as pow­er­less as Kvetch. On the oth­er hand, the grumpy lit­tle owl turns out to be capa­ble of change....Like Yid­dish itself, Kvetch is flex­i­ble. Dis­ap­point­ment can be trans­formed into new alter­na­tives. The fact that the book cen­ters this gen­tle les­son in the con­text of an ordi­nary child­hood event, not a moment of real trau­ma, is impor­tant. Kvetch the owl may not share Gitty’s intense sense of adven­ture, but he helps her to under­stand the impor­tance of hav­ing a friend."