Jim Paillot

About Jim Paillot

Jim Paillot is an American illustrator based in Arizona, best known for drawing every novel in Dan Gutman's My Weird School series, published by HarperCollins since 2004.

Paillot has illustrated more than 100 children's books, and his own site notes that he also produces colourful artwork for magazines and games. He lives in Gilbert, Arizona, with his wife and two children. Public sources say little about his early life or training.

His partnership with Gutman began when Stephen Fraser, Gutman's first editor at HarperCollins, chose him to illustrate the opening book, Miss Daisy Is Crazy!, published on 29 June 2004. Gutman has said that he saw at once that Paillot suited the stories, and the two share a sense of humour shaped by growing up reading Mad magazine. Over the following 20 years Paillot illustrated every novel in the series, which by 2024 had grown to 101 books across ten story arcs, the latest of them My Weirdtastic School. Publishers Weekly reported in 2024 that the books had sold more than 35 million copies worldwide and had been translated into more than a dozen languages.

For collectors

Paillot's covers and interior drawings appear in the HarperCollins first printings of the My Weird School books, beginning with Miss Daisy Is Crazy! (2004) and continuing through titles such as Ms. Hannah Is Bananas! (2004) and Mrs. Patty Is Batty! (2006).