Geoffrey Hayes, the recipient of the ALA's prestigious Theodor Seuss Geisel Award, has written and illustrated more than forty children's books, including the extremely popular series of early readers Otto and Uncle Tooth. But Geoffrey's most beloved creations are the Benny and Penny TOON Books and the Patrick stories.

While there's some of Patrick in all of us, we can see a great deal of Geoffrey in him. Geoffrey says: "When I was six or seven, pea really did seem like 'little green balls of mushy poison.' Oddly enough, peas are now one of my favorite vegetables. Chilled pea soup with mint–that's simply delicious!"