The Bumblebottom Detective Agency

Rosie Thistlewood writes books that make kids laugh so hard they fall off the couch. Her "Pip the Very Small Dragon" series — about a dragon who can only breathe bubbles — has been read aloud in over 2,000 classrooms and bedtime'd in considerably more living rooms. A former elementary school teacher, she knows exactly which word makes a five-year-old giggle (it's "bumblebottom") and which illustration makes a parent smile (it's the parents in the background, always exhausted). She lives in Portland with her family and a dog named Waffles who appears in every book if you look carefully.