John Steven Gurney

Gurney’s Fuzzy Baseball graphic novel series is about The Fernwood Valley Fuzzies, a baseball team of likeable animals. In book #1 the Fuzzies play The Rocky Ridge Red Claws, in book #2 (Ninja Baseball Blast) they play The Sashimi City Ninjas, and in book #3 they play a team of robots, The Geartown Clankees. Book #4 (Dino-Hitters) is due to be published in 2021, where they play a team of dinosaurs, the Triassic Park Titans.

Gurney’s first book as author and illustrator was Dinosaur Train (Harper Collins, 2001), which was inspired by his son’s love of trains and dinosaurs. The PBS television show “Dinosaur Train” is not based on Gurney’s book, but before the show was aired the production company bought the film and TV rights to his book to avoid any potential conflicts.

In addition to books, Gurney illustrated one version of the Milton Bradley board game Guess Who and he illustrated the poster for the 1996 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Gurney’s work first drew national attention when he won a nationwide poster contest for Molson Golden Ale which appeared in Rolling Stone magazine. The poster depicted a skier flying through the air about to grab a glass of brew from a helpful dog, pouring the bottle. His first illustrated book followed his contest win when he illustrated William F. Buckley’s, The Temptation of Wilfred Malachey (Workman Books, 1985).

At this time, he also created illustrations for greeting cards, promotional posters for various companies, publications, and educational publishers, and drew caricatures for parties and social gatherings. After the publication of his second illustrated book, The Night Before Christmas (Scholastic, 1985), Gurney was hired to create the original covers and internal drawings for the Bailey School Kids and A to Z Mysteries series.

John Steven Gurney (born 1962) is an American author and illustrator of children's books. Gurney is the author and illustrator of the picture book Dinosaur Train, as well as the Fuzzy Baseball graphic novel series. He has illustrated over 150 books. including popular series such as The Bailey School Kids, A to Z Mysteries, and the Calendar Mysteries. His work has also appeared in popular children’s magazines such as Cricket, Babybug, and Ladybird. Gurney is also an art educator. He is on the faculty at both Hollins University in Hollins, Virginia and Kutztown University of Pennsylvania in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, where he teaches illustration

Gurney was born in 1962 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He wanted to be an illustrator since he was in kindergarten and while he was in High School, he studied privately with the renowned Illustrator William Arthur Smith. Gurney attended college at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration. During the summers while attending Pratt, he drew caricatures on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. After graduating, he continued his studies of traditional oil painting technique at the Stevenson Academy of Fine Arts in Glen Cove, NY and at the New York Academy of Art in New York, NY. In 2017 he received his Master of Fine Arts in Illustration from the University of Hartford’s Hartford Art School where he studied with Murray Tinkelman and C.F. Payne.