For most of her career as an author, Arlene Alda has provided her own illustrations for her books, as a photographer. Her teaching background informs her stories, as she enjoys entertaining children while teaching them at the same time. This is evident in her most recent book, DID YOU SAY PEARS? (published by Tundra Books in January 2006), in which she pairs photographs and text to illustrate various homonyms and homophones with humor and skill. Did You Say Pears? was a Fall 2006 Booksense Children’s Pick. THE BOOK OF ZZZS (published by Tundra Books in March 2005) combines beautiful photographs with simple text, to gain a peek into ways in which all creatures sleep. MORNING GLORY MONDAY (published by Tundra in Sept. 2003), written by Alda, was illustrated by Maryann Kovalski. She also wrote HURRY GRANNY ANNIE (published by Tricycle Press in 1999), with illustrations by Eve Aldredge. In 1996, she wrote HOLD THE BUS (published by Troll Press in 1996) with illustrations by Dan Regan.

Her artful photograph's can also be seen in ARLENE ALDA'S 1 2 3, What Do You See? (Tricycle Press, 1998) as well as in ARLENE ALDA'S ABC - A New Way of Seeing (Celestial Arts, 1981; Re-published by Tricycle Press - 1993 as ABC - What Do You See?)

In some of her stories, both children and parents can recognize and smile at the everyday problems of growing up... from having a hard time falling asleep, as in SHEEP, SHEEP, SHEEP, HELP ME FALL ASLEEP (Doubleday Books for Young Readers, 1992)... to having an equally hard time waking up: PIG, HORSE OR COW, DON'T WAKE ME NOW (Doubleday Books for Young Readers, 1994). SHEEP, SHEEP, SHEEP spent 13 weeks on the Publisher's Weekly Bestseller List for Children in 1993.

She's also told the story, with her own photographs, of how a boy and his family adjust to a Dad's losing his job in MATTHEW AND HIS DAD (Simon & Schuster/Little Simon, 1983), and how a five year old girl copes with a Mom who goes to work in SONYA'S MOMMY WORKS (Simon & Schuster/Little Simon, 1982).