Kari Percival's debut picture book on gardening for toddlers, HOW TO SAY HELLO TO A WORM, published by Rise x Penguin Workshop, won an Ezra Jack Keats Award for Writer. Her upcoming release on amphibian conservation, SAFE CROSSING, from Chronicle Kids, has been honored as a Junior Library Guild as a Gold Standard Selection. While studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago illustration class that met at the zoo, Kari Percival loved drawing seals and puffins of her native Maine, and at Antioch New England Graduate School where she studied environmental science and teaching, she loved her tree communities class that met on the sides of local mountains. While teaching science in public school, she most loved bringing her students outdoors to study nature nearby. In her books for young people, Kari seeks to share her love of learning outdoors and to inspire readers young and old to connect with the ecology where they live. Her illustrations are inspired by the wood-cut relief printmaking she also loves to do.