How to use this Page

2015 has seen a special landmark in cultural history: the 2500th anniversary of the official ‘birth’ of comedy. It was in the spring of 486 BC that Athens first included plays called comedies (literally, ‘revel-songs’) in the programme of its Great Dionysia festival. Although semi-improvised comic performances had a long prehistory in the folk culture of Athens, it was only from 486 that comedy became, alongside tragedy (which had an older place in Athenian festivals), one of the two defining archetypes of theatre

The post Did comedy kill Socrates? appeared first on OUPblog.

Tim Hopgood is an illustrator and author I admire greatly. His brilliant Here Comes Frankie was one of the first books I reviewed on this blog, over 6 years ago now, and I’ve yet to read a book of his which hasn’t made me happy.

His use of colour is exceptional. His strong sense of design is eye-catching. His use of visual textures always has me stroking the pages of his books. Yes, I’ll admit I’m a bit of fan!

And so it’s a great honour, and an enormous delight to bring you an interview with Tim today. His latest book is something of a departure for him – up till now (at least when working with children’s publishers) he has always illustrated fiction, but Fabulous Frogs is a bold, extremely beautiful and fascinating non-fiction collaboration with Martin Jenkins (author of the award-winning Can We Save the Tiger?). I kicked off my interview with Tim by asking him about this different genre and what impact it had on his illustrations.

Playing by the book: This is the first time you’ve illustrated a non-fiction book. How was your approach different (and also how was it similar) to illustrating a fiction picture book?

Tim Hopgood: It was my first time working on a non-fiction book and my first time working with the team at Walker (Editor – Lucy Ingrams, Art Director – Beth Aves) and Author – Martin Jenkins, but what was so great was their approach was exactly the same as mine when working on my own picture books. By that, I mean the process was very fluid. We met a few times face-to-face at key stages in the development of the book and the rest of the time it was all done via email, but nothing was ever set in stone until it went to print, and that’s how I like to work. So the book was allowed to evolve in a very natural, organic way; it was a very enjoyable process.

It was also incredibly hard work. For me, the biggest challenge was trying to capture the essence and personality of each frog in my style of illustration whilst remaining anatomically correct. When working on a fiction picture book I wouldn’t be too concerned with anatomical correctness as I’d be more interested in whether my frog character had personality and emotion so this was the main difference, as all the frogs had to be easily identifiable. I don’t think I’ve ever drawn anything quite so small and in such detail as the tiny frogs from Papua New Guinea!

The other big difference was each frog belonged to a different world; so unlike in a fiction picture book where you create a world for your characters to exist in and have to stick to it throughout the book, this project allowed me the freedom to create completely different backgrounds for each frog. In some cases I kept the backgrounds white, which is something I don’t usually do in my own books.

Goliath Frog – a rough draft and the final image

Playing by the book: I think you’ve combined anatomical correctness, personality and emotion wonderfully well in this book – a huge part of its visual appeal is that the frogs have immense personality – lifting the book into something special and very, very distant from a “dry” fact based book…

Tim Hopgood: Thank you Zoe! that’s really good to hear…

Playing by the book: So is there anything about the process of illustrating non-fiction that you think you will “bring back” to your story picture books? Any way of looking at a subject which is different for you now because of the things you had to think about with your frogs?

Tim Hopgood: Although I wasn’t able to draw any of the frogs from life, I think my observational skills were sharpened because of this project. I studied lots and lots of photographs of each frog and had to work out what were the defining features, what made each frog special and then try to bring that frog to life on the page. I think working on the book reignited my interest in nature and I think this will influence my future projects.

Playing by the book: That’s wonderful to hear! Were you a fan of frogs before you illustrated the book? Not everyone loves wet slimy creatures…

Tim Hopgood: As a child I was fascinated by frogspawn and tadpoles; I think children like the way tadpoles move in the water. When my children were little we discovered frogs at the bottom of our garden so we created a small pond in the hope to encourage more (we put an old school sink in the ground and put some plants in it) and amazingly it wasn’t too long before we had a sink full of tadpoles. The kids loved watching the tadpoles grow and develop into tiny frogs.

A rough layout for an interior page from Fabulous Frogs, and the final version

Playing by the book: Which is your favourite frog in your book?

Tim Hopgood: My favourite is the striped rocket frog from Australia. It can jump five metres in one go. I love the look of this frog with its cool stripes running down its back and sides. The other one I really enjoyed drawing is the Malagasy rainbow frog.

Malagasy Rainbow Frog

Playing by the book: How did you and the author interact during the process of creating the book – like a great picture book, the illustrations in this book don’t just double up on the text – there’s a real interplay between words and images. Did Martin indicate what he was thinking of with regard to images? Or was there something of a dialogue about how text and image could play together?

Tim Hopgood: When I first read Martin’s text what really appealed to me was the humour running through it and that it was packed full of frogs I’d never heard of, so I knew this had the potential to be a very striking and informative book. Although we didn’t interact directly – it was all done via Beth (Art Director) – there was definitely a dialogue between text and image which shifted and developed throughout the creative process, but it was a team effort.

We did meet a few times at key stages in the development of the book. At our first meeting we discussed the overall approach and Lucy (Editor) explained how the text would work on two levels: there’s the main text running through the book and then there’s the more detailed information which would sit smaller on the page. We discussed initial ideas for each spread and Beth and Martin provided me with source material for each frog. The next stage was for me to respond to the text in a visual way.

For my first rough I did several versions for each spread so that we could discuss options and work out which one we all thought worked best. Throughout the process the copy would be revised and repositioned on the page to work with the illustrations I was creating. And sometimes I did new drawings to sit more comfortably with the text. Beth is the kind of Art Director I really enjoy working with, the kind that has a clever knack of getting the best out of you, sometimes pushing you out of your comfort zone, but in a supportive and encouraging way. I think a great Art Director can often see things in your work that you as an artist can’t see yourself, they can see you’ve got more to give and that maybe you should approach a subject in a slightly different way, and with the right encouragement and support you can do it! I learnt a lot from creating this book and not just about frogs, but about drawing too!

Striped Rocket Frog

Playing by the book: Whilst researching your frogs, did you come across any other non-fiction illustrator’s work on frogs that really stood out for you?

Tim Hopgood: Oh yes – Art of the New Naturalists – Forms From Nature by Peter Marren and Robert Gillmor is an amazing non-fiction book for anyone interested in art and nature. I was given this book as a present and was inspired by the vitality of the drawings and the strong design compositions of the New Naturalist covers that are lovingly recorded in this book. It definitely influenced the way I approached the artwork for Fabulous Frogs: artwork for a non-fiction book doesn’t have to be clinical it can be painterly too. Combining expressive artwork with clear-cut information produces an interesting dynamic and that’s something I intend to explore in future projects.

Playing by the book: So apart from books used for researching for work, what role does non-fiction play in your own personal reading? Now, and as a child?

Tim Hopgood: As a child, non-fiction played a big part in my love of books. I struggled to learn to read and I struggled to find books that I enjoyed reading. I was always drawn to the non-fiction side of our local library, highly illustrated books on nature filled with facts had a particular appeal.

When I was nine, my parents bought me a hardback copy of ‘More Tell Me Why’ – Answers to over 400 questions children ask most often, by Arkady Leokum, published by Odhams Books. I loved that you could dip into it, that you didn’t have to start at the beginning and stick with it all the way through to make sense of it. You could flick through the pages and see something different each time you picked it up and I loved that it weighed a ton! And although it was heavy that didn’t stop me taking it to school and proudly reading from it in assembly!

Nowadays you’ll find plenty of non-fiction titles on my book shelves; mainly cookbooks (I recently completed over 100 illustrations for the new River Cottage cookbook ‘Love Your Leftovers’), but also lots of books on artists, designers, textiles and architecture. I still love the way you can dip in and out of a non-fiction title and discover new things each time you pick it up.

Playing by the book: One last and completely different question given that you are being interviewed on Playing by the book… what’s the last thing you did / place you visited / something you made for fun having been inspired by a book you’ve read?

Tim Hopgood: Now I feel very dull! I’m afraid it’s been all work and no play here recently, but when I’m not drawing I love to cook. For my birthday I was given ‘A Modern Way to Eat’ by Anna Jones – her Artichoke and fennel seed paella recipe is delicious!

Playing by the book: A book that makes you want to cook? That’s good enough for me! Thank you so very much Tim – here’s to frogs, fennel Seeds and further success in the future!

You can find out more about Tim Hopgood’s books on his website http://www.timhopgood.com/, and follow him on Twitter @TimHopgood.

Do look out for Tim’s new pre-school boardbook Walter’s Wonderful Web, and (like me) rejoice that his first three books are now all back in print!

Today’s interview is part of National Non-Fiction November, a month long celebration of non-fiction books for children and young people, set up by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups.

Whenever one person grabs a book and curls up in bed or on the sofa, the rest of the family inevitably follow. ... So we chose our favorites individually and then agreed on one shared family favorite.

Fribbet the Frog and the Tadpoles: A Captain No Beard Story should be readily welcomed into the personal libraries of all expectant families with soon-to-be or new siblings.

Freddy the Frogcaster and the Big Blizzard does an excellent job of creating a creative way to get kids interested in learning about the science of weather.

By Rebecca Cramp

In recent decades, the extraordinarily rapid disappearance of frogs, toads, and salamanders has grabbed the attention of both the scientific community and concerned citizens the world over. Although the causes of some of these losses remain unresolved, the novel disease chytridiomycosis caused by the skin-based fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), has been identified as the causative agent in many of the declines and extinctions worldwide. Bd is now regarded as being responsible for the greatest disease-driven loss of vertebrate biodiversity in recorded history.  Like other entirely cutaneous microbes, interactions with the skin of its host determine how and under what conditions the fungus can induce disease.

The skin plays an important role in immune defence. In the first instance, skin acts as a physical barrier against microbes and pathogens. It also produces anti-microbial skin secretions and supports a large microbial community made up of good (commensal), bad (pathogenic) and indifferent (neither good nor bad; having no discernable effect) microbes. Like most animals, the outer skin layer of amphibians is shed (sloughed) on a regular basis—as often as daily to every couple of weeks. However, unlike mammals, amphibians shed (and often eat) the entire outer skin layer in one piece.  Therefore, anything adhering to or within that outer layer would be lost from the body every time the animal sloughs it skin. As such, regular sloughing could play a role in regulating the abundance and persistence of microbes (including Bd) at the body’s surface. To date, however, the potential for regular skin sloughing to serve as an immune defense strategy in amphibians has been largely overlooked.

A green tree frog. Photo by Ed Meyer.

To test the hypothesis that sloughing in plays a role in the management of cutaneous microbe abundance, we investigated changes in the number of cultivable cutaneous bacteria on the ventral and dorsal body surfaces of the Green tree frog (Litoria caerulea) with sloughing. Effects of temperature on sloughing periodicity were also investigated in order to determine how the efficacy of sloughing in regulating microbial infection might vary with climate and season. Our study showed that sloughing massively reduced the overall abundance of bacteria, in some cases by as much as 100%. In addition, temperature had a marked effect on sloughing periodicity, with animals in cooler temperatures having a much longer time between sloughs compared with animals at held higher temperatures.

Most importantly however, we found that the extended time between sloughs in animals in the cold treatments allowed skin microbe numbers to increase to levels in excess of those seen in animals in the warm treatment. These data suggest that for pathogens that like relatively cooler conditions (like Bd), the effect of temperature on host sloughing frequency may allow pathogen numbers to build up to such a degree that fatal disease occurs.

What does it all mean, though? Firstly, the epidemiology of skin based diseases like Bd could be in part attributed to the effects of temperature on host sloughing periodicity particularly when disease outbreaks occur in cool habitats and/or at cooler times of year. Secondly, differences between species in the frequency of sloughing could influence pathogen establishment and go some way to explaining why some amphibian species are more resistant to cutaneous pathogens than others. Thirdly, the ability of commensal (good) bacteria to protect against pathogens may be reduced in frog species which slough frequently as commensal bacteria would also be lost from the skin with sloughing, unless they are able to recolonise the skin rapidly.

Understanding the role the skin plays as the first bastion of defense against external pathogens is vitally important as the rate of emergence of both novel and pre-existing infectious diseases is predicted to skyrocket in the future as a result of anthropogenic climate change.

Dr Rebecca Cramp is a Research Officer at The University of Queensland in the laboratory of Professor Craig Franklin. Rebecca has diverse research interests and is currently working on several projects including a study of disease susceptibility in frogs, the control of ion regulation in acid-tolerant amphibian larvae and the effects of environmental stressors on immune function in amphibian larvae. She is a co-author of the paper ‘First line of defence: the role of sloughing in the regulation of cutaneous microbes in frogs‘, which appears in the journal Conservation Physiology.

Conservation Physiology is an online only, fully open access journal published on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology. Biodiversity across the globe faces a growing number of threats associated with human activities. Conservation Physiology publishes research on all taxa (microbes, plants and animals) focused on understanding and predicting how organisms, populations, ecosystems and natural resources respond to environmental change and stressors. Physiology is considered in the broadest possible terms to include functional and mechanistic responses at all scales.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only earth and life sciences articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: A green tree frog. Photo by Ed Meyer. Do not reproduce without permission.

The post Why do frogs slough their skin? appeared first on OUPblog.

        

Related Stories

• The amoeba in the room
• Inferring the unconfirmed: the no alternatives argument
• The never-ending assault by microbes

 

A beautifully drawn, charming tale about the difficulties of becoming a big brother.

Do you think there is an age at which you’ll stop reading aloud to your children?

Have you already reached that stage?

Why might you keep reading to an older child who can already read themselves?

These are some of the questions I’ve been contemplating as part of a discussion, initiated by Clara Vulliamy, about reading to big kids. I’ve also been thinking about books which I think work especially well as read-alouds to big kids, kids who can read perfectly well themselves.

The absurd, magical, funny collection of tales which make up The Good Little Devil and Other Tales by Pierre Gripari, with illustrations by Puig Rosado, translated by Sophie Lewis are curious and intriguing, and make for especially interesting read-alouds to “big” kids.

Adults in these fairy tales are often foolish and fooled, children save the day, taking everything in their stride, there is great humour, wit and cheekiness, as well as the occasional tinge of gruesomeness. Plot twists and turns which might leave my grown-up sensibilities unsatisfied perfectly resemble stories children will tell themselves, with little psychology, minimal internal reason, but plenty of pace. Talking potatoes, giants and shoes in love, witches hiding in cupboards – this book is full of off-beat, silly and enjoyable stories.

But one of the reasons why I think this book works particularly well as a read-aloud, as a shared experience with an adult, is that the book – translated from the French – is full of richness and new horizons that are easier to explore with someone else along for the ride. The book is set in Paris, and has a distinctly Gallic flavour (from the illustration featuring a naked female chest, to a helter skelter ride through French history, via a strong, albeit often tongue-in-cheek Roman Catholic presence), and whilst the wackiness of the tales will be enjoyed by older children reading alone, I think lots that could be missed on a solo reading might be fruitfully explored and doubly enjoyed with a grown-up around.

Each story in this collection has one or two drawings by the Spanish illustrator Puig Rosado

Perhaps this all sounds a bit worthy and educational, and that’s not at all what I’m aiming at. Rather, I’m thinking about to what extent books are enjoyed with or without (some) background knowledge. The language and style of writing in this book is perfect for say 9 year olds to read themselves, (and it clearly is enjoyed by lots of children, having been translated into 17 languages, with more than 1.5 million copies sold around the world) but my experience of it was that it was a book which became considerably enriched by sharing it.

Library Mice says: “The Good Little Devil and Other Tales is the one book I’d recommend to any child of any age, from any country.”
Julia Eccleshare says: “Delightful trickery abounds in this collection of magical tales all of which are spiced with a sophisticated sense of humour and sharp wit.”
The Independent says: “[For] Readers of all ages who appreciate a good story and a kooky sense of humour“.

A view down rue Broca. No. 69 is on the left, just after Les Delices de Broca. Image taken from Google street view.

One aspect that my kids and I particularly enjoyed about The Good Little Devil and Other Tales was the discovery Gripari wrote these stories with children: Gripari created them along with kids who would sit with him outside his favourite cafe in Rue Broca, Paris in the 1960s. As Gripari writes in his afterword:

The stories in the collection were. thus, not written by Monsieur Pierre alone. They were improvised by him in collaboration with his listeners – and whoever has not worked in this way may struggle to imagine all that the children could contribute, from solid ideas to poetic discoveries and even dramatic situations, often surprisingly bold ones.

My kids were so excited by the idea that kids just liked them had helped a “real author” write a “real book”. It was an inspirational moment for them, and with a glint in their eyes they were soon asking how they could turn their stories into books.

And so it was I started to investigate ways to turn M and J’s own words and pictures, stories and illustrations into books of their own. I soon realised that I was not only finding ways to support my kids desire to write, I was also discovering ways to store all those creations of theirs I can’t bear to part with, as well as objects that could be turned into unique Christmas or birthday presents for family members.

Here are 7 ways to turn your child’s words and pictures into a book. Some of these approaches could also be used by classes or creative writing/art groups, to create publications that could be used for fundraising projects.

1. The slip-in book

Stationers and chemists sell a variety of display books that can be adapted for self publication. Choose the size you want and simply slip in your pictures and text! Photo albums often offer greater variety of binding, and come in many more sizes, so these are useful if you want to include documents which aren’t a standard size. Display books typically have either 20 or 40 pockets, giving you 40 or 80 pages in total. Depending on whether there is a separate pocket for a title page, you can use stickers to give your book a title.

Advantages: Very easy to produce, and cheap. Minimal printing required, and no typesetting needed! Older children can make these books themselves as all it requires is for them to slip the original into the binding.
Disadvantages: Only one copy of each book can be made this way (unless you photocopy the originals).
Cost: £ (Display books in my local stationers started at £2.50, and photo albums at £5 for larger ones)
Ideal for: Storage solutions, one-off books.

2. Comb bound

Many local stationers offer a cheap and quick option using comb binding. For this option you’ll need to prepare your images and texts so that they can be printed (normally at A4/letter size, not at smaller or nonstandard sizes), and this may involved scanning images and a certain amount of typesetting. Once you’ve prepared your document, binding can be very quick (a matter of minutes), and because you’ve prepared an electronic copy you can bind as many copies as you’d like. It’s possible to buy coil binders (£100-£300) and this might be an effective option for schools.

Advantages: Cheap and quick, good for multiple copies.
Disadvantages: Can look a bit “cheap” (I think slip in books look more appealing; they can look like real hard back books), can be a little flimsy.
Cost: £ (comb binding at my local stationers – Rymans, for UK folk – started at £3.49 for 25 sheets, going up to £7.49 for 450 sheets). Don’t forget you’ll have to include printing costs too.
Ideal for: short runs of books at a low price

3. Glue bound

Image Source: University of Birmingham Bindery

Glue binding (sometimes known as Thermo binding) is quick (often a while-you-wait) service, and you can often get your pages printed and bound at A5 size rather than A4 (making the finished product look more like a “real” book).

Advantages: Finished book can look quite a lot like a “real” book, which is very satisfying!
Disadvantages: Glue binding is considered “temporary” and so isn’t ideal for books which are going to be read very many times. Glue binding won’t work if you’ve very few pages in your book; most binders I’ve spoken to recommend an absolute minimum of 24 sides (12 pages).
Cost: ££ (glue binding at my local university was £7.50 per book). Don’t forget you’ll have to include printing costs too.
Ideal for: When you want a cheapish option which looks like a real book. University binderies are also often able to give some advice on typesetting and layout, so if you’re not confident about your skills in those areas.

4. Self published via Amazon’s CreateSpace

CreateSpace is a fairly easy tool to use to create paperback books. It has an extremely clear step by step process you can follow. There’s quite a variety of formats, both in terms of size, black and white printing or full colour, or cream paper instead of white (the former being better if you want to be dyslexia friendly, though this option is only available for black and white printing). To make your life much easier, you can download templates with much of the formatting done for you (for example margins set up correctly) – I’d definitely recommend doing this, though it isn’t a requirement. Once you’ve downloaded the template you’ll fill it in with your child’s writing and images, just like you would in a word processing document.

Both my kids have used the template and typed straight into it (rather than writing by hand and then me typing up their words). Adding images works just like it does in a word document, the only thing I’ve found you need to be careful of is making sure your images are of a high enough resolution. When you/your child has finished their document (perhaps with multiple stories and images) you need to upload your work as a print-ready .pdf, .doc, .docx, or .rt. CreateSpace then checks everything is ok before you go on to design your book cover.

You can order M’s first book by clicking on this photo!

Advantages: The CreateSpace step-by-step guide is thorough and pretty easy to use. The resulting books have definitely had the “wow” factor with my kids.
Disadvantages: For a whole variety of ethical reasons you might not want to deal with Amazon. Everything is done online so you may want to think about personal details. M has used a pen name, so her real name doesn’t appear online, and if you were publishing work by children in a school you might want to consider only using children’s first names, especially if the name of the school also appears on the book you create (this is less of a concern if you don’t make the book available for the public to buy).
Cost: ££ The cost to create the book is nil. The final purchase price depends partly on page number and the use of colour (the more pages, and the use of colour make books more expensive), and whether you want to sell book at cost or to make a profit. M’s book (64 pages, 6″x9″, full colour) has a public cost price of £6.24 (although price is actually set in $). although as the author M can order copies at about half that price (though there are then postage costs to pay).
Ideal for: Producing books which really look like paperback books. Great if you want family and friends to be able to buy their own copy. You can also choose to publish your book in Kindle format.

5. Self published via Lulu

I’ve yet to use Lulu, but Juliet Clare Bell has a really useful post on using Lulu in school over on Picture Book Den. Having taken a quick look at Lulu it looks quite similar to CreateSpace, although you can do hard covers, and A5 and A4 sized books (CreateSpace mostly does standard US Trade sizes, and doesn’t offer hardbacks.)

6. Using the Scholastic We Are Writers scheme

The Scholastic We Are Writers scheme is specifically designed with schools in mind. It costs nothing for the school to set up and publish, thought each final book costs £5.99 (though you can sell it for more if you wish to make a profit) subject to a minimum order quantity of 50 books. A nice feature is that the books come with an introduction written by a leading children’s author (although this isn’t personalised to your school)

Advantages: You can run We Are Writers as part of your Scholastic Book Fair to earn Scholastic Rewards for your school.
Disadvantages: Not ideal if you just want a few copies of the book you create. Although the cover is full colour, the interior of the book is black and white only, so not ideal if you wish to include artwork. Books must contain a minimum of 50 pages.
Cost: ££
Ideal for: Schools wanting to create books which are text based.

7. Book Creator for iPad

The Book Creator App makes ‘fixed layout’ e-books and is apparently very easy for kids to use to create books with lots of images. I’ve not used it, but here’s a series of case studies where it has been used in the classroom, and it would seem families at home could also easily use this app (free for your 1st book, then up to $4.99 for unlimited use).

My thanks to @candyliongirl and @sue_cowley for helpful suggestions when exploring options for creating books.

Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of The Good Little Devil from the publishers.

Enter to win an autographed copy of Krog the Frog Prince, by Janet C. Smith. Giveaway begins March 12, 2014, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends April 11, 2014, at 11:59 P.M. PST.

Hello everyone, first I want to wish you all a very Happy New Year. It has been a hard year for many of us and lots had happened. Now is the time to start a fresh in 2013. I want to welcome Scholastic Inc. to my every growing publisher list. I am very happy to have them aboard. Last update I reviewed three Young Adult Novels. In this update I will be reviewing three picture books. 

Picture Books

1) "The Never- Ending Greenness. We made Israel Bloom."- The book was written and illustrated by Neil Waldman. Published by Boyds Mills Press Inc. 1997. Originally published by: NY Morrow Junior Books 1997. Summary: "When his family comes to live in Israel after the end of World War II, a young boy begins planting and caring for trees, a practice that spreads across the whole Country." The author tells us the story of one Jewish family who escaped the horrors of the Holocaust and settled in Israel. After witnessing the terror of World War II and the bareness of his town of Vilna, a boy decides to plant trees to bring the spark of life to his new home. The amazing  Illustratrations add vividness to the story.  

2) "Has a Donkey Ever Brought you breakfast in bed"- This book was written by Pat Brannon and illustrated by Karen Deming. Published by Freedom of Speech Publishing Inc., Leawood KS 2012.  This author creates a funny world of "mighty" animals who can: "juggle lemons," "wear red go-go boots", or "tap dance all day long." It is a funny book with very simple illustrations that catch the eye. Even though it does not focus on one character, it is still a good story.  Your child will be laughing and pointing out the wacky animal events in the book.  If you want your child to have a good time get a copy.

3) "Dawn"- This book was written and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz. Published by Sunburst Books an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1974. This is the second edition 1987. It is a great book to read to your children before they go to sleep. Simple words and simple illustrations make them live and feel in the moment. We usually do not take a moment to observe our own surroundings: the star shining in the sky above, the bird singing, or the blooming flower below our feet. This book will encourage your children to live in the moment. I highly recommend this book for everyone. It is amazing how one picture and a few words can tell a story. Go out there and get  your child a copy of this wonderful book.

Thank you everyone for following me on my blog. I will be celebrating two years in February, and I will try my best to make an update twice a month. Happy 2013 let your life shine life. Next time I will review Middle Grade books. 

  Kid Lit Reviews welcomes Angela Shelton, author of The Adventures of Tilda Pinkerton Book 1: Crash-landing on Ooleeoo. Kid Lit Reviews generally does not delve into articles for authors unless there is something of interest to the young reader. Today will be an exception. Ms. Shelton is writing on the importance of the teacher-writer [...]

I’ve been working on a flamingo vs. alligator image for my portfolio, and a crop from that image seemed like a perfect fit for the Illustration Friday topic, “heights,” this week. The full image has more alligators, but still only one flamingo!

The flamingo has to jump great heights to avoid being eaten by the alligator.

The frog blends in with the grass, so if he jumps low, he’ll be safe too.

This image was done in CMYK mode, where surprisingly, the colors are much brighter. It prints with nice bright colors too. Usually colors dull when I switch from RGB to CMYK, not the other way around.

by mattmangum www.flickr.com

We are lucky this February and have an extra day in the month. It’s a leap year, and we’ve got Leap Day. I am a member of the St. Louis Zoo, and they sent the cutest postcard with frogs on it to tell everyone about the leap day activities online. I never thought about dedicating the day to frogs when I was teaching in the classroom, but it is so clever and makes perfect sense.

The St. Louis Zoo actually had to send out these cute postcards because they left Feb. 29 off the February calendar. They remembered it on the top of the March page, but not February. So, they sent a Feb. 29 sticker with the cute frog postcard. At the same time, the zoo said that all over the world, people are celebrating the Amphibian Ark, which is a consortium of zoos and aquariums worldwide joining together to fight the disappearing amphibian species. Currently on their home page,you can find out information about FrogWatch USA. On the postcard, they state they will have frog activities and puzzles starting on Leap Day. So be sure to share these FREE resources with your children or students.

My daughter has a super cute frog picture book, perfect for preschoolers to second graders. Your hand can become the frog in the book–so there’s a hand puppet with it. It’s called Wendy the Wide-Mouthed Frog by Sam Lloyd. It’s perfect to share with kids to teach about manners, being a good friend, having humility, and just plain having fun. There’s a lot going on in this book–perfect for a fun day like Leap Day.

Do you have a favorite frog book? Are you celebrating Leap Day?

And remember. . .it’s not easy being green.

The summer has presented me with challenges–one after another–and some, which I had hoped to avoid.  Having an ill parent with few options for an acceptable living environment is something I would wish on no one. It is my worst nightmare, and to avoid feeling physically sick over the situation, I try to find small moments each day to see beauty in the world, and to appreciate the wonder of others.

My five-year-old granddaughter is a blessing, particularly now when my family faces some of the hardest decisions of our lives. Ava makes me stop, forget about the barrage of depressing phone calls, and take a moment to live life in an idealist way.

In our large front yard, I am free—even for just thirty minutes—to laugh, chase Ava through the grass with our dog Merlin, and wonder at the miracles of the tiniest of creatures. We remain like statures when the hummingbirds zoom above us. We watch the bees on my Echinacea, revel in the sight of a butterfly, and kneel on the cool ground to peer into a daylily to marvel at fascinating insects, which appear to be from outer space. They are smaller than ants in actuality.

A frog leaps before us and Ava is off, chasing the tiny amphibian, catching it . . . losing it . . . and then catching again. Her hands tightly clasped, she tells me, “Grandma, the frog is berry thirsty. And he needs a home to live in.”

Just like my father, I think. Why is it that we cannot find suitable housing for the elderly where they can be respected and loved and treated with dignity? I brush the thought aside and head indoors for a small bowl. Ava follows, and my eyes stay fixed on what is contained within her grasp. “Don’t let that frog loose in the house,” I say. The cats would have a field day.

I fill a small, short container with water, and we go back outside. With great care, Ava places the frog in the bowl. It swims happily, and then leaps for freedom.

“Uh-oh,” she says, leaning over to trap the frog once again. “I think he wants some food.” With great precision, she keeps