While studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago illustration class that met at the zoo, Kari Percival loved drawing seals and puffins from her native home of Maine, and at Antioch New England Graduate School where she studied environmental science and teaching, she loved her tree communities class that met on the side of a mountain. While teaching science in public school, she most loved bringing her students outdoors to study nature nearby.

In her books for young people, she seeks to share her love of learning outdoors and to inspire readers young and old to connect with the ecology where they live. Percival’s illustrations are inspired by the wood-cut relief printmaking she also loves to do.

Kari Percival's debut picture book on gardening for toddlers, HOW TO SAY HELLO TO A WORM, published by Rise x Penguin Workshop, won an Ezra Jack Keats Award for Writer, CLEL Bell award, ALA Notable, Blue Grass Award Nominee, and was selected for Dolly Parton Imagination Library. Her newest release, SAFE CROSSING, from Chronicle Kids, has been honored as a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and BookPage. She lives outside Boston where she also loves to pick raspberries barefoot.