We all know the truism that a picture is worth a thousand words. The question is, which thousand words will your illustration tell? This blog considers four ways an illustrator can go astray, plus four tips to help stay on track.
February 9, 2020 We interviewed Isabelle Arsenault, award-winning illustrator and author of children’s picture books. Among her numerous honors, she has been included in New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Books of the year three times. She is also a three-time winner of Canada’s Gove
The whole world bursts into life in the great Japanese artist’s rediscovered sketches for an encylopedia, drawn for a nation in lockdown…
If you want your kids to be good readers, why share wordless picture books? Isn’t reading all about letters and words? Not exactly. Reading is: to inspect and apprehend the meaning of writing or ot…
October 1, 2020 We interviewed Akiko Miyakoshi, award-winning illustrator and author of children’s picture books. Her first book, The Storm , won the Nissan Children’s Storybook and Picture Book Grand Prix . Miyakoshi lives and works in Tokyo, Japan.
Madame Saqui, Revolutionary Rope Dancer written by Lisa Robinson and published by Schwartz and Wade is out! As soon as this manuscript landed on my desk in 2017, I knew I wanted to illustrate it. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, the book celebrates the incredible rope dancer who d
“A poem … is when you are in love and have the sky in your mouth.”
Looking for picture books for May? With this month's list, we're continuing our celebration of spring with a focus on seeds, plants, gardening, baby animals and things that grow. My very favorites on this list are Miss Rumphius, Hedgie's Surprise, The Little Green Girl, and Make Way for Ducklings. But truly, they're all delightful. Grab the printable version
Books are a huge part of our lives, we absolutely LOVE them! When I originally sat down to do this post I was only planning on sharing 25 titles with y'all...and well I guess it
I bring home almost every picture book I can find with deaf or hard of hearing characters so that my daughter can see her experience represented in between the pages of a book.
A list of some of the best feminist picture books in print. Perfect for the budding feminist in your life!
“A poem … is when you are in love and have the sky in your mouth.”
There are certain parts of childhood we all miss: Recess, picture books, nap time. Today, International Children’s Books Day (on what would have been Hans Christian Andersen's 204th birthday) gives us a chance to relive some of those nostalgic moments with cats in hats, hungry caterpillars, ugly ducklings and other wild things. So we asked a few influential figures in media and education to share their favorite titles--the ones that sparked their imaginations and shaped their lives. Daphne Durham Managing Editor of Books, Amazon.com
Russian artist Ekaterina Panikanova places old books and other documents together and paints over them to create the most beautiful installations. Below are some pieces from her exhibition Un, due, tre, fuoco in Rome earlier this year. (via This…
Ed Young has written and/or illustrated more than eighty-five books. He is the winner of the Caldecott Medal for Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China, he is also the author-illustrator of Seven Blind Mice and the illustrator of The Emperor and the Kite, both Caldecott Honor Books. 1. Where do you get your inspiration? Where ideas come from is less important than how they are received. It’s not unlike the airwaves that radios pick up from the atmosphere. We all come equipped with the hardware, but we don’t all learn to use it. Occasionally we experience the strange phenomena of thinking of someone, the phone rings and lo! It’s that same person. Coincidence? A sixth sense? Perhaps, but how about picking up the frequency of a thought? I believe inspiration comes in the same way. To get it, we must surrender our...
Spring is finally here . . . and that certainly feels like something to celebrate, doesn't it? We're doing that with a list of our favorite April picture books. These Easter, rain, and gardening-themed books will help you celebrate with your crew. (*Note that specifically Christian Easter books are marked with a small cross, if you're looking
Jane, the Fox and Me is a graphic novel by Fanny Britt, illustrated by the marvelous Isabelle Arsenault , but it feels like something ...
And the dish ran away with the spoon Illustration by R. Caldecott in The Hey Diddle Diddle Picture Book by R. Caldecott. London: Frederick Warne & Co.1890.
We interviewed Kris Di Giacomo, noted illustrator of children's picture books. Take Away the A, by Michaël Escoffier, was named one of Publisher’s Weekly ’s Best Children's Books of 2014 and given a starred review by Kirkus Reviews. enormous Smallness ,
Teaching plot elements to upper elementary students? Use a picture book to engage your students! Read it aloud, and then create a plot diagram!
It's no secret that Elsa Beskow is one of my favorite writers and illustrators of children's books. We read these two a lot last month in anticipation of flowers, shearing season, and summer! Pelle's New Suit is a simple story about a boy who outgrows his clothes and uses wool from his sheep to make new ones. As the story takes us through the stages of shearing, carding, spinning, dying, weaving, and sewing required to make a suit, we also follow Pelle as his displays the ingeniousness, responsibility, independence and perseverance required to grow from a little boy (or girl) into a bigger one. It is also a book about reciprocity--Pelle asks for help with the steps (most of them) he cannot complete himself, and in return helps those who are helping him. At the end of the story, Pelle stands tall in his new blue suit, and behind him stands the community that made it possible. All great stuff, beautifully illustrated and packed into a book suitable for two and three-year-olds! (Although almost seven-year-olds have been known to linger around to listen too...) Another one of our favorite Elsa Beskow books for summer is The Flowers' Festival. In this book, a little girl named Lisa sits alone in the garden, wishing she could go to the Midsummer festival, when a flower fairy invites her to the flowers' Midsummer party instead. The flower fairy makes Lisa invisible and she spends her Midsummer's eve listening to songs and stories of flowers, birds, and bees. Elsa Beskow has many, many seasonal books about different children being given temporary ability to see and converse with fruit bushes, flowers, and trees, and I love each and every one for its ability to imbue children (and adults) with the life that goes on all around us. With all her anecdotes of the relations between the vegetables and flowers, Beskow magnifies the qualities of all the plants, letting us feel the shyness of the wintergreen, or the hidden beauty of vetch. We walk out into the world feeling like we know these flowers--not only their names (which she lists as the flowers walk out in there processions...first the meadow flowers, then the forest flowers, then the lake flowers...), but their essence. And we love them. Imagination and reverence...what better way is there to begin the summer?
スイスで誕生し、世界で3000万人に愛されるロングセラー絵本『にじいろの さかな』誕生から30年。作者のマーカス・フィスター、日本語訳を担当した詩人の谷川俊太郎のプロフィールとともに、待望の最新刊や今までのシリーズをご紹介します。
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed on January 27, 2014. I was in the fifth grade when the Second World War ended. My family had moved to a small town in New Jersey, but during the …
