Growing up, Merrill Rainey spent most of his Saturday afternoons drawing, watching monster movies, and going on imaginary adventures. Today, he is a cowboy-boot-wearing, picture-book-creator and paper-toy-maker. Merrill’s work focuses on exploring creativity and imaginative play. He creates his work tra-digitally; sometimes with pencils, or paper, other times using traditional painting techniques digitally. Whether he is working with traditional or digital mediums, Merrill’s work is full of deep storytelling, rich textures, and a wonderful sense of color! His current titles include Giants Are Very Brave People (2023 Cybils Awards nominee) written by Florence Parry Heide, Roar! I’m a Dinosaur (winner of the Good Housekeeping Best Kids' Board Book of 2022), Oink! I’m a Pig, and the Color, Cut, Create series. His newest title My First Town; A Building Block Book is a modern take on the classic children's building block toys. My First Town empowers children to know that if they can fold a sheet of paper four times to create a block, and add a little bit of creativity and ingenuity, then they can build anything!