Pamela Harris - Author/Illustrator

Pamela Harris loves to read children’s stories. There were stories she knew by heart because she’d read them so often to her daughters. She liked to make up stories for them, too. So she was happy when Kids Can Press asked her to do a children’s book. #Pam wanted her book to be fun to read out loud, with rhythm and rhyme leading through a variety of friendly faces, all illustrating opposites. She wrote the words first and then went out looking for people to photograph. That meant Hot Cold Shy Bold led her to meet new friends. Pam hopes the book will lead children to other fun — making faces, drawing faces, making up stories, singing silly rhymes, or whatever they can imagine.#Pam is mainly known as a documentary photographer, using pictures and words to introduce people and places. Before Hot Cold Shy Bold, her pictures were mostly in black and white. Those projects also involved getting to know people — farm workers, Inuit in the far north, nannies, Newfoundland fishermen, the women’s movement across Canada — and getting closer to her own extended family. Lots of this work was published or exhibited, and some of it is in the National Archives, where everyone can use it.#Pam didn’t study photography — she majored in English Literature and taught herself photography later, while teaching at a high school with a tiny darkroom. Now she uses a digital camera and doesn’t spend time in the dark at all. #Pam has two daughters. You can find them in Hot Cold Shy Bold sitting on either side of a pumpkin. Her mom and dad are in the book, too; you’ll know them by their lovely white hair. Pam still lives in Toronto with her husband, Randy, who isn’t in the book but who makes very funny faces sometimes. Their daughters are grown up, so now Pam has to read stories to herself.