Bryan, Sean

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Bryan, Sean

Personal

Married; wife's name Emily; children: Emily. Education: College graduate.

Addresses

Home—CT.

Career

Author and creative director at an advertising agency, New York, NY.

Awards, Honors

Blue Ribbon designation, Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, 2005, for A Boy and His Bunny.

Writings

FOR CHILDREN

A Boy and His Bunny, illustrated by Tom Murphy, Arcade (New York, NY), 2005.

A Girl and Her Gator, illustrated by Tom Murphy, Arcade (New York, NY), 2006.

A Bear and His Boy, illustrated by Tom Murphy, Arcade (New York, NY), 2007.

The Juggling Pug, illustrated by Tom Murphy, Arcade (New York, NY), 2008.

Sidelights

Working for a New York City advertising agency by day, Sean Bryan has also established a second career in children's books as the author of picture books such as A Bear and His Boy and The Juggling Pug, the latter which stars a mischievous, fawn-colored pug dog in an entertaining lesson about good behavior.

Bryan made his picture-book debut with A Boy and His Bunny, the first of several collaborations with artist Tom Murphy. In the book, a young boy wakes up one morning to find a fluffy bunny named Fred perched on top of his head. As the boy goes through his day, his mother's concern changes to acceptance as Fred explains that having a bunny on one's head imposes no limitations. Two follow-up volumes, A Girl and Her Gator and A Bear and His Boy, continue the theme of accepting differences. In A Girl and Her Gator the sister of the boy from A Boy and His Bunny is surprised to find an alligator on her head. The tables turn in A Bear and His Boy as a busy bear named Mack wakes up to find a young boy on his shoulders and eventually learns to slow down and enjoy life's simple and sometimes silly moments.

In School Library Journal, Blair Christolon called A Boy and His Bunny a "quirky and imaginative tale" that "warrants repeated readings," and a Kirkus Reviews writer predicted that Bryan's story is "likely to tickle many a preschool listener's ribs." "Repetition … paired with the singsong rhyme makes Bryan's slight and silly story great fun to read aloud," concluded

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Catherine Callegari in her School Library Journal review of A Girl and Her Gator, while in the same periodical Debbie Lewis O'Donnell wrote that A Bear and His Boy is "outstanding in its simplicity" and features "spare" illustrations by Murphy that "are a perfect complement" to Bryan's whimsical tale.

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2005, review of A Boy and His Bunny, p. 49; March 1, 2006, review of A Girl and Her Gator, p. 227; March 15, 2008, review of The Juggling Pug; April 1, 2007, review of A Bear and His Boy.

Publishers Weekly, January 31, 2005, review of A Boy and His Bunny, p. 66.

School Library Journal, June, 2005, Blair Christolon, review of A Boy and His Bunny, p. 106; August, 2006, Catherine Callegari, review of A Girl and Her Gator, p. 76; April, 2007, Debbie Lewis O'Donnell, review of A Bear and His Boy, p. 96.