Holly Valero: Children's Book Author and Illustrator

Meet the author...

Hi, I'm Holly. I'm a web and graphic designer by day, but I've spent a lifetime drawing and writing.

It all began on a 100-acre rundown Pennsylvania farm during the late 1960s – 1970s. Rural electrification had just barely reached our area. There were no street lights – or street signs – for the first few years. Our  telephone was a party line shared with over half a dozen neighbors.

But that lack of technology meant our night skies were blanketed by millions of stars – a daily dose of magic  from the Milky Way that would never be duplicated once I left.  From summer fields blinking with thousands of fire flies to autumn's fiery tree tops of hickory, box-elder and sugar maples stretching as far as the eye could see. I spent my childhood catching crawdads, chasing sheep – and picking wild strawberries, raspberries and blackberries for my mother to turn into jams and jellies. 

The farm became home to dozens of barn cats, a small flock of sheep, and many crazy chickens. For over a dozen years, the family baled hay, raised critters, grew our own food, and tried to keep the sheep from escaping – with minimal success. We did everything from tapping our own maple trees for maple syrup, to growing fields of sunflowers.

Mouse and Elephant live in a rural setting very similar to my childhood farm. There are eight books planned for the Mouse and Elephant series, available at Amazon and Apple. I'm always working on new projects, and you can follow along at Bluesky: hollyvalero.bsky.social

Bear.

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— Holly Valero (@hollyvalero.bsky.social) Apr 29, 2025 at 8:58 PM