Michael Emberley

About Michael Emberley

Michael Emberley (born 2 June 1960) is an American children's author and illustrator from Boston, best known for illustrating Robie H. Harris's books on growing up and sex education, starting with It's Perfectly Normal (1994), and Mary Ann Hoberman's You Read to Me, I'll Read to You series.

Emberley is the son of the illustrator Ed Emberley and the writer Barbara Emberley, and his sister Rebecca also makes children's books. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1979 and 1980 and at the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1981 and 1982. His first books were drawing books of his own, Dinosaurs! (1980) and More Dinosaurs! (1983), followed by picture books such as Ruby (1990) and Ruby and the Sniffs (2004). With his parents he made Three: An Emberley Family Sketch Book (1998).

His work with Harris covers It's Perfectly Normal (1994), It's So Amazing! (1999) and It's Not the Stork! (2006), plus younger picture books such as Happy Birth Day! (1996), Hi, New Baby! (2000) and Mail Harry to the Moon! (2008). It's Perfectly Normal was a Boston Globe Horn Book Honor Book and a New York Times best book of the year in 1995, and it has frequently appeared on the American Library Association's lists of most challenged books because of its frank drawings. For Hoberman he illustrated You Read to Me, I'll Read to You (2001) and three sequels.

For collectors

Candlewick Press published the first edition of It's Perfectly Normal in 1994, with anniversary editions in 2004, 2009 and 2014 and a revised edition in 2021, so the year on the copyright page separates the original from later revisions.