JacketFlap connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults. The site is updated daily with information about every book, author, illustrator, and publisher in the children's / young adult book industry. Members include published authors and illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, booksellers, publishers and fans. Join now (it's free).
Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.
Blog Posts by Tag
In the past 7 days
Blog Posts by Date
Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: SPRING, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 25 of 324
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: SPRING in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
Here are some fairy garlands for the month of May. The May Pole Dance is from the Spring edition of the Fairy Gazettes, where it is accompanied by an article on the etiquette of folded wings. Should it be "Wings Up" or "Wings Down"? Just ask Fairy Faux Pas!
Above, a fairy garland woven from the spring flowers that have naturalized in my garden - forget-me-nots, lily of the valley, and primroses. The flowers of the poem won't show up here until June.
Funny how things happen without consciously deciding that this is what will happen... I decided to update my long overlooked blog and post some new work and realized that I seem to have spent much of the past two years painting animals! Here are some of my recent pieces, lots of animals...but there a few images to be painted of nothing but people and there is a gnome-y sort of fellow which is kind of a person!!!! Working on two companion pieces to Mammals right now, Farm Animals and Snowmen...which are, again, sort of like people!
Title: Little Bitty Friends
Author: Elizabeth McPike
Illustrator: Patrice Barton
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for YOung Readers, February, 2016
Themes: spring, small animals, rhyme
Ages: 0-2
Genre: concept picture book
Opening: (first two spreads)
Little bitty steps
marching one, two, three,
Little furry caterpillar,
tickle, tickle, knee.
Synopsis:
Sharing strawberries with a wee mouse, stretching up skyward … Continue reading →
OK, well, its finished. But its not at all what I was going for. I started out to do a really detailed, 100% watercolor (which I'm rusty at) piece, and used Arches cold pressed paper. WRONG. Oh, its beautiful paper, but I should have used hot press. Cold press is bumpy and scratchy, and I fought with it all the way through this piece. At one point last night I aaaaaalmost took a big brush full of black paint and swiped it across the whole thing. But I packed it up and watched some TV instead, and looked at it fresh today.
I actually learned a lot on this one, which is good. I've been doing colored pencil work for so long now that I've forgotten how to paint a little bit, and have also changed how I want my paintings to look.
The checkered tablecloth came out exactly right. But do you know how long that took? Just the tablecloth? After I painted in all the squares, I went back and softened all the edges of every square so there wouldn't be a hard line. And it looks awesome! Then I did the grass. Every bloody blade of it. Then, I did it again (another layer). Then, did some shadows. Then, did a wash of yellowy-er green over the whole entire thing. Not bad.
Then I started on the flowers. When they were kind of finished I still had the sheep and all their stuff to do. The paper was driving me completely insane. I was kind of doing dry brush, but on bumpy paper - yeah, no. You'd think I'd have enough sense to just stop, but nooooo.
I ended up adding some colored pencil over the top in a few places just to get 'er done (and had to resist the temptation to go over the whole entire thing with pencil, and essentially re-render the whole thing.
So there you have it, my whole whiney story. But like I said, I learned a lot, and next time I tackle something like this (and have the right paper), hopefully it'll turn out better.
Its Spring, and totally perfect beautiful weather. The kitties are all lounging about all day outside, the birdies are singing, plants are blooming (the jasmine just started today), and other than this illustration, everything is pretty good.
0 Comments on Sheep Picnic as of 3/31/2016 12:07:00 AM
Spring is finally here! The sun is shining bright, we’re wearing less layers, and birds are chirping! Well, not one bird who has some ambivalence about hatching. On this episode of Ready Set Draw!, Joyce Wan, the illustrator of Peep and Egg: I’m Not Hatching draws the spring-ready characters from Laura Gehl’s eggscellent picture book.
Did you, your child, or a student draw their own version of Peep and Egg using this video? Please share your images with us via Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter! Use the hashtag #KidLitTV on Instagram and Twitter too. We can’t wait to see what you’ve drawn!
Like an Easter basket, this post is filled with treats! Click the images below to download a Teacher’s Guide and Activity Kit.
Egg is “not” hatching. No way. No how. It is too scary out there.
Peep wants Egg to hatch so they can do fun things together, like watch the sunrise, splash in puddles, and play hide-and-seek. But Egg is “not cracking” … Joyce Wan’s bright and bold illustrations will have young chickies giggling at Laura Gehl’s reassuring tale that takes the “not” out of “I’m not.”
ABOUT LAURA GEHL
Laura Gehl is the author of several picture books including the Peep and Egg series. She has a B.A. in psychology from Yale and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Georgetown. She’s taught literacy and biology.
A Birthday for Frances, The Perfect Nest, The Big Orange Splot, and This is Not My Hat are a few of Laura’s favorite picture books. She enjoys the work of Gordon Korman, Susan Cooper, and L.M Montgomery too.
Laura and her family live in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Joyce is inspired by Japanese pop culture, Scandinavian design, modern architecture, and the little things that put a smile on her face. In Joyce’s perfect world “everything would be cute, round, and chubby,” which is evident in her illustrations. Joyce is the author of several bestselling board and picture books including You Are My Cupcake and The Whale in My Swimming Pool, a Spring 2015 Junior Library Guild Selection.
Although Joyce’s parents had the equivalent of a middle school education, and her mother wasn’t able to speak English, her mother took Joyce and her siblings to the library every week. Picture books were integral to Joyce’s love of reading as she and her siblings made up stories to go along with the illustrations. Joyce counts the determination of her parents as a driving force behind her perseverance and success. “When I first started Wanart, I was working at a 9am-6pm job at an architectural firm. I spent many late night hours on my own business with only a few hours of sleep in between the two “jobs”. I did this for two years before I quit my full time job to pursue my own business full-time.”
Joyce graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University in New York City with a liberal arts degree in Architecture. Joyce teaches greeting card design and art licensing at the School of Visual Arts. The self-proclaimed night owl prefers drawing and writing in the early morning hours “when everyone’s asleep and the world is quiet.” Joyce lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey with her husband. The architect turned author and self-trained illustrator hopes to inspire people to “embrace the spirit of childhood and follow their dreams.”
Before you check out Apples and Robins, an amazing picture book if there ever was one, check out the winner of two Tristan Hunt and the Sea Guardians author signed books. Each reader who commented was assigned a number, beginning with the first comment posted. (reverse order of there placement). Using Random.org ‘s generator, the …
I just realized that March 9, 2016 is my 10 year blogoversary!!! Hard to believe how fast that has flown. Back then I was doing a lot of parent blogging and also reviewing children's books more, as I was an elementary school librarian. I haven't been blogging as much lately, what with a new job since last summer (Reference librarian in a small college close to home = YAY!), but I am still
0 Comments on Sedoka Poems to Bring in Spring as of 3/4/2016 5:29:00 AM
got around to curating my first little treasury on etsy late last night (yay me!)....inspired by one of my favorite flowers (and recent paintings), the delicate and graceful snowdrop.
click on over and take a look at the exquisite handmade items i found in my search. they are simply stunning in their own right.
the first in a series of three summer/flower girls i will be releasing FOR SALE this summer.
*NOTE~this is an ORIGINAL DRAWING not a print. i will not be selling prints until the original drawing is sold. you can find here FOR SALE here.
also, in my etsy shop, i have three winter girls (ORIGINAL DRAWINGS) available. try not to be biased but they are my favorite. well of course they are, they represent WINTER...one of my obsessions (because God knows i have a few of those...;) )
ok, back to business.....i have also added share buttons to the images here in my blog. i have been trying to add pinterest buttons to the gallery images on my site but due to the format (carousel) i have the images displayed in, well that's the only format in which the pinterest buttons do not want to play nice. kind of stuck on the carousel format so i apologize for the lack of ease in sharing any images you may love on my site onto your pinterest pages. please feel free to share from my blog here though...if the mood strikes you. always remember, ALL of my images belong solely to ME. NONE of them are to be reproduced by anyone but myself. i see lots of artists have their hard work taken by others unknowingly and popping up all over the internet without consent/permission. so wrong but don't get me started....
so now that Flora has made her little debut this first full week of summer (thank you God for the gift of air conditioning....) her lovely little friends, Camillia and Blossom will be following...soon! :)
0 Comments on meet Flora.... as of 6/26/2015 12:04:00 PM
When I finish a big project, I usually have to take a few days to get my bearings. I look around, dazed, trying to figure out what to do next. Morning Pages help. Walking to the lake helps. Spring is inspiring!
My camera helps me focus—literally—when I need to slow down and pay attention. For me, that can be the key to opening up to new ideas.
I just turned in the fourth (and final) book in a nonfiction series for an educational publisher. It drained me more than I expected. So I’m filling the well. Here are some things I’m paying attention to.
Last fall, I buried 40 potted milkweed plants (3 varieties) under dry leaves next to the house. When the weather warmed up, I put them in the sun next to the garage. So far, 18 of them have sprouted. Three more plants (and one more variety) have popped up in the flower bed, which is shadier. Now I'm watching for monarchs. (Are you? Check the migration map to see if they're in your neighborhood yet.)
A pair of white-breasted nuthatches were cleaning out a hole in a branch above the garage the other day. Will they build a nest there? I hope so. I love their weird calls (described by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as "a loud, nasal yank") and the way they hop down tree trunks head first.
One of my favorite wildflowers, a shooting star, is blooming in the park. What an encouraging surprise! Maybe I can go back to work now.
Bobbi started this series of Teaching Authors posts about inspiration with a collection of wonderful quotes. Be sure to check it out if you need a dose of inspiration—and who doesn't?
Congratulations to Karen C, who won our giveaway of the YA novel in verse Dating Down by Stephanie Lyons. (Read all about it in Esther's interview.)
Baby Says "Moo!" is now a board book! Watch for a Teaching Authors Book Giveaway in June.
It's springtime! In Mississippi, at least, it's been spring for quite some time and actually hit 80 degrees last week. In celebration, let's highlight some springtime tales for your displays! These books either have or are coming out this spring!
It's the latest Penderwicks book! These are so lovely and the latest one is no exception. Available now, the fourth book in the Penderwicks series has a lot of heart and surprises for each family member. Your kids that have loved the last three books won't be disappointed by this one.
Listen, Slowly is a gorgeous tale of a California girl who spends her summer with her grandmother in Vietnam. She must learn to find the balance between her two worlds. An excellent follow-up to Lai's National Book Award Winning Inside Out and Back Again, this one is gorgeous and evocative. Your students that love to read about other places will devour this one.
Astrid and her best friend Nicole have always done everything together...until Astrid discovers roller derby. Derby is amazing and Astrid is learning so much...but what does this mean for her relationship with Nicole? An excellent addition to the growing canon of upper middle grade graphic novels that is so wonderful.
The first book in an exciting new series! Horace is absentmindedly looking out the window of the bus...when he sees a sign with his name on it. What he finds under the sign will change his life forever. Gifts! Magic! New friends! Perfect for the fantasy lovers in your library.
Out next month, Murder is Bad Manners is a charming tale of murder and Mayhem at an English boarding school in the 1930s. Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong have formed their own secret detective agency...but they never thought they'd have a real murder to investigate! This one hits all the high points: historical fiction, mystery, and friendship.
*
Our guest blogger from ALSC today is Ally Watkins (@aswatki1). Ally is a Library Consultant at the Mississippi Library Commission.
It’s springtime! In Mississippi, at least, it’s been spring for quite some time and actually hit 80 degrees last week. In celebration, let’s highlight some springtime tales for your displays! These books either have or are coming out this spring!
It’s the latest Penderwicks book! These are so lovely and the latest one is no exception. Available now, the fourth book in the Penderwicks series has a lot of heart and surprises for each family member. Your kids that have loved the last three books won’t be disappointed by this one.
Listen, Slowly is a gorgeous tale of a California girl who spends her summer with her grandmother in Vietnam. She must learn to find the balance between her two worlds. An excellent follow-up to Lai’s National Book Award Winning Inside Out and Back Again, this one is gorgeous and evocative. Your students that love to read about other places will devour this one.
Astrid and her best friend Nicole have always done everything together…until Astrid discovers roller derby. Derby is amazing and Astrid is learning so much…but what does this mean for her relationship with Nicole? An excellent addition to the growing canon of upper middle grade graphic novels that is so wonderful.
The first book in an exciting new series! Horace is absentmindedly looking out the window of the bus…when he sees a sign with his name on it. What he finds under the sign will change his life forever. Gifts! Magic! New friends! Perfect for the fantasy lovers in your library.
Out next month, Murder is Bad Manners is a charming tale of murder and Mayhem at an English boarding school in the 1930s. Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong have formed their own secret detective agency…but they never thought they’d have a real murder to investigate! This one hits all the high points: historical fiction, mystery, and friendship.
*
Our guest blogger from YALSA today is Ally Watkins (@aswatki1). Ally is a Library Consultant at the Mississippi Library Commission.
How lovely it is to look out of the window and see trees bursting into life. It’s still cold at night and there has been the odd drop of rain, but it’s generally warm and sunny. The words I've used here are from a poem called Today by Billy Collins. If you would like to find out more about him there is an excellent biography at The Poetry Foundation. Most of the photographs are from our garden, although the first one was taken at Barrington Court and the last three while walking around the village where we live. The blackbird is a daily visitor and a very welcome one.
Some of my favourite online destinations are looking very spring like just now – first up Milly & Dottie’s Emporium a vintage treasure house.
Once you've visited Milly & Dottie, Crave Cute and Winter Moon don’t forget to come back and visit me at March House Books where you will find all kinds of vintage things, including this sweet little book about Pookie a white rabbit with wings!
We’ve teamed up with Mother Daughter Book Reviews again for our latest release Caterpillar Shoes. You can enter through May 6th for a chance at winning a $50 gift card by clicking the Rafflecopter link:
You can download our latest children’s picture book for only $.99 for a limited time or it is available FREE if you have Kindle Unlimited. Start your free trial of Kindle Unlimited HERE.
Patches is an energetic caterpillar who is trying to decide what activities to do. In the end, she doesn’t put any limits on herself and lives her life to the full.
The Penderwicks in Spring
by Jeanne Birdsall
Intermediate Knopf 339 pp.
3/15 978-0-375-87077-4 $16.99
Library ed. 978-0-375-97077-1 $19.99 g
e-book ed. 978-0-307-97459-4 $10.99
In this fourth Penderwicks book, time has passed and the family landscape has changed. Mr. Penderwick has married the lovely Iantha; Rosalind is away at college; and Skye is fending off best friend Jeffrey’s romantic advances. (Aspiring author Jane, however, is as dreamy as ever.) And Batty, the impish little girl with butterfly wings, is now ten and the “senior member of the younger Penderwick siblings” — stepbrother Ben (seven) and half-sister Lydia (two). The story mostly belongs to Batty: already an accomplished pianist, she’s discovered a talent for singing. To raise money for (secret) voice lessons, she starts a neighborhood odd-jobs business. She’s employed as a dog walker, which sadly reminds her of her dear departed Hound. There’s a lot of melancholy (and some melodrama) in this book, with poor Batty suffering benign neglect from favorite-sister Rosalind (temporarily boy-crazy, and an insufferable boy at that) and bearing the brunt of some particularly hurtful words from Skye. On the plus side, Ben and Lydia, in their cheering-up efforts, emerge as formidable Penderwicks; across-the-street neighbor Nick (on leave from the army, older brother of Rosalind’s true love Tommy) provides no-nonsense advice; best friend Keiko remains true blue; and lovelorn Jeffrey finally snaps out of it enough to resume his role as Batty’s musical mentore. And at her climactic Grand Eleventh Birthday Concert, Batty rewardingly finds her voice.
Easter, commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, is historically the most important of all Christian festivals, even though in some Western countries it has largely lost the religious significance it retains amongst the Orthodox; nevertheless it merits discussion in a broader context not only because it is often a public as well as a religious holiday, or indeed because even Christians may be baffled by its apparently capricious incidence, but because the history of its calculation illustrates many complexities of time-reckoning.
Super excited to announce that our Bee Bully is being featured in Bookbub today and is only $.99 for a limited time. To celebrate we have some free gifts to tell you about. From April 1st – April 5th you can download our latest release, Caterpillar Shoes, absolutely free from Amazon. Check out what’s troubling Patches the caterpillar and the silly decision she makes to live her life to the full. There are some interesting caterpillar facts in the back of this book.
I’ve also got more surprises to share. My friend, Laura Yirak, is also giving away a copy of her delightful bee book, Bumble Babees during this same period.
Scott Gordon has another treat for you. His book, The Most Beautiful Flower will be FREE April 2-April 6. This book is only $.99 on April 1st. Don’t you just love spring! Enjoy these goodies while they last.
.jpg?picon=913)
.jpg?picon=597)
.jpeg?picon=1549)
The Penderwicks in Spring
