Meet the author

Kenard Pak.

Illustrator · United States

Kenard Pak: American author-illustrator whose atmospheric, nature-steeped art gives quiet stories like The Fog their calm, contemplative wonder.

Kenard Pak is an American author-illustrator based in San Francisco, whose wispy, atmospheric watercolour-and-ink art is steeped in nature, weather and the changing light of the seasons. Baltimore-raised and trained at Syracuse University and the California Institute of the Arts, he spent years as an animation layout artist for studios including DreamWorks, Disney and Laika before turning to picture books. He is best known for his self-authored Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn seasonal series, which won the SCBWI Golden Kite Award, and for illustrating other writers' texts. In the corpus he brings Kyo Maclear's The Fog to life, an understated allegory in which a human-watching warbler notices a fog no one else can see. Pak's calm, contemplative work is a lovely fit for thoughtful children aged four to eight who love the quiet wonder of the natural world.