Denise Fleming
Recognized in the Creative Minds Montessori 2026 Teacher’s Choice list.
Denise Fleming 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 Denise Fleming
Denise Fleming makes her pictures by pouring colored cotton pulp through hand-cut stencils, so the image and the handmade paper are one and the same. She won a 1994 Caldecott Honor for In the Small, Small Pond.
She calls papermaking physical, messy work - toting buckets of water and hand-mixing huge vats of color - and says she has not picked up a brush or a colored pencil since she discovered it. She lives and works in Toledo, Ohio.
Also by this author: In the Tall, Tall Grass · In the Small, Small Pond · Barnyard Banter
Official website: www.denisefleming.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.