Audrey Penn
Recognized in the Creative Minds Montessori 2026 Teacher’s Choice list.
Audrey Penn is one of roughly one hundred authors whose work was selected by the Montessori-certified teachers at Creative Minds Montessori for the 2026 Teacher’s Choice list — 120 books chosen across four reading stages, from first lap-reads to first chapter books. The selected book was chosen for how precisely it meets children at a real developmental moment. This recognition cannot be bought: no author or publisher paid to appear on our lists, and we take no commission on any book sale.
About Audrey Penn
Audrey Penn is an author, lecturer, and educator who has been visiting schools in the Washington, D.C. area since 1982. Her book The Kissing Hand, first published in 1993 by the Child Welfare League of America, is widely used at the start of the school year and in other moments when a child has to separate from a parent.
Penn says the idea came from an encounter in a local park with an unusually large mother raccoon and her newborn cub, and that she developed it into a book after her own daughter went off to kindergarten.
Also by this author: A Pocket Full of Kisses · Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully
Official website: www.audreypenn.com
Selected for the 2026 Teacher’s Choice list
Part of The Best Children’s Books by Age, chosen by the teachers at Creative Minds Montessori in Frisco, TX.