Schade, Susan

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Schade, Susan

PERSONAL:

Married Jon Buller (an illustrator).

ADDRESSES:

Home—Lyme, CT. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

WITH HUSBAND, JON BULLER

The Noisy Counting Book, Random House (New York, NY), 1987.

I Love You, Good Night, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 1988, boardbook edition, with illustrations by Bernadete Pons, 2006.

Space Rock, Random House (New York, NY), 1988.

No Tooth, No Quarter!, Random House (New York, NY), 1989.

Hello! Hello! A Counting Book, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 1991.

20,000 Baseball Cards under the Sea, Random House (New York, NY), 1991, reprinted, 2003.

Toad on the Road, Random House (New York, NY), 1992.

Mike and the Magic Cookies, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 1992.

Railroad Toad, Random House (New York, NY), 1993.

Yo! It's Captain Yo-Yo, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 1993.

The Video Kids, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 1994.

Snug House, Bug House!, Random House (New York, NY), 1994.

Toad Eats Out, Random House (New York, NY), 1995.

Felix and the 400 Frogs, Random House (New York, NY), 1996.

Snow Bugs, Random House (New York, NY), 1996.

Ron Rooney and the Million-Dollar Comic, Random House (New York, NY), 1996.

Space Mall, Random House (New York, NY), 1997.

Toad Takes Off, Random House (New York, NY), 1997.

Pig at Work, Troll (Mahwah, NY), 1997.

Pig at Play, Troll (Mahwah, NY), 1998.

Baseball Camp on the Planet of the Eyeballs, Random House (New York, NY), 1998.

Sweet Dreams, Infinity Plus One (Ridgewood, NJ), 1999.

Cat on the Mat, Golden Books (New York, NY), 1999.

Cat at Bat, Golden Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Captain Zap and the Evil Baron von Fishhead, Random House (New York, NY), 2000.

Space Dog Jack, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2000.

Dinosaur Ed, illustrated by Jon Buller, Reader's Digest Children's Books (Pleasantville, NY), 2000.

Cat on Ice, Golden Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Space Dog Jack and the Haunted Spaceship, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2001.

20,000 Baseball Cards under the Sea, Random House (New York, NY), 2003.

Railroad Toad, Random House (New York, NY), 2003.

The Wright Brothers Take Off (nonfiction), Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 2003.

Contributor to nonfiction books, including Smart about the Fifty States, 2003; Smart about the Presidents, 2004; and Smart about the First Ladies, 2005.

"DANGER JOE SHOW" SERIES; WITH JON BULLER

Growling Grizzly, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2002.

Bungee Baboon Rescue, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2002.

Hawk Talk, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2002.

Back to the Bayou, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2003.

"FOG MOUND" SERIES; WITH JON BULLER

Travels of Thelonious, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2006.

Faradawn, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2007.

Simon's Dream, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

Susan Schade writes for children in tandem with her husband, cartoonist and writer Jon Buller. Beginning with 1987's The Noisy Counting Book, which finds a boy's fishing trip disrupted by a series of noisy animals, the husband-and-wife team have focused primarily on pre- and beginning readers. More recently, however, they have expanded into nonfiction with The Wright Brothers Take Off, and have turned to middle-grade readers with their illustrated chapter books in the "Fog Mound" series. Praising the history of the Wright Brothers and their achievement in aviation that is told in The Wright Brothers Take Off, Christine E. Carr pointed out Buller's "bright cartoons" for contributing "visual interest" to the book's "chatty" and "lively" text.

Schade and Buller attract the interest of budding readers with simple titles such as Cat on Ice, Toad on the Road, and Snug House, Bug House! Part of a pre-reader series, Toad on the Road finds a good-natured amphibian taking friend Cat and other animal friends on a road trip while always being sure to obey safe driving rules. Cat on Ice joins Rat in waiting for a nearby river to freeze solid enough to allow them to try out their new ice skates; when that doesn't happen, they try out their skating skills at a local rink and Cat spins out to a show-stealing finish. Schade's "rhyming text scans nicely," noted Booklist contributor Gillian Engberg, and Buller's "hilarious, exuberant pictures … will capture" the attention of young children. Reviewing Toad on the Road, a Publishers Weekly contributor exclaimed that the story is "so appropriately simple—and suitably silly—that youngsters will be reading right along before they even realize it."

In their "Fog Mound" series, Schade and Buller turn their attention to children aged eight and older. In alternating chapters of text and comics, series opener Travels of Thelonious introduces a young chipmunk who lives alone in a tree house, isolated from his family because of his beliefs that giant creatures called humans once walked the land. When a violent rainstorm washes him into the City of Ruins, Thelonious meets up with Fitzgerald the porcupine, Brown the lizard, and Olive Bear, whose mechanical skills allow her to construct a solar-powered helicopter that allows them to search for the peaceful land known as the Fog Mound. Featuring cartoon art in subtle tones of blue and gray, Travels of Thelonious "creates a charming and compelling world, and ends with a whopper of a cliffhanger sure to bring readers back," according to a Publishers Weekly contributor. The book's mix of "illustrated prose and charming, highly detailed sequential art display[s] a fascination with the power of stories to inspire adventure and unlock mysteries," noted Jesse Karp in a Booklist review recommending Travels of Thelonious for reluctant readers.

Thelonious and his friends continue to follow their destiny in Faradawn. Here the friends meet a small-scale human scientist named Bill and travel by boat to an isolated island. While saving the island's bird population from a swarm of supersized crabs, the friends are in turn saved from a giant robot by a group of crocodiles in an environment that reflects misguided attempts to change the balance of nature. Simon's Dream finds Thelonious and company continuing to battle the evil forces that wish to destroy the utopian Fog Mound, among them the Dragon Lady and her band of vicious rat underlings. Reviewing Faradawn, a Kirkus Reviews writer predicted that "readers will … be drawn by the tale's mix of narrow squeaks and set-piece celebrations, as well as the unusual mixed format." Noting the tale's "uncomplicated vocabulary" and entertaining cartoon art, Karp described Faradawn as "filled with the joy of exploration and discovery." Praising the "Fog Mound" series in the New York Times Book Review, Larry Doyle called Schade and Buller's mix of prose and comics a "combination [that] works seamlessly, and delightfully." "With echoes of The Wizard of Oz and Planet of the Apes," Doyle added, "the ‘Fog Mound’ books read like breezy myth, with enough genuine invention and adventure to keep the story moving."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 1996, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Felix and the 400 Frogs, p. 252; May 1, 1997, Carolyn Phelan, review of Toad Takes Off, p. 1505; February 15, 2001, Carolyn Phelan, review of Captain Zap and the Evil Baron von Fishhead, p. 1143; April 15, 2001, Gillian Engberg, review of Cat on Ice, p. 1569; April 15, 2006, Jesse Karp, review of Travels of Thelonious, p. 48; September 15, 2007, Jesse Karp, review of Faradawn, p. 61.

Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2006, review of Travels of Thelonious, p. 523; August 15, 2007, review of Faradawn.

New York Times Book Review, May 11, 2008, Larry Doyle, review of Simon's Dream.

Publishers Weekly, June 22, 1992, review of Toad on the Road, p. 62; August 21, 2006, review of Travels of Thelonious, p. 68.

School Library Journal, June, 2004, Christine E. Carr, review of The Wright Brothers Take Off, p. 124; July, 2006, Heather M. Lisowski and Philip S. Miller, review of Travels of Thelonious, p. 129.