Birthday

Happy Birthday, Tomie!

How Art Activates the Brain

Here is a nice post by James Gurney on neurophysiologist Semir Zeki's book Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain.

Tree

Olympic Art Competitions

Interesting! From Mental Floss, Olympic Art Competitions from 1928-1932.

Gaiman Signs Multi-Book Deal with HarperCollins

From Publishers Weekly, Neil Gaiman has signed a multi-book deal with HarperCollins. 

Excellent!

I will have more good books to add to Joseph's wish list.

Pen & Palette Interview

Megan Shepherd was very kind to interview me for the summer edition of Pen & Palette! 

James Gurney's Survival Guide for Art Students

Here is a good list of old art instruction books recommended by James Gurney. 

Another old book I like that isn't on this list is The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaides. 

Face Book

This looks great - a Chuck Close book for kids! 

Frog and Toad

From the Chicago Tribune, the Jim Henson Company is developing an animated film based on Frog and Toad. 

"'Frog and Toad' has tremendous value with parents who read these charming stories when they were children and are now sharing them with their own kids," said Lisa Henson, CEO. "With such high caliber talent on board, the delightful and funny adventures of these two great friends--with a nod to the classic 'buddy movie'--will bring a whole new audience to their big screen debut."

I'm looking forward to it! 

Comics & Children's Books Now on Kindle's iPad App

From Apple Insider, Kindle for iPad adds children's books, comics, graphic novels.

Amazon on Thursday updated its Kindle application for iPad, adding support for children's books, comic books and graphic novels purchased for the Kindle platform. 

... 

Comic books, graphic novels and children's books first debuted on the Kindle platform late last year, with the launch of the Kindle Fire touchscreen tablet and its color display. Thursday's update extends that functionality to the iPad, and expands the availability of Kindle platform content on iOS devices. 

Because Amazon doesn't comply with Apple's rules for in-app purchases, in which Apple receives a 30 percent cut of all content sold through iOS applications, the new content cannot be purchased directly through the Kindle application. Users must instead visit the Amazon website to buy the content, and can then download it through their account in the Kindle for iOS app.

Art for Babies

I hope all the fathers out there had a great Father's Day yesterday! 

I love this. Via Drawn, Puno's Art for Babies! 

The Disadvantages of Ebooks

From The Guardian: Enhanced ebooks are bad for children finds American study.

Researchers at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center in New York worked with 32 pairs of parents and their three to six-year-old children for the small study, Print Books vs Ebooks, which gave each family a print book and either a basic ebook or an enhanced ebook version of the same title. Enhanced ebooks were found to distract children from the story, and their bells and whistles prevented children from remembering as many narrative details.  

... 

Enhanced ebooks should still be valued, however, "for their ability to prompt less motivated young readers toward engagement when they might otherwise avoid text altogether".

This does fit with other analyses I have read about ebooks, that they will complement, not replace, traditional print. 

Terrifying Children's Books

Yikes!

And yikes!

"Offensive" Children's Books

From Jasper Copping at The Telegraph, From Horrible Histories to Babar the Elephant: The 'Offensive' Children's Books Withdrawn from Libraries.

A survey of libraries has revealed how dozens of children’s books have provoked complaints from angry parents – accusing them of, among other things, racism, blasphemy, glorifying violence and poking fun at fat people.

Quentin Blake's Illustration Process

This is great - a video on Drawn of Quentin Blake demonstrating his process for illustrating books. 

It is wonderful to watch him work with the ink and watercolor. 

Sendak's Unreleased Drawings & Prints

From Maria Popova at Brain Pickings, Maurice Sendak's Unreleased Drawings and Intaglio Prints. 

Great stuff.

I love Brundibar. My parents gave it to Joseph at his birth. 

Thanks, Maurice.

From Steven Heller at the New York Times, Thanks Maurice. 

Mr. Sendak ... opened a rich vein of possibilities for other artists whom he inspired, and who created their own symbolic visual languages, with which they could tell two or more stories at once — one for the public, the other for the self.

Rest in Peace, Maurice.

Maurice Sendak dies at 83. 

How sad. 

Alligators All Around is one of Joseph's favorite books to look through. 

ICBD

Happy Children's Book Day, everyone! 

The Book of the Future

A funny online strip by Grant Snider on The Book of the Future. 

Although I must say, I love my Kindle! It is not backlit so it doesn't hurt my eyes, and I can make the text as big as I need it so I don't need to wear my glasses. 

Bologna 2012 Photos

Via Publishers Weekly, here are some pictures from the 2012 Bologna Children's Book Fair! 

Here is the fair website. 

Scholastic Launches E-Reading App

The big news in children's publishing this week: Scholastic is releasing an e-reading app.

The kids’ e-book market is still nascent, with e-books making up just about three percent of children’s book sales. That could change now that Scholastic, the world’s largest children’s book publisher, is digitizing much of its list and releasing an e-reading app, “Storia,” that includes a large e-bookstore and lets kids read e-books based on their reading level.

Dr. Seuss

Happy 108th Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...” 

― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Study: New children's books lack reference to nature, animals

Read the whole thing at USA Today.

Researchers at several universities reviewed about 8,100 images in 296 children's books. The books were all Caldecott Medal winners and honorees from 1938 to 2008. The Caldecott awards are given annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children. 

Researchers categorized images as containing either a natural environment, such as a jungle or forest; a built environment, such as a house, school or office; or a modified environment, such as a mowed lawn, park or farm field. They also identified wild and domestic animals.

Jan Berenstain's Obituary

Here is Jan Berenstain's obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Mrs. Berenstain was stricken at her home in Solebury, Bucks County, on Thursday. Just two days earlier, she had still been at work in the studio, illustrating two books that will appear later this year, said her son, Michael Berenstain, an artist who has been her coauthor in recent years. The books, which Michael Berenstain will finish, are to be published in December.

Rest in Peace, Jan Berenstain

From the Washington Post: Jan Berenstain, co-creator of Berenstain Bears children’s books with husband Stan, dies at 88.

“They say jokes don’t travel well, but family humor does,” Jan Berenstain told The Associated Press in 2011. “Family values is what we’re all about.”

Children's Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling

A good article from Maria Popova at the Atlantic discussing Martin Salisbury's new book, Children's Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling. 

I found his Illustrating Children's Books: Creating Pictures for Publication very interesting and valuable, and have added this new book to my wish list. 

In Children's Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling, illustrator Martin Salisbury and children's literature scholar Morag Styles trace the fascinating evolution of the picturebook as a storytelling medium and a cultural agent, and peer into the future to see where the medium might be going next, with case studies of seminal works, a survey of artistic techniques, and peeks inside the sketchbooks and creative process of prominent illustrators adding dimension to this thoughtful and visually engrossing journey.

I Am a Pole

Believe it or not, Stephen Colbert is publishing his picture book, I Am a Pole (And So Can You!). 

Roald Dahl Stamps

I would love for the USPS to do this!

The U.K. Royal Mail has issued a special set of stamps, commemorating six of Roald Dahl's most beloved stories. More than 20 years after his death, Dahl's books continue to grow in popularity and have been translated into more than 40 languages.  

Illustrations by Quentin Blake are featured on the stamp set, including Blake rendering the book titles (here, "James and the Giant Peach") in his own handwriting. 

Scholastic's Top Ten Children's Books

From USA Today, here are Scholastic's top ten children's books. I loved Frog and Toad when I was little! 

The Snowy Day

We recently bought this great classic by Ezra Jack Keats for Joseph and love it. 

I bought him the board book, and there are already little bites taken out of it. Even those are no match for him. 

Here is a nice recent article from All Things Considered about the book. 

Peter is the hero of the classic children's book by Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day, which turns 50 this year. Peter has a red snowsuit, a stick just right for knocking snow off of trees, and a snowball in his pocket. And, though this is never mentioned in the text, Peter is African-American. 

"It wasn't important. It wasn't the point," Deborah Pope tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz. Pope is the executive director of the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation. 

"The point is that this is a beautiful book about a child's encounter with snow, and the wonder of it," Pope says. Peter was among the first non-caricatured African-Americans to be featured in a major children's book. But Pope says Keats — who was white — wasn't necessarily trying to make a statement about race when he created Peter. 

"He said, well, all the books he had ever illustrated, there had never been a child of color, and they're out there — they should be in the books, too," Pope says. "But was he trying to make a cause book, was he trying to make a point? No."

Sendak & Colbert

... sit down for a hilarious interview. 

Children's Books Get 21 Oscar Nominations

Read the whole thing at Publishers Weekly: 

Who woulda thunk that big, bad Hollywood needs humble children’s book publishing to bring some razzle-dazzle to the 2012 Oscars? But included in Tuesday morning’s announcement of the 84th annual Academy Award nominations were a whopping 21 nods for films based on kids’ books, demonstrating that children’s books rule in Hollywood – for this year at least.

The 2012 Caldecott Medal Winner!

A Ball for Daisy! 

Click here for more information on this year's winner and the honor books.

“Chris Raschka’s deceptively simple paintings of watercolor, gouache and ink explore universal themes of love and loss that permit thousands of possible variants,” said Caldecott Medal Committee Chair Steven L. Herb. ‘A Ball for Daisy’ holds as many unique stories as there will be young readers and re-readers.

Fisher-Price

A very interesting article from David Israel at Mental Floss! 

So we dug around and discovered that the original founders of the toy company back in 1930 consisted of, yes, businessmen Herman Fisher and Irving Price, but also a children’s book author and illustrator named Margaret Evans Price (yes, married to Irving, so there were actually two Prices), and a toy store owner named Helen Schelle. While the businessmen were instrumental in launching the company, it was actually the two women who collaborated on most of the company’s early, successful products, like Dr. Doodle, the duck push-pull toy pictured above that was based on a character from her children’s books.

The Unexpected Inspirations Behind Beloved Children's Books

From The Atlantic, "the acid trips, war wounds, and survival stories that led to your treasured childhood fantasies."

Tomie DePaola Award Winners

Here are the winners of the 2012 Tomie DePaola Award. 

I am very honored and grateful to receive this from Tomie and the SCBWI, especially so considering all of the incredible talent, skill, and hard work that clearly went into all of the submissions. 

Thank you Tomie!

Unofficial Gallery of the Tomie DePaola Award

Diandra Mae of the Houston branch of the SCBWI came up with the good idea of creating an online gallery of submissions for the Tomie DePaola illustration award. As of this posting, she has 82 of the submissions up.

Thanks Diandra! 

The winner will be announced January 9.