Draft:Jake Tashjian

Jake Tashjian (born 1994) is an illustrator of fourteen children's books. He illustrated the bestselling, ten-volume My Life As ... series for Macmillan Publishing which has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Career
Jake is on the autism spectrum and is a visual learner; the main character in the My Life As … books draws his vocabulary words in the margins the way Jake taught himself vocabulary words as a child. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews called My Life as a Book, "A kinder, gentler Wimpy Kid with all the fun and more plot." Booklist, in a starred review, encouraged, "Give this to kids who think they don't like reading. It might change their minds." The series has earned several Best Children's Book of the Year Awards.

Jake Tashjian also illustrated the Einstein the Class Hamster series, as well as Hannah Sharpe Cartoon Detective for Little Brown Publishing. He collaborates on his novels with his mother, the author Janet Tashjian.

Personal Life
Jake Tashjian was born in 1994 in Newton, Massachusetts. He now lives in Southern California. He is an avid surfer, movie aficionado, and autism advocate.

Advocacy
Jake's poster design was selected for the inaugural Autfest film festival; he played Pete Davidson's son in the live table read of "It's a Wonderful Life" to raise funds for the Ed Asner Family Center, an autism nonprofit. He does comedy, improv, and performs with Spectrum Laboratories in Los Angeles which celebrates neurodiversity and inclusion in the arts. Jake is an active member of Workshop 2.0, a nonprofit for autistic adults in the arts. He also does voice acting, most notably for Speech Kingdom, an app for children with communication disabilities.