Kaz Windness is the author-illustrator of picture books Swim, Jim!; Bitsy Bat, Team Star; and Bitsy Bat, School Star, which received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and BookPage. She created the Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Level 1 Ready-to-Read Graphics book Worm and Caterpillar Are Friends, which received a starred review and is a Junior Library Guild selection, and the Level 1 Ready-to-Reads Cat vs. Vac and Go! Go! Dino!. Kaz is also the illustrator of Ollie, the Acorn, and the Mighty Idea by Andrew Hacket and the author of When You Love a Book, illustrated by Heather Brockman Lee. When she’s not writing or illustrating books, Kaz mentors children’s book authors and artists at The Cuddlefish Academy and enjoys making deep-dish pizza. Kaz lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband, two children, and Boston terrier. Visit her at WindnessBooks.com.
""The familiar [school race] story is given particular freshness here by the wide range of abilities represented, from Bitsy’s neurodivergence to a raccoon pal using a wheelchair to Enzo’s communicating through a tablet and sign language. A breezy, straightforward storyline, simple sentence structure, and relatively accessible vocabulary make this an easy pick for early readers, and Enzo’s form of communication, represented in-text as pictures instead of words, adds an additional layer of literacy kids can interpret."" -- <I>BCCB</I>