picture books

hello!

~ jama ~ 28 Comments

 

Happy World Hello Day!

Hey there Cutie Pie, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to greet ten people today.

That’s right! Just ten people in the name of peace, to show world leaders the power and importance of personal communication rather than force to settle conflicts. Since 1973, 180+ countries have been participating — people taking a moment to say hello in dozens of different languages — on the street, in the office, at schools, in cities, farms, stores, on buses, boats, trains, subways, even in fields of waving grain, and oh yes!, in restaurants! Anyone can participate, anywhere.

 

Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name . . .

I know you can do it! With your winning smile, flexible eyebrows and unending charm — go ahead and surprise ten lucky strangers with this small act of kindness and see what happens! These days it’s kinda shocking when people actually take the time to make eye contact, crack a smile, or basically acknowledge that there’s another human being breathing thinking standing right beside them. Sad but true. And we’re all guilty of it. (ahem) Love our devices much?

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peeking into carl warner’s a world of food

~ jama ~ 25 Comments

“Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies . . . “

When I first heard these lyrics, little did I realize one day I’d actually be able to see and practically taste an alternate universe where everything is made of food. Thanks to London-based photographer Carl Warner, I can hula ‘neath pasta palm trees, tiptoe across cucumber bridges, climb cocoa-dusted mountains, skinny dip in a lemonade pool, and practice my backstroke in a sea of mushroom soup. Naturally I’d live in a nougat house and lick my lollipop trees every hour on the hour. Does this man know me or what?

Yellow: Couscous, rice & grains desert, Emmental cheese pyramids, pasta palm trees, tortilla chip plants, tagliatelle & crispy pancake, mushroom and bean gondola.

Open Mr. Warner’s new children’s book, A World of Food (Abrams, 2012), and just see if you don’t want to climb into every page and eat your way to oblivion. Featuring twelve wondrous, magical, incredibly edible color-themed foodscapes, this tasty tome will tempt and delight kids ages 1 to 100.

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chatting about the goodbye cancer garden with janna matthies and kristi valiant (+ a special giveaway!)

~ jama ~ 47 Comments

Since October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I invited children’s author Janna Matthies and illustrator Kristi Valiant to tell us about their critically acclaimed picture book, The Goodbye Cancer Garden (Albert Whitman, 2011).

Kristi and Janna

This sensitively written, uplifting story is based on Janna’s personal battle against breast cancer and is an invaluable resource for families facing similar struggles. Without downplaying the seriousness of this life-threatening illness, the book illustrates the importance of focusing on the positive, acknowledging sadness and worry, expressing gratitude and sticking together.

In January, when Janie learns her mom has cancer and probably won’t be better until “pumpkin time,” she suggests the family plant a vegetable garden:

Watching it grow, and eating healthy veggies, will remind us Mom’s getting better. Then before we know it . . . Hello, pumpkins, goodbye cancer!

They continue to nurture their garden of hope and healing as Mom has surgery and endures chemo, hair loss, radiation, aches and fatigue. Step-by-step, day by day, they move toward their goal with the kindness and support of friends, relatives, and of course, each other. Their harvest time celebration, marking the end of treatment with a bounty of homegrown veggies, couldn’t be sweeter.

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♥ a tasty visit with nikki mcclure (+ a giveaway!) ♥

~ jama ~ 77 Comments
Originally self-published in 1997, this recipe gift book was released by Sasquatch Books in 2010.

For award-winning cut-paper artist Nikki McClure, the perfect day would likely start off with one of her husband Jay T’s homemade waffles. It would be topped with fresh fruit — foraged or farm market blackberries or neat slices of late summer nectarines. Or he might make his giant blueberry pancakes — pancakes that fill the whole pan, flipped with a giant spatula. Mmmm!

These nourishing, homemade mornings are an important part of Nikki’s inspiring, free-spirited lifestyle that’s marked by weekly visits to the farmers market, cooking, eating and playing outdoors with her son Finn, foraging for fruit, afternoon swims, astute observations of her rural environment, and hours of meditative work in her studio, where she captures the essence of bird, leaf, branch, sky, the turning of the seasons, and a myriad of other everyday wonders in her amazingly beautiful, intricate papercuts.

Nikki’s studio: working on her next book, HOW TO BE A CAT

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♥ an apple cake chat with julie paschkis ♥

~ jama ~ 54 Comments

Open the pages of Julie Paschkis’s charming new picture book, Apple Cake (Harcourt, 2012), and you’ll instantly fall in love.

That’s because Julie’s “Recipe for Love” contains the perfect ingredients: a dashing, ardent suitor named Alfonso, a beautiful, kind and brilliant bookworm named Ida, a sprinkling of magic, flights of fancy, and an irresistibly delicious made-from-the-heart cake.

Alfonso loves Ida but she never notices him despite his flamboyant bouquets and serenades:

So clever Alfonso makes Ida a special cake using butter from the sun, sugar scraped from a cloud, an egg from the highest tippy top nest, flour stars, and salt ladled from the sea. He stirs the batter by diving into the bowl himself, adds three wishes, and cooks the cake over fiery dragon’s breath. And Ida — nose-always-in-a-book Ida — smells the apple cake, takes a peek and finally looks at Alfonso!

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