He was born and raised in Bridgewater, New Jersey, and graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Illustration. In 1983 he married surgeon Kim Kahng. He started his career as a book illustrator with Honest Andrew by Gloria Skurzynski, 1980.

After co-authoring Loathsome Dragon with his wife, in 1987, he authored and illustrated Free Fall, which was awarded a 1989 Caldecott Honor Medal. This book is the first example of the predominant style of his self-authored books, which tell a fantastical, often dream-like story without words, only illustrations. He won the first-prize Caldecott Medal for three later self-authored books, Tuesday (1991), The Three Pigs (2001) and Flotsam (2007). Wiesner also won a Caldecott honor award in 2000 for Sector 7 and Free Fall (1989).

As Author/Illustrator

• 1987 Loathsome Dragon (co-authored with Kim Kahng)
• 1988 Free Fall
• 1990 Hurricane
• 1991 Tuesday
• 1992 June 29, 1999
• 1999 Sector 7
• 2001 The Three Pigs
• 2006 Flotsam
• 2010 Art & Max

As Illustrator

• 1981 Ugly Princess by Nancy Luenn
• 1981 One Bad Thing about Birthdays by David R. Collins
• 1981 Man from the Sky by Avi
• 1981 Boy who Spoke Chimp by Jane Yolen
• 1982 Owly by Mike Thaler
• 1982 Neptune Rising: Songs and Tales of the Undersea Folk by Jane Yolen
• 1983 Miranty and the Alchemist by Vera Chapman
• 1984 Dark Green Tunnel by Allan W. Eckert
• 1985 Wand: the Return to Mesmeria by Allan W. Eckert
• 1985 E.T., the Storybook of the Green Planet by William Kotzwinkle; based on the story by Steven Spielberg
• 1986 Kite Flier by Dennis Haseley
• 1988 Firebrat by Nancy Willard
• 1989 The Rainbow People by Laurence Yep
• 1989 The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Marianna Mayer
• 1991 Tongues of Jade by Laurence Yep
• 1994 Night of the Gargoyles by Eve Bunting
• 1980 Honest Andrew by Gloria Skurzynski

Other Works

• 1989 Cover for The Glass Salamander by Ann Downer
• 1997 Story and Design for CD-ROM adventure game The Day the World Broke