Meet the author

Matthew Swanson.

Writer · United States

Matthew Swanson: an American author who, with illustrator Robbi Behr, makes big, funny, philosophical middle-grade adventures like the Moon-colony mystery Life on the Moon.

Matthew Swanson is an American children's author who works in close partnership with his wife, the illustrator Robbi Behr; together they have made the densely illustrated Real McCoys detective series, the Cookie Chronicles and picture books including Everywhere, Wonder. In the corpus he is represented by Life on the Moon, a generously illustrated middle-grade mystery of more than three hundred pages: twelve-year-old Leo joins the first Moon colony, only for his father to vanish on a mission the authorities insist never happened, and for Leo to discover a hidden world of creatures the colony swears do not exist. Funny, philosophical and genuinely gripping, and carried along by Behr's immersive art, it is a big-hearted adventure about truth, courage and family change for readers 8 to 12.