Let's Turn This Painting into Books!

I have so loved hearing about schools that run mock Caldecott Awards but I have also been hearing from librarians and teachers how they struggle to buy new books. How they often supplement the classroom library out of their own pockets.

Around this time last year I held a fundraiser to send sets of 10 new picture books to schools in need.
I thought maybe there was a way of turning a drawing into a pile of new picture books. Because while there’s nothing as comforting as curling up with an old favorite, there’s something thrilling about turning the first page of a brand new one.

I was hoping to be able to fund 60 books for six schools. Thanks to your generosity we raised around $3500, which enabled us to send 200 books to 20 schools.

So! It's that time again!

Here's how it works.

This painting is for sale on eBay. It was on the cover of the Horn Book Magazine Awards Edition in June, 2016. Eagle eyes will spot Last Stop on Market Street and The Lion and the Mouse, The Snowy Day and Winnie the Pooh.

The listing is live and runs until December 3rd.
I have partnered with the wonderful bookstore, The Curious Reader, who have helped me select 10 beautiful, funny, rich, thoughtful picture books to tempt young readers.

The Airport Book - Lisa Brown
The Case for Loving - Selina Alko and Sean Qualls
Du Iz Tak? - Carson Ellis
Finding Winnie - Lindsay Mattick and Sophie Blackall
Freedom in Congo Square - Carole Boston Weatherford and R. Gregory Christie
The Journey - Francesca Sanna
Penguin Problems - Jory John and Lane Smith
Real Cowboys - Kate Hoefler and Jonathan Bean

This is Not a Picture Book - Sergio Ruzzier

Thunder Boy Jr. - Sherman Alexie

So now I just need
a) People to bid on the drawing. Click here!
b) Librarians and teachers to enter the draw. (Which you can do by leaving your name and the name and location of your school in the comments below. Only US schools, I’m afraid.)
c)  You to help spread the word! (Please share far and wide!)

Thank you, all!

ps. If you'd like to make a separate donation, you can do so here and receive a signed print from Finding Winnie!

A Fine Dessert - Part 8

A Fine Dessert is out in the world and I've been so happy to hear about families making blackberry fool together and about teachers constructing exciting lessons – which end with dessert. I've had great fun helping kids whip cream with a whole variety of vintage whisks and Skyping with a class in Texas who had rented a museum-in-a-truck with period kitchen gadgets and clothing so they could immerse themselves in each of the centuries. There are some wonderfully inspired teachers and librarians out there. Case in point.
And if you've followed my posts about researching and illustrating this book, you know I went to some lengths to get it right. So you will imagine how I've been feeling a tad crestfallen ever since reading this really lovely, thoughtful blogpost, which gently points out the following:
"If I had to be absolutely nit-picky, the one qualm I have is at the end, when the modern family in San Diego is enjoying the dessert outside. One of the kids is chasing a firefly and, if I'm not mistaken, fireflies are very rare west of Kansas (and those that do make Southern California its habitat aren't luminescent as adults). But that's hardly enough distraction to take away from the book."
NO FIREFLIES IN CALIFORNIA! 
As I said to Yucaree, the author of the blog, in the last spread of the book where the dessert is shared by family, friends and neighbors, I wanted to emphasize and celebrate all the subtle social shifts which have occurred throughout the centuries. I wanted to bring the feast outside under the stars, and to have diverse friends surrounding the table. And I wanted to hark back to the slave boy in 1810 whose role it was to fan the diners, by showing a corresponding boy in 2010 – happy and free in the moment, being a child. And coming from Australia, where we don't have fireflies, I find them so magical and delightful and it seemed like just the thing.

It didn't occur to me that they don't exist in California.
Hanging my head in shame, I confessed this to my ever supportive studio mates. At 3:30pm every second Monday, we share anachronisms and anomalies, typos and tears. Not really, but we may as well. Enter my hero, Sergio Ruzzier!
A little internet sleuthing and Sergio has come up with evidence of at least one firefly spotted in California in May in 2010.And there's video footage on youtube of fireflies in CA. Rare but not impossible.

 Phew.

Reading in Rwanda

I am proud to share some of the work we did in Rwanda in the beginning of the year. These illustrations form a guide for teachers who are introducing picture books to their students for the very first time. The guide explains things those of us who grew up with books take for granted, like how to engage children by asking them questions about the story, how to look at illustrations alongside text, and literally how to turn the pages and hold the books facing the class, so kids can see the pictures.
The Rwandan Children's Book Initiative, a project of Save the Children, provides locally made wooden cupboards stocked with books and colorful mats for children to sit on. The initiative supports local writers, illustrators and publishers to produce quality books in English and Kinyarwanda, the native language. It's a wonderful thing.
Here are some of the illustrations. The whole guide can be downloaded as a PDF here.

Visiting schools in Rwanda

I am back home in Brooklyn, after my brief but intense time in Rwanda, Land of a Thousand Hills. It has taken a bit of time to digest all that I saw there, not to mention the home-brewed banana beer which had, shall we say, a lasting effect.
To back track: I was visiting Rwanda as a guest of Save the Children, UK, to learn about their International Children's Book Initiative, and to produce some illustrations for them on my return. The Rwandan Children's Book Initiative is introducing books into schools where few, if any exist. They have designed sweet little wooden cupboards to hold the classroom library, and will provide mats for children to sit on while they read. They are encouraging local writers and artists and publishers to create books, and are holding workshops to help them get started.

I grew up surrounded by books. Every spare moment of my childhood was spent up a tree, reading. My father is a publisher, and I too have chosen a career making books. It's impossible to imagine my life without them. And therefore thrilling to be involved in this project which allows children to hold their first book and open the pages to new world.

My first few days were spent in Burera, up near the Ugandan border, visiting schools.

 This school was at the foot of a volcano, home to Dian Fossey's gorillas in the mist.

This is a typical classroom...

...which can get pretty crowded when everyone is present.

Girls wear blue and boys wear beige in government schools. 

And they have uniformly cropped hair.

This is one of the stocked book cupboards provided by Save the Children.

Teachers...

and children...

have embraced them enthusiastically.

 I took a stack of books to share, books with lots of pictures and few words, and universal-ish themes. (Thank you for your suggestions!) 

Here I am reading Sergio Ruzzier's Bear and Bee.

Teachers had left lovely ghosty drawings on blackboards.

But paper was scarce and pens and pencils even scarcer. 

I had packed accordingly: few clothes, lots and lots of art supplies.

I was itching to draw with the kids.

And so we did.

Class sizes were huge, often 60 or more kids and there was not a whole lot of room to spread out, or surfaces on which to draw, but we didn't care.

These guys at desks, I set up with a letter or number to illustrate.

We found some wall space for this bunch.

These girls and boys took to the floor...

And I moved outside with this lot.

 Others came to join in.

We were concentrating so hard, we almost didn't notice the scene growing behind us...

Back inside everyone was still busy, and I realized something incredible.

The world over...

Whether kids have drawn for years or are holding a marker for the first time...

Girls will draw girls and boys will draw cars.

 See?

See?

 They also drew animals...

 And houses.

And they used every inch of the paper.

Some were very proud of their work.

Some were a bit shy.

But most of us were giddy with joy.

Rwanda’s brutal history lies just beneath the surface. Twenty years ago in April, an estimated 1,000,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, men women and children, were brutally murdered.
These are some of the thousands of children who died.

 I can’t stop dwelling on details of the massacre. And I find myself going back to read more and more about those six bloody weeks, trying to make sense of it... and failing. And then I seek out this photograph from the last day in Burera. And feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to spend a few hours with these children, and hope that they will live long, happy lives without fear.
 

And also, perhaps, lives filled with books.