Background
Leah Komaiko was born on June 1, 1954, in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents were classical musicians.
Leah Komaiko
Komaiko attended the University of Utah before becoming a children’s book author.
Komaiko attended the University of Utah before becoming a children’s book author.
Leah Komaiko and Jamie Lee Curtis.
(Sad because her best friend, Annie Bananie, is moving awa...)
Sad because her best friend, Annie Bananie, is moving away, a little girl remembers all the fun they had together and wonders if they will still be best friends forever, in a charming picture book that celebrates the joy of friendship.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060232595/?tag=2022091-20
1987
(A little girl who loves street music learns to love the s...)
A little girl who loves street music learns to love the symphony as well when her grandmother takes her to an outdoor concert.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060232714/?tag=2022091-20
1987
(The antics and adventures of cool boy Earl include riding...)
The antics and adventures of cool boy Earl include riding on the Milky Way, growing a rose from his fingernails, and swinging with gorillas.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060232811/?tag=2022091-20
1988
(Eager to see Aunt Elaine perform her Spanish dance, dress...)
Eager to see Aunt Elaine perform her Spanish dance, dressed in colorful clothes with a flower in her hair, Katy waits in the wings and accidentally finds herself in the spotlight.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385306741/?tag=2022091-20
1992
(Shoeshine Shirley spends her days in her shoe-repair shop...)
Shoeshine Shirley spends her days in her shoe-repair shop, keeping all the workers in the city appropriately shod.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385305265/?tag=2022091-20
1993
(A young boy obsessed with speed and skateboarding thinks ...)
A young boy obsessed with speed and skateboarding thinks that his visit with Great-aunt Ida and her Great Dane, Doc, will be boring, but he finds some surprises in store, in a colorfully illustrated tale featuring a rhyming text.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385306822/?tag=2022091-20
1994
(When three-year-old Daniel is missing, his big sister ima...)
When three-year-old Daniel is missing, his big sister imagines he has been captured by pirates.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0531068501/?tag=2022091-20
1994
(When other family members infringe on what she had hoped ...)
When other family members infringe on what she had hoped would be a special day with her father, a young girl decides to spend some time alone with all kinds of fishes.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060245735/?tag=2022091-20
1995
(Annie Bananie moves to Barry Avenue Looks like it's going...)
Annie Bananie moves to Barry Avenue Looks like it's going to be another boring summer for Libby Johnson on Barry Avenue. Libby knows three girls on her block, but all they like to do is pretend they're animals. Libby has a brother, but all he likes to do is bang on the piano. Libby's mother is expecting a baby boy, but Libby would rather have a dog. In fact, Libby wants a dog more than anything. But Libby's grandma Gert lives with the Johnsons, and Grandma Gert hates dogs. She says if she ever sees a dog in their house, she'll flush it down the toilet. How boring! Until Annie Bananie moves to Barry Avenue. Besides having the best name ever, Annie Bananie has curly red hair, no siblings, and a great big dog named Boris. And Annie's not afraid to go fishing for treasures in the garbage! All the girls on Barry Avenue want to be friends with Annie Bananie, but none more than Libby Johnson.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385321090/?tag=2022091-20
1996
(At Sally Perry's place, everyone helps out as they can, e...)
At Sally Perry's place, everyone helps out as they can, except for one little girl who needs Sally Perry's encouragement to help plant the tomatoes, push the wheelbarrow, and build the horse on this strange farm.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0689800835/?tag=2022091-20
1996
(Annie Bananie is the new girl at Nichols school and every...)
Annie Bananie is the new girl at Nichols school and every girl wants to be her friend. On the first day of school, the teacher announces that for Lucky Lunch Day the kids will visit someone else's house for lunch instead of eating at school. Libby really wants Annie Bananie to visit her house and tries to think of the best lunch for her friend. But with Libby's mom away, Grandma Gert will have to serve the girls lunch. Grandma Gert says she'd be happy to play waitress, but she eats only potatoes. Libby can't serve only potatoes to Annie Bananie! Libby knows she has to come up with a great plan so that Annie will be her best friend to the end.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385321120/?tag=2022091-20
1997
(Annie Bananie and Libby want to meet the Bowers, the new ...)
Annie Bananie and Libby want to meet the Bowers, the new neighbors on the block. Unfortunately, Mr. Bower doesn't want to be friendly with Annie Bananie. He thinks she's a troublemaker and that her big dog, Boris, wants to eat the Bowers' tiny poodle, Weenie. Annie believes that if the Bowers got to know her, they'd all get along swell. But when Annie takes one too many trips to the Bowers' house, Mr. Bower calls the police. Before you know it, Annie Bananie is facing off against Mr. Bower in court, and Libby's taking the stand as the star witness!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385321155/?tag=2022091-20
1997
(The Boris Avenue Beauties Dog Club came to order. Bonnie ...)
The Boris Avenue Beauties Dog Club came to order. Bonnie and Annie Bananie told their friends about the times each of them had been to the hospital. Bonnie announced that since Annie and she had both been hurt, they should form a new club of their own and be the Pain Sisters. Back home, Grandma Gert showed Libby Grandpa Larry's gallstones that she kept in her dresser drawer. In order to become a pain sister, Libby hatches a plan. She just knew she had to become a pain sister, otherwise she'd never be as special as her friends!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/038532118X/?tag=2022091-20
1998
(The Story of Two Women, Generations Apart, Growing Up and...)
The Story of Two Women, Generations Apart, Growing Up and Growing Young in a frank, funny, and illuminating account for anyone who fears aging but longs to grow up. At forty-four, Leah Komaiko was not aging graciously. Not that she ever has. After all, her generation expects to stay forever young. But now she feels old and empty inside. Nothing she thinks of trying (plastic surgery, a vacation, a puppy, or a new husband) can make her feel young again. Then she meets Adele - a woman who never expected to be ninety-four - alone, forgotten, and living in a nursing home.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1582380481/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(Carmie Hoffman is ready for everything to change. She wan...)
Carmie Hoffman is ready for everything to change. She wants to lose 20 pounds and be a beautiful girl. She wants someone to think she’s special. She wants to move out of the Valley and stop worrying about her clinically depressed mother, who’s tired and sad almost all of the time. Then, out of nowhere, she sees her opening - when her best friend convinces her mother to drive them to Malibu Beach, Carmie’s tired, sad, and oh-so-old mom grabs a surfboard and impresses even the locals! That’s when Carmie learns that her mom had a secret life before Carmie - a life where she was a Malibu surfer. Carmie knows that she was meant to learn this. That she and her mom were meant to move to Malibu and form a surfing dynasty with some of the surfing legends her mom used to hang out with. In her movie notebook, Carmie writes herself a starring role as a glamorous, gorgeous surf star. But not everything is as easy as it is in the movies, and Carmie learns that her mom is a much more complicated and wonderful person than she ever knew.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001ODEQRK/?tag=2022091-20
2005
Leah Komaiko was born on June 1, 1954, in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents were classical musicians.
A student of poetry, Komaiko attended the University of Utah before becoming a children’s book author.
One of Komaiko's first stories for young people, 1987’s I Like the Music, is about a small girl who is entranced by the rhythmic hustle and bustle of the activity she hears from her upstairs apartment window in a city neighborhood.
Annie Bananie was introduced to Komaiko’s young readers in 1987. Sad after her best friend Annie moves away from the neighborhood, the book’s five-year-old narrator remembers all the fun the pair used to have: “Made me brush my teeth with mud, / Sign my name in cockroach blood” were some of the dares the two girls had bonded their close friendship with. New friends will come her way, the newcomer realizes, although Annie will always remain special.
The character of Annie Bananie reappears in several books by Komaiko written for older children. In Annie Bananie Moves to Barry Avenue, the energetic Annie and her rottweiler Boris enliven the summer vacation of Libby, who has come to Barry Avenue to stay with her terribly unexciting Grandmother Gert. Several more girls from the neighborhood join the pair, and soon they have formed a local dog owners club. The girls’ friendship continues through the start of the new school year in 1997’s Annie Bananie - Best Friends to the End.
While several picture books by Komaiko - including Leonora O’Grady and the lighthearted Great-Aunt Ida and Her Great Dane, Doc - feature elderly protagonists as their main characters, others present youthful protagonists doing kid stuff under the watchful eye of loving caretakers. In Earl's Too Cool for Me, published in 1988, Komaiko pairs what a Publishers Weekly reviewer dubbed as “a finger-snapping rhythm” with the main character that is, to the book’s young, bespectacled narrator, simply the hippest kid in the neighborhood. On Sally Perry's Farm shows how a young girl gains self-confidence as she works alongside friends at an urban-neighborhood farm in a book that a Publishers Weekly critic termed “effervescent.” A foxy visitor from sunny Florida weaves a warm-weather fantasy in Komaiko’s humorous Fritzi Fox Flew in from Florida, while in Just My Dad and Me a small girl in a close, bustling family fantasizes about spending time alone with her busy but loving father.
The fantasy world of many American teens is the focus of Malibu Carmie. Thirteen-year-old budding-but-slightly overweight author Carmie Hoffman looks forward to a mundane summer in Southern California with her overwhelmed and depressed single mother, Elaine. While pouring her fantasies of an exciting life into a series of scripts, Carmie learns that all is not as it seems.
In addition to writing children’s books, Komaiko has visited young readers at schools and has also developed and produced several programs for children's television. In addition, she is working on both fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers. However, as she told a Publishers Weekly contributor, writing for children remains her favorite occupation.
Komaiko's fiction stories received several Children's Choice Awards. Her Annie Bananie series was extremely popular with children all over the world. In addition to writing children’s books, Komaiko has visited young readers at schools and has also developed and produced several programs for children's television.
(Sad because her best friend, Annie Bananie, is moving awa...)
1987(A young boy obsessed with speed and skateboarding thinks ...)
1994(At Sally Perry's place, everyone helps out as they can, e...)
1996(Eager to see Aunt Elaine perform her Spanish dance, dress...)
1992(When other family members infringe on what she had hoped ...)
1995(The Story of Two Women, Generations Apart, Growing Up and...)
1999(The antics and adventures of cool boy Earl include riding...)
1988(A little girl who loves street music learns to love the s...)
1987(Annie Bananie moves to Barry Avenue Looks like it's going...)
1996(Shoeshine Shirley spends her days in her shoe-repair shop...)
1993(When three-year-old Daniel is missing, his big sister ima...)
1994(Annie Bananie is the new girl at Nichols school and every...)
1997(Annie Bananie and Libby want to meet the Bowers, the new ...)
1997(The Boris Avenue Beauties Dog Club came to order. Bonnie ...)
1998(Carmie Hoffman is ready for everything to change. She wan...)
2005
Quotes from others about the person
“Leah’s work has inspired me for years. She knows the story and what can give yours the edge to become a bold and lasting brand.”- Jamie Lee Curtis, actress.
Leah Komaiko is divorced.
