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How does one become a children’s book writer and illustrator? A marvelous question! And so, have I ever told you that the answers to your questions and desired exist in one place called the SCBWI?
It is true!
When I first began learning how to find my way towards the children’s book world, I stumbled upon the SCBWI and have never let go. In 2000, when I was just an aspiring illustrator, I won the Don Freeman SCBWI Grant, which gave me not only some cash to further fund my learning, but also gave me the confidence I needed to see my work as valuable and valid, and keep doing it more and more. In the years I have attended conferences, gone to retreats, joined groups, made strong friendships, given workshops, been a speaker, and won awards given by the organization.
This morning, when my friend Laurent Linn sent me the link for this tribute video to SCBWI, I …how do you put it mildly? OK, I almost fainted from laughing:

SCBWI Tribute from Kimberly C. Baker on Vimeo.

Fuse#8 announced her Picture Book poll and I decided to be brave and come up with my own list of the Top Ten Picture Books Of All Time According To Me.

Consider that, although I have read many many picture books, I still wonder which I might have missed since I began reading them fourteen years ago after I arrived to the USA. Because I was already an adult when I started, I did not grew up with the titles I am about to mention. Instead, I grew some more with them.

These books are in this list because perhaps they made me cry, or because I kept thinking about them years after I met them for the first time, or because I couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like to make a book like those, or because they changed my mind, or my heart, or my body, or taught me something I still live by, or simply because I adore them with inexplicable, irrational fervor. But only ten books? I’ll do my best…

A Small Tall Tale From The Far Far North. Peter Sis.

The most powerful and unforgettable of Sis' books. I literally drank this book with my eyes when I found it.

Amos and Boris. William Steigh

My son and I would read this story at night over and over again, transpired by the sea and the love between this small mouse and a whale.

Chato’s Kitchen. Gary Soto and Susan Guevara.

Barrio cats in a picture book? I couldn’t believe my eyes the first time I saw this book! Chato is some kind of Pedro Infante of the children’s literature.

The Stray dog. Marc Simont.

Marc Simont is a genius. There is such a simplicity in his art, and yet, no emotion si too big for him. I cheered so much with this book.

A Mother For Choco. Keiko Kasza.

Some of the best endings ever in a picture book.

Calling The Doves. Juan Felipe Herrera and Elly Simmons

This book is soulful. A song itself.

Going home. Eve bunting and David Diaz

There is something in this story that makes me weep. Is it the longing?

Sitti’s Secrets. Naomi Shihab Nye and Nancy Carpenter

I love the letter at the end of this book. I just found that Shihab Nye wrote a different kind of letter one day.

Good Night Gorilla. Peggy Rathmann.

For the longest time I wanted to be just like Peggy Rathmman. I still do…

The Day I Swapped My Dad For A Goldfish. Neil Gaiman and Dave Mckean

Storytelling at its best. There are some many undercurrents in this story.

Dear Fuse#8, ten books would never be enough; a hundred books would never be enough…how could I leave out the following titles?

Lon PoPo. Ed Young

Monster Mama. Liz Rosenberg and Stephen Gammell

Freight Train. Donald Crews.

The Arrival. Shaun Tan.

Emeline At The Circus. Marjorie Priceman.

Northern Lullaby. Nancy White Carlstrom, and Diane and DianeDillon

Wild Child. Lynn Plourde and Greg Couch

The Mountains Of Tibet. Mordicai Gerstein.

John Patrick Norman McHennessy: The Boy Who Was Always Late. John Burningham.

Give what you appear not to be getting.

Give what you think you have been searching for.

Give what you believe you are waiting for.

Give generously, without thought of loss and sacrifice.

Give openly, that you might receive what you want.

Give freely, that you may find what you are after.

Give fully, that your waiting may be over.

Above all, give what you want.

Robert Holden

So, yes, I got out of bed.

For the first time in my life I missed my plane—my plane from SFO to Mexico City. Serenely I saw my flight leave without me. It was O.K. Everything has a reason, even if that reason if for me to learn to read the clock correctly.

Besides Mexico was still there when I arrived twelve hours latter, hot and humid like I remembered. The river was still there too, and so were the cobblestone streets, the stray dogs roaming and howling at night, and my mother with a hose in her hand watering her jungle of a garden.

At the Callejon del Diamante I bought a necklace of giant ojo de venado seeds, eyes of dear seeds traditionally tied on children with red ribbons to prevent the evil eye. I believe I am protected now for a hundred years.

Lalo the jewel maker lives in a three story house with a patio with a jinicuil tree. My friend Meche says the fruit might be delicious but those trees are full of hairy caterpillars, the kind that stings you and would give you a fever. Good thing Lalo spends most of his time inside his studio making silver and wooden jewelry, like the rings he made for my husband Tim and I; two rings made of one same silver band with prehispanic seashells design.

Luis Felipe has long hair down his waist (and so does his wife and their daughter) and he makes Jaranas out of one single piece of wood. As the vocalist and requinto player of the group Los Sonex, he is one of the best musicians in town. His group have just released their first album, there one can hear the song La Bamba being interpreted by the by the vocalist of the Café Tacuba . I wanted to buy the CD and so I looked for it all over town, but everywhere I went the album was sold out. Instead Kelly my son took requinto lessons from Luis Felipe and so, at the end we managed to bring his music home.

Did I bring anything else from Mexico? I made new pants sewing together patterned fabrics in many colors, and I have them here with me now. I brought coconut candy that I have been eating carefully and little by little after dinner. I carried a whole suit case full of jars of hot salsa with almonds. I had Señora Bordadora embroidering flowers on one a dress. Manuela gave me a reboso soft and multicolored like a fiesta. We also brought the strength of the river with its floating dragon flies and its singing rocks. We carried inside us the amazing heat of the ancient Temazcal bath that one takes inside a clay little room shaped like belly, where they bring red-hot burning rocks inside and then seal the doors so that one can feel like bring devoured by the earth.

Along we brought the love of our family with their laughs and their jokes, the food shared for hours and hours, the music at the neighbors house that the whole street can hear, the traffic stuck behind the garbage truck in a narrow street, the tortilla soup at the Green Leave restaurant where people can come in with their dogs, the handmade posters on the street encouraging people to walk more and drive less, the ice-cream cart outside the supermarket, which sells the most delicious helado de mamey ever, and the itching stings of a hundred mosquitoes.

And all of these should last us long enough.