signing Care For Our World. Then she’ll be at Chico’s in Westwood Village
signing Care For Our World and Shoe Print Art from 1-5pm. Chico’s is
generously donating 10 percent of their sales to Soles For Souls during the
four hours. Please bring a slightly used pair of shoes for S4S for the
shoe collection.
For those of you who missed last Thursday’s Professional Series Meeting at Seattle University, Rebecca Van Slyke has graciously sent her take on the “Hands-On Picture Books: Making a Great Re-Read-Aloud” portion of the evening:
Ben Clanton (Vote for Me!) gave an entertaining
talk on how to write and illustrate picture books that make kids say, “Read it
AGAIN!” at the end. He showed many examples of books that were interactive.
Kids love to be personally involved in the story. Having a character directly
interacting with them is exciting to the picture book-aged crowd (ages 4, 5,
and 6— although older kids love these books, too.) These books have strong
central characters, are relatable, and even a bit subversive. Specifically for
illustrators, simple expressions, humorous exaggeration and a great interplay
between words and pictures make for a winning book. Even white space is
important, allowing for the child’s imagination to fill in the blanks. Examples
of these RE-read-alouds are Mo Willem’s Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus
and his Elephant and Piggy series; There are Cats in This Book by
Viviane Schwarz; The Monster at
the End of This Book by Jon Stone; and Ben Clanton’s own Vote for Me!
Looking at these books will help increase your manuscripts’ “read it again!”
potential.
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