How to use this Page

 

WaterBridge Outreach: Books + Water recently announced the books in English they have selected this year for donation to the different schools and libraries they support around the world.  WaterBridge Outreach is a non-profit that seeks … Continue reading ... →

Add a Comment

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! The Children's Book Review (call sign TCBR) is declaring a reading emergency. The weather is clear and suitable for reading outside.

Add a Comment

Happy Perfect Picture Book Friday, Everyone!

There's nothing like days on end of temperatures in the single digits to make me think about summer :)  So today's book is about a summer thunderstorm which clears off into a starry night.  I hope you'll enjoy this pretty, pretty book!

Title: Blue On Blue
Written By: Dianne White
Illustrated By: Beth Krommes
Beach Lane Books, December 2014, Fiction

Suitable For Ages: publisher says 5-8, I think younger would enjoy too.

Themes/Topics: poetry, weather (thunderstorms), nature, colors

Opening: "Cotton clouds.  Morning light.  Blue on blue.  White on white.  Singing, swinging outdoor play.  White on blue on sunny day."

Brief Synopsis: This lovely book shows both the course of a family's day on a New England farm from morning through bedtime, and the change of weather from a sunny morning, through darkening clouds, to rain and thunder, and finally clearing skies, sunset, and a "silver night."


Links To Resources: Color Lesson Plans (Marble Art, Beautiful Butterfly Prints, Awesome Octopus, Trying Out Art); make your own scratchboards; Weather for Kids.  You could also make your own art projects based on the descriptions in the story (e.g. cotton clouds on blue sky).

Why I Like This Book: This is such a lovely book!  The story is simple, but poetic.  It takes you through a child's day, and includes elements of color, weather, and life on a New England farm (including animals :)). The day starts out sunny, but a storm comes up.  The child hides under the covers during the worst of the storm, but after the rain stops, the child, the puppy, and the little piggies have a wonderful time in the mud :)  The story finishes with a bath outside for the puppy, and a bath inside for the child, and sweet dreams under a starry night.  The lyrical, rhyming language is fun to read aloud, and the rhythm of the language mimics the rhythm of rain dripping, then pounding, then lightening, and finally stopping.  The scratchboard and watercolor art, done by Caldecott Medalist Beth Krommes, is absolutely gorgeous.  I encourage you to check this one out!


For the complete list of books with resources, please visit Perfect Picture Books.

PPBF bloggers please be sure to leave your post-specific link in the list below so we can all come visit you!  I can't wait to see what you've chosen this week!

Have a great weekend, everyone!!! :)

Add a Comment

Oh so many years ago… I dreamed of writing picture books.

I took many many classes at UCLA extension with wonderful writers: Ann Whitford Paul, Kristine O’Connell George, Sonia Levitin, Caroline Arnold, Madeline Comora, Alexis O’Neill, and Barbara Abercrombie.

I signed up for more classes – online, this time – with Anastasia Suen, Barbara Seuling, Dennis Foley and Lynn Hightower.

I completed an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts and worked with fabulous advisors: Phyllis Root, Marion Dane Bauer, Jane Resh Thomas, and Tim Wynne-Jones.

I went back to Vermont again (!) to finish a post-grad picture book semester with the amazing Kathi Appelt.

I met many wonderful people who supported my growth as a writer, including my Whirligig Vermont College classmates and my dear “Cookie” friends: Ann, Candy, Debbie, Nancy, Miriam, Texas Steph, and Stephanie G.

Then, after all those years, and all those classes, and all that writing, in January of 2009, I received a lovely phone message from picture book editor par excellence Allyn Johnston of Beach Lane Books re: a manuscript I had sent her after attending a weekend class she and Ann Whitford Paul had taught at UCLA.  Allyn wanted to buy my book!!

In June of 2009, I received the official offer for BLUE ON BLUE.  I was at the movies with friends (“Away We Go”).  My good friend, Cheryl, was there when I heard the news.  We celebrated!!

Many months passed.  I waited.  I worked.  I took more classes.  I revised other stories.  And then, a contract!  (Which I promptly signed!)

Soon, an officially official “signed-by-both-parties” contract found its way back to my doorstep. HOORAY!!

Time to celebrate again.  This time, with my dear husband, the one person who has been there all along, encouraging me to pursue my dreams.

THANKS!

Display Comments Add a Comment

A knockout first session with the VP and Publisher of Simon & Schuster's Beach Lane Books. Allyn spent the session talking only about the words in a picture book with a focus on great opening lines. She handmade a bazillion blank dummies which the audience borrowed. As a group we turned the 'pages' of the books that Allyn read aloud which helped us all experience the rhythm and pacing of each picture book.

Some of the titles Allyn read (she is a SUPERB storyteller!) included:
Mem Fox's HATTIE AND THE FOX, Debra Frasier's ON THE DAY YOU WERE BORN, and Laurie Keller's SCRAMBLED STATES OF AMERICA

Allyn stressed that all of the titles above were gifts to the adult reader, setting them up to be mesmerizing tale tellers for our target audience. She asked that everyone read READING MAGIC by Mem Fox
For Allyn, "Picture books are an extremely emotional art form. When they work – why they work, is because they make you feel something." She then quoted Mem Fox, "You want the audience's emotional temperature to be changed throughout the reading experience."

Allyn mentioned a great new interview with faboo Marla Frazee which you should all read.

--Posted by Jaime

Add a Comment

The latest of our SCBWI TEAM BLOG exclusive pre-conference interviews with Winter Conference keynotes and speakers is up on Jaime Temairik's blog.

Jaime interviewed the always awesome Allyn Johnston, Vice President & Publisher of Beach Lane Books, who will be offering three breakout sessions on THE REAL DEAL ABOUT PICTURE BOOKS.

Click here to read the interview with Allyn.

And be sure to tune in *RIGHT HERE* starting Friday, for exclusive live Winter Conference coverage by our crack team of bloggers, Jaime, Jolie, Lee, Suzanne and Alice!

Click here to register for the SCBWI Winter Conference in New York City where you can see Allyn Johnston in person.

Add a Comment

We took the train from Los Angeles to San Diego - a scenic ride, much of it along the beach - and met Allyn Johnston, the publisher of the new Beach Lane imprint for Simon & Schuster. It's always interesting to meet someone you've corresponded with for several years; we had a wonderful afternoon going over the manuscript for The Princess and the Panther, playing with a couple of problem lines, phoning Lauren Stringer the illustrator and discussing some of the philosophy of picture books in general. eg:

How scary should picture books for small children be? My own feeling is that children are innately programmed to feel fear - being afraid is a very useful survival tool - and if we deny them any fear in the stories we read and tell them, we deny them the tools they need to deal with fear. That's why traditional tales are so often terrifying! And what about Maurice Sendak's work: would Where the Wild Things Are be published today?

It's a fine line. I think children need to feel tested, to experience fear and then be brought back to safety, which gives them the tools they need to learn to do the same thing in their own lives. But, as writers, illustrators, publishers, we don't want them to be so afraid that the adult reader says, "I'm not reading you that before bedtime!"

And now, I have to get the words right in those few tricky lines: the balance of rhythm, sounds and meaning.

Add a Comment