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Sharpen your crayons! There are now Alfie the Alligator coloring pages and cookie activity pages available on my website.



And if you need more of a coloring fix, check out the monkey coloring and activity pages here.

"If a Monkey Jumps Onto Your School Bus" made the cover of Publishers Weekly this week! I've been waiting to see it and today Ginger Nielson was so nice to send me a pic of the cover. Monkey had to share the spotlight with Don Ho and a few other folks. But he's OK with that. Yay Monkey!!

If a Monkey Jumps Onto Your School Bus is in the lower right hand corner.

If a Monkey Jumps Onto Your School Bus
Written by Jean Cochran
Illustrated by me

"If a Monkey Jumps Onto Your School Bus" has been out for a few weeks now. But I never had a chance to share the great book release party we had back in December at the Lunenburg Public Library. Even though it was a very cold and blustery day, there were lots of kids, lots (and lots) of cookies and lots of fun.



Of course we read the book, "If a Monkey Jumps Onto Your School Bus," and looked for the monkey on each page. Then we learned how to draw monkeys. Yes, everyone can draw monkeys!



Then came my favorite part. We discussed character design and how characters can be great launching points for new story ideas. I challenged the kids to come up with new characters. By asking them some questions and combining lots of great ideas, the kids came up with some pretty wacky new characters. It was a blast illustrating their creations. Then I challenged them to go home and write a story about their new characters.

To all of you that were there - I'm still waiting for the story of Henrietta the Hula dancing leprechaun (shown below)!



Thanks everyone for making it a great book release party! For those of you that couldn't make it, visit my website to download the coloring pages and other handouts from the event.

I read this very nice review of "If a Monkey Jumps Onto Your School Bus" today.

"A joyful mix of text and illustration. The core idea for this narrative is not new, but the presentation will tickle listeners. Not only are the text limericks funny, but the illustrations - with humor, expression and activity - take kids on a fun journey. A thoroughly enjoyable book. Highly recommended."

- Nancy Warren Farrell, Juvenile Book Review Committee
Juneau Public Libraries

Wow, it's been almost a month since I've posted. I've been wicked busy. But I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. The whole family made a pilgrimage to Atlanta for Thanksgiving (no pun intended) to see my brand-new four-week-old nephew Charlie. He one of the cutest newborns I've ever seen (and I'm not saying that just because I'm his aunt!)



Now for the new book. "If a Monkey Jumps Onto Your School Bus" is now officially available on Amazon
(YAY!)

For anyone out there that likes to color, here is a "If a Monkey Jumps Onto Your School Bus" color page. For more coloring pages and more info about the book visit my website. (Click on the image to view larger and to print.)

An appreciation of Patrick McDonnell's picture books, by Adrienne Furness

and
Sounds from the Forest talks with Mary Anne Hoberman and Deborah Freedman (Brought to you by Just One More Book!!)

For those librarians & their patrons who are Austen fanatics, I present Adrienne Furness's excellent round-up of resources for the Austen-deprived. I'm so glad she included Clueless, one of my favorite movies (and richest sources of slang) of all time.

Two things to add to Adrienne's list:

Persuasion: this is possibly my favorite film adaptation of any Austen novel, maybe because it's my favorite Austen novel. It's beautiful, spare, autumnal, and stars the mousy-to-radiant Amanda Root and the smoldering Ciaran Hinds (probably better known now for his role as Caesar in HBO's series Rome) as true lovers thwarted, then reunited. The book is, of course, richer, but that doesn't detract from the wonderfulness of the film.

The Republic of Pemberley: Home of JA-related discussion boards, fanfic, and a database of Austen-related recommended reading, organized by genre & age group. Impressive! I'm glad the ROP is still around, as I wrote a paper on it for a Reading Communities course I took in library school.