Happy Birthday Author

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss - March 2

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 03:50:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss - March 2

My anticipation for Dr. Seuss's birthday is at an all-time high. On March 2nd, children's books and the act of reading to children is viewed as a cause for celebration. Schools, communities, and retailers (Target has activities planned for Feb. 25) plan events and activities to allow children and families to have fun with some of most beloved children's books of all time. Adding to the excitement this year is the release of The Lorax movie which conveniently opens on March 2nd. Normally, I elect to publish my posts the night before the author's birthday. However, this year I couldn't wait to share our celebration and I wanted to give all of you a chance to share your ideas by linking up at the end of this post.

My excitement is most evidenced by the fact that I planned ahead enough to get my hands on a few Dr. Seuss books at my local library a couple of weeks ago. They tend to get snatched up around this time each year by enthusiastic Seuss fans! My choices were The Butter Battle Book, Daisy-Head Mayzie, and Scrambled Eggs Super. Of the three books, we had never read Scrambled Eggs Super and it became the focus of this year's birthday celebration for Dr. Seuss. In this book, Peter T. Hooper is bored with plain ol' scrambled eggs and decides to hunt for eggs from birds of all shapes and sizes to try to improve this simple breakfast meal.

In the book, Peter T. Hooper introduces us to birds like the Ruffle-Necked Sala-ma-goox, the Mop-Noodled Finch, and the Long-Legger Kwong. To create some of our own birds we thought we needed to start with a creative name. To do this, I came up with the idea of making a Bird-Name-Generator. Once the generator was complete it was comprised of three piles of cards.

We started by making the last pile. On small strips of paper, we wrote the names common birds in our area -- cardinal, sparrow, hawk, duck, woodpecker. My children used a bird field guide to find the names. As we were compiling the bird names we took notice of descriptive words that were in the full name of many of the birds like breasted (White-breasted Nuthatch), throated (Ruby-throated Hummingbird), and bellied (Red-Bellied Woodpecker). These words made up our middle pile. Lastly, we made our first pile of cards. This pile was made up of words that we found to be silly, like spritz or snapple-bapple or favorites from Scrambled Eggs Super like beagle and ruffle!

We stacked the cards into the three piles and placed them face down. Then, we picked one card from each stack to generate our bird name. We came up with names like the Spritz-tailed Wren, Whammer-Hooded Starling, and Frizzle-bellied Hawk. With each pull of the cards my children were laughing out loud!

We paused for a little breakfast of scrambled eggs!

Then, it was time to design the eggs for each bird name. We had tons of plastic Easter eggs in our house. We decorated the eggs with designs and patterns by using Sharpie Markers.

A proud egg designer.

The next step involved cataloging our eggs. First, I wrote the name of the bird on top of a piece of scrap paper. Then, drew a thumbnail sized picture of the bird's egg that the kids created in the bottom corner. Then, my children drew a picture of the bird.

Here are a few of my son's creations -- the Snapple-Dee-Nanner-winged Bluebird, the Spritz-tailed Wren, and the Beagle-footed Turkey.

They were so excited about making the eggs that we ended up with 18 different eggs. Pictured here are 5 from my daughter and 3 that I designed. My son did 10 by himself!

This was my daughter's favorite creation -- the Kicka-horned Dove. Notice that the bird is kicking and it is calling "Kick-you, kick-you".

The last part of the activity was to have an egg hunt. We hid the eggs all over the house. The finder of the eggs had the bird information sheets we made to help them identify the bird egg when they found it.

I would love hear about your ideas of how to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday. Add your activity ideas and Dr. Seuss book recommendations to the Linky Below or post a comment. In addition to this list, check out Obseussed, it is one of the most enthusiastic Dr. Seuss sites on the web! I hope you have fun celebrating with your families, schools, and communities.

Happy Birthday Jim Aylesworth - February 21

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 01:58:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Jim Aylesworth - February 21

I can't take complete credit for this birthday post. My daughter turned my simple idea for an activity into something really special for her great-grandparents. In fact, this wasn't the only time this week that I was impressed by the ideas of children. I was lucky enough to have a few children check out one of my current book projects. Their ideas helped me make a few key changes to my illustrations which really improved those pages. I find the creativity and thoughtfulness of children quite amazing.

Jim Aylesworth learned what makes a great picture book from the children he encountered during his 25 years as a teacher. "Rhythm, rhyme, and repetition are three of the elements that young children like best in their books. I learned that this is true by reading hundreds and hundreds of books out loud to my students." (Ayles.com). His biography page on his website shares more about the influence his students had on his writing. "Their enjoyment of his stories encouraged him to persist in pursuing his dream of being a children's book writer. It was in the classroom that he realized the power of books." He also credits his students with helping him live up to his own words, "Never give up." It was the children in Jim Aylesworth's life that lead him to a successful career of publishing over 30 books for children.

Our favorite book this week by Jim Aylesworth was The Full Belly Bowl. It is a story of an older man that receives a bowl as a gift. He is given a warning to use it wisely, pour it out when finished, and store it upside down when not in use. The man learns that it is a magic bowl when he uses it to hold his stew. The bowl remained full even as he ate more and more. Then one morning, the man awakes to a house full of spiders and realizes that he left the bowl out all night for the spiders to crawl in. He man learns that the bowl is able to multiply anything that he places in and removes -- strawberries, buttons, and even coins!

Jim Aylesworth said, "If my books somehow inspire a teacher to do an extension lesson, that would please me...Writing children's books is my way of being the teacher beyond the walls of my classroom for children that I may never know." (Patricia Newman). My children were so engaged during the reading of The Full Belly Bowl that I was inspired to do an extension activity. We ventured to make our own papier mache Full Belly Bowls.

I researched many blogs on Pinterest on how to make papier mache bowls. I learned to cover a bowl with plastic wrap to use as a mold, and then apply the papier mache. There were many blogs that suggested covering the outside of your bowl and many others that said cover the inside. We tried both and found that we preferred to cover the outside of the bowl as it was easier to apply the paper strips and had a quicker drying time.

To make our paste we boiled 5 parts water and 1 part flour for three minutes and let it cool (DTLK kids). While it was cooling we tore strips of newspaper 1-2 inches wide. Also, we made sure plastic wrap was secure. We did use tape in a few places to keep the plastic wrap from coming off the bowl.

My children then dunked the newspaper strips in the paste, removed the excess, and applied the paste-coated strips to the plastic wrapped side of the bowl. We did 4 layers of strips on top of the plastic wrap covered bowl.

After adding 4 layers we added a layer of colorful tissue paper. The bowls were set out over night to dry, but still weren't ready in the morning. It took two days and an intervention from the hair dryer to dry completely indoors. Make sure you do not remove the papier mache from the bowl because it will lose its shape as it dries completely.

My daughter's Full Belly Bowl turned out wonderful (and so did my son's -- it just wasn't completely dry when I was taking pictures). She chose to give it to her great-grandparents for their 65th wedding anniversary. I loved this idea! We bought some chocolate hearts to put in the bowl to symbolize that their love will continue to be plentiful.

We discovered that Jim Aylesworth's The Burger and the Hot Dog and The Cat and the Fiddle and More lend themselves to writing extension activities. On the last page of each of these books Jim Aylesworth invites the reader to extend the book by writing something of their own. In The Burger and the Hot Dog the reader is asked to write a poem about the "food folks" that they know. In The Cat and the Fiddle and More the reader is asked to write their own poem in the style of the popular nursery rhyme.

There are so many opportunities for activities with books by Jim Aylesworth. Please share your thoughts on a favorite book or activity idea.

Links:
1. Jim Aylesworth's website + Click on a book cover to find Classroom Connections
2. Who Wrote That? Featuring Jim Aylesworth - Patricia Newman
3. Text Interview - TitleTales, Ayles.com

Happy Birthday Phyllis Root - February 14

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 03:24:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Phyllis Root - February 14

Happy Valentine's Day! My children are beyond excited to have a party at school and to pass out their Valentine's Day cards to their friends. We added a some extra fun to Valentine's Day this year by celebrating Phyllis Root's birthday with many great books and some creative cookie baking.

Phyllis Root is the author of over thirty books for children including many board books, picture books, and lift-the-flap books. According to an interview with Seven Impossible Things her career began when she took a class from author, Marion Dane Bauer. She said, "I discovered I could learn to do what I yearned for years to do -- write for children." I found Root's books to be perfect read-alouds -- rhythmic, with lots of onamonapia and rich vocabulary. In her bio on the Candlewick Press website she says, "Picture books are performances. They're performances that involve a child -- something both of you do. And once I started thinking of them that way, I started getting much looser about making up words and playing around with rhythm." I could have chosen so many books to focus on for a birthday activity -- Ten Sleepy Sheep, Oliver Finds His Way, or Rattletrap Car, but I decided to focus on one that has a personal meaning to our family.

This week, our favorite book we read by Phyllis Root was Kiss the Cow. The book reminded us a lot of Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola. In that book, Big Anthony does not follow the rules of the magic pasta pot and noodles flood the whole town. In Kiss the Cow, a large family depends on milk from a magic cow named Luella. A stubborn and curious member of the family named Annalisa ignores her mother's request to leave the cow alone. Annalisa's curiosity taught her the magic words to say and she was certain that she could milk the cow on her own. However, she neglects the important kiss on the cow's nose after her pail is full. This makes the cow sad and no longer provides milk for the family. Annalisa's stubbornness causes the family to be without milk and cheese for some time. Her mother and siblings urge her to kiss the cow, but only Annalisa can solve this problem.

A cow planted a big juicy kiss on his
head right after enjoying a bottle of milk!

The book has wonderful illustrations by Will Hillenbrand. Phyllis Root said in an interview with Seven Impossible Things, "I love Will Hillenbrand's art -- his sad cow tugs at my heart. Who wouldn't want to kiss her?" My son would be just like Annalisa and would refuse to kiss the cow after the experience he had when he was almost two years old. (Note: You may have seen the picture at the right as I have posted on the blog once before.)

I wanted to focus on Kiss the Cow as an activity because all three of my children really enjoyed it. The kiss was the essential part of the book and it is also a very important part of Valentine's Day (a.k.a. Phyllis Root's birthday). By putting these two wonderful things together I decided that we needed to do a little baking. (Notice the t-shirts my boys were wearing on this day. They say, "Hello! My name is Dude." Friday is "Dude Day" at our house which essentially means that the guys do fun things without the girls.)

The boys made the cookie dough in the morning - one dude making a mess and one dude cleaning up the mess. Here is our recipe for cut-out cookies:

Sift together: 3 c. flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1 cup of sugar.
Add 1 cup butter and crumb like pie dough. Add 2 eggs, 4 T. and 2 tsp. milk, and 2 tsp. vanilla. Combine well. Roll dough and cut out cookies. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

The little man works the cookie dough. After the dough was combined we chilled it in the refrigerator for about an hour.

Meanwhile, we wanted to have "KISS" cookies, but our collection of Valentine's Day cookie cutters was comprised of only hearts. So, I googled "homemade cookie cutters" and I found directions on a website, Cut Out! and Keep, to make a cookie cutter out of a tin turkey pan. I followed the directions exactly and was successful in making a "KISS" cookie cutter.

My daughter was pleased to participate in the decorating of the cookies after she came home from school.

A great book + a great author + a birthday on Valentine's Day = a LOVEly time! (and yummy!)

Thank you to a long time reader of the blog and a family friend for recommending that I celebrate Phyllis Root's birthday with my family!

Links:
1. Phyllis Root Biography - Children's Literature Network, Candlewick
2. Text Interview with Phyllis Root - Seven Impossible Things Blog, Cynsations
3. Minnesota Humanities Book Activity Guides - RattleTrap Car and If You Want to See a Caribou
4. One Writer's Process: Phyllis Root - Wordswimmer Blog

Valentine's Day Story and a few Shout-Outs!

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:31:00 +0000

Happy Valentines' Day

Susanna Hill, author of Punxsutawney Phyllis and Can't Sleep Without Sheep, hosted a Valentine's Day writing challenge. The task was to write a story about unlikely Valentine's in 200 words or less. I hope you enjoy my story coming in at 196 words. I call it Puffy Pancho and Pretty Paulita: The Perfect Penguin Pair.

Puffy Pancho and Pretty Paulita: The Perfect Penguin Pair

Pancho lived at the zoo with his best pal Paulita.

Every day they played in the pool, posed for pictures, and ate plenty of fish.

Pancho’s parents and Paulita’s parents thought they were the perfect pair.

Pancho planned to propose to Paulita on Valentine’s Day.

He found the perfect pebble.

He picked the perfect place.

Pancho was prepared to pick Paulita as his perpetual partner.

The morning of Valentine’s Day was peaceful and pleasant.

Pancho was peppy and perky until he peered in the water.

The reflection showed plumage that looked puffed and plucked.

Pancho panicked and plunged into the pool.

Pancho prayed that the water would make his plumage proper.

He knew his plumage still had problems when he saw the patrons pointing.

Pancho popped out of the water and plodded to his pen.

He picked up his perfect pebble.

He peered at the perfect place.

Paulita was perched in position and looked very pretty.

Pancho paused, preened his plumage, and pranced to the perfect place.

He presented the perfect pebble and Paulita was pleased.

Pancho was proud as he posed for pictures with Paulita.

He didn’t even mind when she preened his puffy plumage.

Additionally, in the past week I was awarded two blogging awards by new friends in the 12 x 12 Challenge. Joanna Marple of Miss Marple's Musings awarded me the Liebster Award and Anna Coates of Green Tea and Toast awarded me the Kreativ Award. Thank you so much!

When I received the Kreativ award I was encouraged to pass it on to other bloggers. So here we go:

Colleen Kessler - Raising Life Long Learners
Amy Broadmore - Delightful Children's Books
Zoe Toft - Playing by the Book
Danielle Smith - There's a Book

Renee LaTuilppe - No Water River

Jennifer Young - Castles in the Sky

Natalie Fischer - Wading Through Words

Hannah Holt - Lightbulb Books

I think I was supposed to do five, but I couldn't narrow it down! I hope you find these blogs as enjoyable as I do!

Happy Birthday David Small - February 12

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 03:17:00 +0000

Happy Birthday David Small - February 12

Imagine a stack of one million books. Now imagine that they are all the same book. (For my friends in the 12 x 12 Writing Challenge, just for fun, imagine the book as a published form of one of your own manuscripts. Ahhhh.......OK! Back to reality!) Actually, the enormous stack of books you are imagining is Imogene's Antlers by David Small. It has sold over 1,000,000 copies since 1985 and has been translated into Italian and French (NCCIL). As I write this, I wonder how many times those million books were read aloud and how many children smiled because of it -- AMAZING! I was pretty excited when I found one of the million copies at a used book sale and saved it for for this week's birthday celebration.

David Small has illustrated over 40 books for children during a career that began after a college friend told him that, "the doodles he made on the telephone pad were better than anything he had ever written." (davidsmallbooks.com) This statement convinced him to abandon writing plays and pursue art. In 1998, David Small and his wife Sarah Stewart were awarded a Caldecott Honor for their book, The Gardener -- which is one of many books the two have worked on together (The Money Tree, The Library, The Journey, and The Friend). Success continued for Small in 2001 when he was awarded the Caldecott Medal for So You Want to Be President? by Judith St. George. He told CNN that he thought the book would be, "an interesting way to combine.. the work I've done in books for children and the work that I've done for magazines like The New Yorker and newspapers like the Times and Washington Post." My daughter really liked this book because of the all the factual information and stories about the Presidents, however the length was a bit much for my 4 year old son -- however, he loved the Scholastic Storybook Treasures animation of the book.

David Small said in an interview with Big Think, "I wrote a book called Imogene's Antlers, which I think it a good example of a book that kids and their parents enjoy. What I try to do in my picture books, is to be all-inclusive, but not exclusive, to not exclude the kids and not exclude the parents from the experience." We couldn't agree more with David Small because all of us enjoyed Imogene's Antlers this week. This story is about a young girl that wakes up with a large set of antlers on her head. Initially, Imogene had some difficulty with the antlers, but soon she is tolerant of her new appearance -- licking a lollipop as the doctor checks her out and sharing donuts with the birds. It was Imogene's mother that really took issue with the antlers -- fainting numerous times and attempting to disguise the antlers with a giant hat. But, for Imogene she really enjoyed her day with antlers and went to bed with a smile on her face. There is a surprise ending and I will not spoil it for those who haven't read the book!

We had a little time before dinner so I grabbed a whole bunch of pipe cleaners and a few headbands from my daughter's room.

The task was to make our own antlers. First, the kids twisted the pipe cleaners around the headband. Then, they bent and added additional pipe cleaners to make the tallest set of antlers they could. In the book, Imogene's brother determined that his sister had the antlers of an elk, which in real life can be over four feet high!

My son was hilarious when he was wearing his antlers - galloping around the room and making funny faces!

His enthusiasm spread to his brother.

We pretended to wake up with antlers on our head! This photo looks remarkably similar to David Small's illustration on page 1 -- don't you think? :)

Check out David Small's latest book, One Cool Friend by Toni Buzzeo which was released on January 10, 2012:

Links:
1. David Small's Website
2. David Small Biography - NCCIL, Macmillan
3. So You Want to Be a Great Children's Illustrator? - Big Think + more videos with David Small
4. David Small Finds a Voice in a Graphic Memoir - NY Times
5. An Evening with David Small Grand Rapids Public Library - YouTube Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
6. David Small talks about Caldecott Medal - CNN
7. Jim Averbeck interviews David Small - YouTube

Happy Birthday Stephen Gammell - February 10

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:05:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Stephen Gammell - February 10

There are various levels of planning that go into each of my birthday celebrations -- traveling to multiple libraries, reading numerous books to my children to find the book that "pops", thinking of an activity to bring the book to life, and so on. My approach to developing a blog post is in stark contrast to how Stephen Gammell creates a book. A friend once told him that his illustrations"looked like they just happened before you turned the page." He responded by saying,

"That statement startled me and I've never forgotten it. I have kept that in mind each time I do a book. I try to have that element of surprise and fun in every drawing. This is why I never do any sketches beforehand, or plan ahead. My desire is that it happens for me in much the same way it happens to whoever will be looking at the book." (TTLG).

This week, the birthday celebration for Stephen Gammell had an "element of surprise". I was not surprised by the preplanned activity, but by who got excited about the idea.

Stephen Gammell began his career as an author and an illustrator at the age of four. "Some of my earliest and happiest memories are of lying on the floor in our old house in Des Moines, books and magazines around me, piles of pads and paper, lots of pencils...and drawing. Just drawing! I was four at the time." (Children's Literature Network). This love of drawing at an early age led him to a successful career in children's literature. He was awarded the Caldecott Medal in 1989 for Song and Dance Man by Karen Ackerman. Additionally, he received Caldecott Honor in 1986 for The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant and in 1982 for Where the Buffaloes Begin by Olaf Baker. I can remember my first experience with Stephen Gammell's work when I discovered the Scary Stories series by Alvin Swartz. This series appears to be out-of-print with Stephen Gammell's drawings and reissued with different illustrations by another artist -- probably because it was listed as #7 on the ALA frequently challenged book list. I don't remember reading many of the stories, but I do recollect the horrifying illustrations! (note: I am not recommending Scary Stories to young children!)

This week we had a morning that was beautiful and crisp. The sunlight was tapping my youngest son and I on the shoulder and begging for us to come outside as I read Twigboy by Stephen Gammell. The story begins in Weedland, not a good place for youngsters, with a group of bugs surrounding Twigboy (he is a twig!) -- and things didn't look good. Luckily, a rock bounds down from above and bowls over the bugs to save Twigboy. The rock, whose name becomes Rockwell, needs help from Twigboy after he falls into the slimy swamp and can't swim. The two adventurers form an instant friendship. After a visit to Granma and Granpa's and a good meal, the dynamic duo ignore a warning to stay away from Weedland when they decide to return to seek revenge on the bugs.

I strapped on my son's shoes, zipped his coat, and grabbed a Sharpie market. He chose his hat and carried the book. I told him that I was certain that Twigboy lived in our backyard and that we needed to find him.

He was excited to be celebrating an author's birthday with just his dad! (Well -- at least that is what I was thinking he was thinking.)

If Twigboy was going to live in our backyard this is where we would find him. After some searching, I found a stick that resembled Twigboy. Once I added the eyes and mouth with the black sharpie, I knew it was definitely him.

I gave Twigboy to my son and asked if he could find him in the book.

I helped him open the book and he found him right away. He also said something that sounded like "stick" without the /k/ sound.

Twigboy! It is hard to notice his eyes and mouth that I drew with the Sharpie in this photo. I debated adding googily eyes later on, but I figured they would just fall or get picked off.

I told him, "We need to find Rockwell." So we checked the front yard. He found his favorite rock and I added a face with the Sharpie. Now the friends were together again.

Twigboy went with us to pick up my oldest son at preschool and somehow he lost an arm on the way back home. We tried a little glue, but it didn't help. I was very concerned for Twigboy.

However, with the help of my oldest son we used a band-aid to attach his arm back on. This book had an ending that is very open ended. It begs for a sequel. I think if we were to write "Twigboy 2" the band-aid would provide a very interesting plot twist!

I am so pleased with how this birthday celebration turned out. I had originally planned to complete it with my older son when my youngest was napping. This reading experience has taught me that my son, even at only 20 months old, is capable of much more than I expected.

Links:
1. About Stephen Gammell - Children's Literature Network
2. Author and Illustrator Profile - Through the Looking Glass
3. Mudkin Book Review - There's a Book

February Video Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:15:00 +0000

Discussed in this video:

- BIG thank you to everyone of my readers. January was the best month ever for the blog.

- Children's Author Birthdays - Judith Viorst (Feb. 2), David Wiesner (Feb. 5), Jane Yolen (Feb. 11), Mo Willems (Feb. 11), Simms Taback (Feb. 13), Barbara Joosse (Feb. 18), Walter Wick (Feb. 23), and Uri Shulevitz (Feb. 27)

- Mo Willems, Elephant and Piggie Birthday Skit - Click here to Watch!

- Birthday memories from Jane Yolen and Walter Wick.

- Upcoming new birthdays celebrations including Stephen Gammell (Feb. 10)

Happy Birthday Gerald McDermott - January 31

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:44:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Gerald McDermott - January 31

"By reading, hearing, and using culturally diverse materials, young people learn that beneath surface differences of color, culture or ethnicity, all people experience universal feelings of love, sadness, self-worth, justice and kindness." (Dowd, 1992 via LeeLow). I felt this quote was a perfect way to begin the celebration for Gerald McDermott, "a dream weaver, tale-spinner, portrayer of visions, interpreter of the human spirit." (Gerald McDermott.com).

Gerald McDermott began his career of storytelling in college when he developed the animated film, The Stonecutter (see the YouTube video below). This film gave him the opportunity to create more short films including Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti, which later became his first picture book and also a Caldecott Honor recipient in 1973. In 1975, Gerald McDermott received the Caldecott Medal for his book Arrow to the Sun and another Caldecott Honor in 1994 for Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest. His Trickster Tale series of picture books "speak to us in a gentle, humorous way about strengths and weaknesses of humankind."(Gerald McDermott.com).

Gerald McDermott said in an interview with Nancy J. Johnson, "I have heard thousands of stories and every once in a while one leaps up and grabs me. When I read a story that is important for me to tell, I feel it." The trickster tale that "leapt up and grabbed" us as we prepared for this birthday celebration was Jabuti the Tortoise: A Trickster Tale from the Amazon. Jabuti the Tortoise plays the flute. His biggest fans are the birds that find his music sweet. However Vulture, who is unable to sing along with the other birds as Jabuti plays, finds his music sour and can't wait for the day he can eat Jabuti for a meal. One day a great gathering is being hosted by the King of Heaven. Vulture pretends to be sincere in his offer to fly Jabuti to heaven so he can play his flute. Vulture has other plans with little concern for the health and safety of Jabuti. Jabuti's friends come to his aid when he needs them most and he repays them with a special gift.

After reading this book, I wanted to bring it to life with a birthday celebration activity. I immediately did a search for "homemade flutes". I found a website by Mark Shepard with instructions to make a "Plumber's Pipe". The directions looked easy enough and we just needed a few supplies. I told the kids to put on their shoes and coats because we were headed to Lowe's.

After locating our materials we headed to the car with a 10 ft. piece of 3/4" PVC pipe (we didn't need 10 feet, but that is how it is sold) and a few 3/4" end caps. We spent less than $4 to get the supplies for our flutes.

Thankfully, my father-in-law's saw was still in our garage from a recent home improvement project. Each piece of PVC was cut to 15 9/16". If I would not have had this cool saw I would have used a hacksaw to cut the PVC and then sanded the edges to make sure they were smooth.

The end cap was drilled on the side with a 7/16" drill bit.

We placed the cap on one end of the piece of PVC pipe (which chose not to use cement to glue it on which worked out fine). Then, we measured from the edge of the cap and marked the measurements 6 7/8", 8", 9 1/8", 10 3/4", 11 1/2", and 12 3/4". The other end of the pipe was left open. We drilled each mark with a 1/4" drill bit and placed them all in a row (we didn't listen to the suggestions on many of the homemade flute websites that suggested different sized holes and staggering the holes in a specific way. For us, it was easier to do it this way.)

After all the holes were drilled, we cleaned all the black markings off the pipe with PVC Cleaner.

We decided that our flutes needed to be decorated. We used many different colors of Sharpie markers. My daughter used patterns from the illustrations in the book as inspiration for her design.

My daughter was so excited for this celebration -- even though, we weren't very good at playing the flute. She came home from school today and it was the first thing she ran to, and plans on taking it to school tomorrow to show her music teacher!

Links:
1. Gerald McDermott's Website
2. Talking with Gerald McDermott interview - BookList
3. Arrow to the Sun Work in Progress video - Vimeo
4. Sun Flight video - YouTube
5. Steady Freddy from The Electric Company - YouTube
6. Shall I Shoot the Fish from The Electric Company - YouTube
7. Gerald McDermott Page - Internet Movie Database
8. Gerald McDermott Biography - NCCIL

Happy Birthday Bill Peet - January 29

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 02:50:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Bill Peet - January 29

(January 29, 1915 - May 11, 2002)

Our bedtime reading routine is that my oldest two children and I each select one book. Most of the time I read all three books aloud, but on occasion my daughter will choose to read her selection. This has been the routine for over a year and a half. Tonight, I tried something new after learning that Bill Peet told stories to his children before bedtime.

"When my two sons, Bill and Steve, were very small I would make up bedtime stories for them almost every night. With so much storytelling practice I began to contribute more to the Disney stories, but always with illustrations. I couldn't possibly give up drawing. Finally I became Walt's top writer-illustrator on his animated features." (billpeet.net).

I was nervous to tell an original story. So, I reached out to fellow participants in the 12 x 12 writing challenge to ask if they would share their experiences telling original stories to their children. I received many helpful suggestions:

1. Encourage your children to contribute to the story. (Thanks Jodi!)
2. Have a reoccurring set of characters. (Thanks Denver!)
3. Start your story with "When you were little..." (Thanks Julie!)
4. Use picture book illustrations as a guide for your story telling. (Thanks Stacy!)
5. Take turns with your children telling parts of the story. (Thanks Mindy!)

I had thought of a main character and a problem for my story -- a bear who couldn't fall asleep for the winter -- but that is all I had! So I decided to try the suggestion of having my children contribute to the story. I began the story by describing the setting (it was snowing) and the main character (a bear who tried many ways to fall asleep but couldn't). My daughter introduced a bird who wanted to show the bear how much fun it was to play in the snow. The bear and the bird went sledding, skiing, and ice skating. My son said, "They need to build a snow fort!" This provided a great way to end the story with the bear falling asleep in the fort after a fun but exhausting day playing in the snow. This story will certainly not become an animated classic film for Disney or a storybook loved by thousands of children, but it certainly was fun -- and I would try it again!

Over the past 60 years Bill Peet has been a part of telling many of the most popular stories that children have grown to love. He spent 27 years working at Disney, where he developed the stories of Dumbo, 101 Dalmations, and The Sword in the Stone for animated feature films. Additionally, he collaborated on other Disney films including Pinocchio, Fantasia, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland (Disney). After his time at Disney, he published over 30 storybooks including popular titles like The Whingdingdilly and Big Bad Bruce. He also was awarded a Caldecott Honor in 1990 for his autobiography, Bill Peet: An Autobiography.

I wanted to celebrate Bill Peet's birthday with his books and a movie. My children absolutely love watching a movie with the lights off, a blanket on the floor with pillows, and POPCORN! I knew the perfect movie to watch would be The Sword in the Stone -- a movie they had never seen before. Bill Peet was "the only storyman in the history of Disney who did all the storyboards for an entire animated feature film, and he did it for two of them: The Sword in the Stone and 101 Dalmations." (billpeet.net).

This week we read a number of books by Bill Peet before the birthday celebration and the book that resonated with my son was No Such Things. This book is full of strange creatures with funny names. My son laughed out loud for names like Flubduds, Grabnabbits, and Magawks. Each page spread highlights a creature and a description written in rhyme. Here is an excerpt from the book:

The reason the Flubduds all sigh in despair--
They stand on their feet and can't go anywhere.
Since they're much too befuddled to figure things out,
They're stuck in one spot and can't move about.

After reading No Such Things for a second time, I told my children that it was going to be Movie Night! Then, I said, "I have a few ideas to make our Movie Night special for Bill Peet's birthday." The first idea was to make a special cup for our juice. We traced Starbucks cardboard cup sleeves with a pencil on white paper.

After tracing the sleeve they cut out the shape.

Then, carefully glued it on the sleeve. This gave us a blank slate for creating a Bill Peet commemorative cup.

My daughter chose to write "Happy Birthday Bill Peet" and my son chose to write his name on one side.

On the other side, they drew their favorite creature from No Such Things. My daughter chose a Flumper which resembles a car tire and my son chose a Snoof which has backward feet and therefore cannot be tracked by hunters in the snow.

Here are the official Bill Peet Birthday Movie Night Commemorative Cups. I made a cup for my youngest son which featured a Sneezaboo, a bighorn sheep whose horns wrap around as skis. This creature is also featured in Buford the Big Horn Sheep.

The next activity was to design homemade popcorn containers. I gave them the freedom to decorate the containers however they desired. My son stayed with the theme by adding a few more creatures. My daughter drew designs around the word POPCORN.

To make the container we folded a large piece of construction paper in half.

Then we folded each half into the center to make four equal panels.

For each panel we cut along each crease about 3 inches up.

I then folded the panels together and taped on the bottom.

Once all the bottoms were folded, I had two panels that met together. I added tape here to complete our popcorn container.

This was just an example. Remember to have your children decorate their container before you tape it together.

Movie Night was a success. The kids thought the commemorative cups and popcorn containers were really cool! I couldn't believe I remembered parts of The Sword in the Stone, I hadn't see it since I was a kid. I love the part in the movie where Merlin and Arthur become fish and encounter the giant Pike!

Links:
1. Home Page for Bill Peet - Packed full of information.
2. IMDb Page for Bill Peet
3. In Memoriam - Flak Magazine, NY Times
4. Biography - About.com
5. Children's Book-A-Day Almanac - January 29
6. Bill Peet Biography - Disney

Happy Birthday Kate McMullan - January 16

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 03:13:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Kate McMullan - January 16

Two years ago, I began creating memorable reading experiences with my family. My then 2 year old son's reaction to an I Stink cake we made for Kate McMullan's birthday in 2010 inspired me to celebrate children's author birthdays with my children. I never thought that by pulling a box of cake mix out of the cupboard would have been a life changing experience, but it was! Since then, my family has celebrated over 120 children's author birthdays and read thousands of books together. We have also made three really great cakes to celebrate Kate McMullan's birthday.

The I Stink cake that started it all in 2010!

I'm Mighty Cake in 2011!

The past two years we enjoyed eating these cakes ourselves, but this year we would be sharing our latest creation with my son's preschool class. My son's teacher gave me an open invitation to come into the classroom to read when it was convenient for my family. I saw Kate McMullan's birthday as an opportunity to allow my son to share his favorite books with his classmates.

The day before the visit, my son and I prepared two activities for his classmates. There was lots of cutting, gluing, mixing and decorating going on at our house.

I told my son that he and his classmates were going to make their own I Stink Garbage Trucks. We printed out clip art pictures of many of the garbage items mentioned in I Stink including lobster claws, fish heads, and rotten radishes. My son helped me cut out the images that would eventually be pasted onto the cardboard box garbage trucks.

My son used I Stink to help him write the correct matching letter of alphabet on each image.

We prepared the large cardboard boxes by covering them with white paper so there would be a clean area to draw and color. The "Glue Guys" did an awesome job preparing for this activity!

My youngest son went down for a nap then it was time for my oldest and I to get to work on our favorite reading tradition... Kate McMullan Book Cakes! This year we created an I'm Fast cake to celebrate her new book about a freight train who races a red car to Chicago.

We first applied a base of white frosting to the cake.

Then, I sketched out the design with a toothpick.

I traced the sketch in black cake icing.

Then, we added the color. My son was so determined to apply the frosting. He used all his strength to squirt the frosting from the can.

The little red car was a tight area but he stayed in the lines.

Two mini oreos for the wheels!

Tada! We were quite pleased with the results!

My son's preschool class is comprised three and four year olds. It is considered an integrated preschool as it takes typical students and students with special needs. Not only was I spending the morning in the classroom but it was also Dad and Donuts Day. It couldn't have been a better day to spend at preschool!

I opened the lesson with a quick introduction to trash -- Where do you put your trash? Where it goes after the trash can is full? Then, I read one of my favorite read alouds, I Stink! The preschoolers loved it!

After reading, I told the class that they were going to make their own garbage trucks. I modeled drawing a face, wheels, and a hopper. This box then became the garbage truck used by students who needed a little more support to complete the task.

Once the students designed their garbage truck we cut a side door for the students to be able to get in and out of their garbage truck.

The last thing that the students needed was for their garbage truck to "EAT SOME TRASH!" The clip art images were added using glue sticks.

My time in the class was coming to a close, but it was time for the grand finale. I read I'm Fast! and got the preschoolers chanting "Chooka-Chooka" just like the freight train in the book. I was so impressed with the participation from the students!

I left them with the cake to enjoy during their snack time. I want to thank my son's teacher, Miss Lauren, and her co-teacher Miss Jaime, for allowing me to come in and celebrate Kate McMullan's birthday. I truly had a blast!

If you enjoyed this Kate McMullan, check out the other birthday celebrations:
2011 - I'm Mighty Cake, Kate McMullan shares a birthday memory, and lots of links
2010 - The Kate McMullan birthday celebration that started my blog in the right direction.

Happy Birthday Dianne de Las Casas - January 15

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:53:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Dianne de Las Casas - January 15

Last November during Picture Book Month, 31 picture book authors, illustrators, and book lovers were asked to share their perspective to answer the question -- "Why are picture books important?" The shared stories, memories, and opinions marked a daily celebration for picture books and a reason to be thankful for everything that they provide to us as readers. The success of the inaugural event can be credited to a supportive community of KidLit fanatics, but mostly to the incredibly organized and passionate founder, Dianne de Las Casas.

Dianne de Las Casas began her career in children's literature as a volunteer storyteller at her local library. Her experiences at the library led her to become a professional storyteller. In an interview with the Love a Librarian Blog, she said, "Being a storyteller allowed me to 'season' my stories in front of live audiences. It helped me narrow my focus and specialize - audience participation is what I do best. This translates very well into children's picture books." Her first published books were geared toward teachers and librarians to help them develop the art of storytelling with titles like Story Craft: Crafting Story Theater Scripts and Handmade Tales: Stories to Make and Take. Then, in 2009 she published her first picture book The Cajun Cornbread Boy. I was astonished when I read in the School Library Journal, Practically Paradise Blog that she has visited more than 500 cities, 30+ states, and multiple countries as an author and storyteller.

This week to celebrate Dianne de Las Casas' birthday we were chompin' and stompin' all week after reading her latest picture book Dinosaur Mardi Gras. The refrain from the book has been stuck in our heads and we couldn't help letting it out in the car, at the dinner table, and even before bedtime! The book taught us all about Mardi Gras, something we are sad to say that we knew very little about. We learned about krewes (carnival organizations that host parades), New Orleans street names, Rex: The King of Carnival, and even doubloons. In addition to learning about Mardi Gras we learned the names of numerous dinosaurs when we made our own Dinosaur Doubloons Memory Game.

This week I learned that doubloons, coin-like favors thrown from floats in a Mardi Gras Parade, were first introduced in 1959 and made of lightweight aluminum. This gave me the idea to make our own out of cardboard circles and aluminum foil. In this picture, my oldest covered the cardboard with the aluminum foil while my youngest uncovered it. Let me tell you -- we are a very efficient crafting operation!

There was some preplanning on my part. I cut out 34 cardboard circles about 3 inches in diameter (about double the size of the real Mardi Gras doubloon). Then, I found clip art pictures of the dinosaurs mentioned in Dinosaur Mardi Gras. All this cutting was completed the night before our game- making endeavor.

I also learned that each doubloon is unique to a krewe, an organization that plans a parade, therefore each year there are many different doubloons. I chose to "brand" our doubloons with a purple and gold circle that read, "Dinosaur Doubloons 2012, Chomp! Chomp! Stomp! Stomp!" My son adhered the tape and placed the paper circle on the aluminum covered cardboard circle.

After the paper circles were taped on one side of the doubloon we taped our dinosaur images on the other side. We had two images of each dinosaur. The pictures of each dinosaur were easy to find using a Google Image Search. I wrote the name of each dinosaur under each image too.

This is a photo of our completed Dinosaur Doubloons -- 34 in all! Some of the dinosaurs we had were Allosaurus, Spinosaurus, and of course the king, T-Rex.

Throughout the day (and the next day) we played Dinosaur Doubloon Memory Game. We tried to find the matching pair of dinosaurs among the sea of dinosaur doubloons (Illustrations of Dinosaur doubloons also decorate the endpapers of the gorgeous picture book). It was cool to hear that the dinosaur names become comfortable vocabulary for my children after playing the game.

I was so happy that Dianne was able to share a few birthday thoughts via email:

Birthdays have always been a big deal for my family. We believe that every year you are on this earth is cause to celebrate. We also love gift giving! One of my favorite birthday memories is not one when I received gifts but rather when I gave...

My best friend from high school, Fe Del Rosario, also has a January birthday. We lost touch over the years and in 2008, we rediscovered each other through Facebook. We connected and talked on the phone for hours. We were instantly best friends again. I really wanted to see her so I surprised her with a round-trip ticket to New York City (she had never been) and a birthday weekend of fine dining, Broadway, shopping, and celebration. I had flowers and chocolate-covered strawberries waiting for her when she arrived as well as a bevy of gifts. We visited museums, rode the subway, and even walked Central Park in the snow. It was one of the most magical birthdays I can remember because I received the biggest gift of all -- the rekindling of my friendship with my BFF. This year, 2012, we're doing it again -- meeting in NYC to celebrate our birthdays. :)

Dianne, thank you so much for sharing your birthday thoughts. We hope you have a wonderful time in New York City. Happy Birthday! We admire your efforts with Picture Book Month. Good luck with the project.

Links:

1. Dianne de Las Casas Website - The Story Connection with tons of Book Activities and her Story Collection!!
2. Follow Dianne de Las Casas - Facebook, Twitter
3. The Story Connection - YouTube Channel
4. Picture Book Month - Website
5. Fun and Easy Handmade Tales Your Students Will Love by Dianne de Las Casas - YouTube
6. Interview with Dianne de Las Casas - School Library Journal, Feathered Quill, Love a Librarian, The Writer's Block
7. Storytelling with Dianne de Las Casas - ABC-CLIO Blog
8. Dianne de Las Casas and Katie Davis on the Red Carpet at ALA - YouTube

January Video Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 04:31:00 +0000

In this video, I run down all the children's author birthdays that will be celebrated in the month of January.

Happy Birthday Katie Davis - January 4

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 03:10:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Katie Davis - January 4

Who writes and tweets and podcasts and draws and blogs? Katie Davis does!

Katie Davis has written and/or illustrated nine books for children including one middle grade novel, The Curse of Addy McMahon. Her first picture book Who Hops?, published in 1998, "grew out of a silly but sanity-saving car game she devised while stuck in traffic with her children." Most recently she illustrated Little Chicken's Big Day, written by her husband Jerry Davis.

In Twitter-land, Katie Davis (@katiedavisburps) caters to over 1,800 followers by distributing news about children's literature, retweeting articles to assist writers, and sharing thoughts about being a children's author and illustrator. She has opened herself up to a community of people who love to read, write, and recommend books to children. In a recent podcast she said, "I love how people can really help out each other's businesses through the internet and though social media. It's all about reciprocity. The more you help somebody, the more you can be helped." (Episode #73, Eeek! eBooks! Chapter Two).

Her podcast, Brain Burps About Books, where she talks about "everything to do with children's literature" is available on her website, iTunes, or via her app of the same name. She has published over 70 episodes packed full of helpful information. One of her latest podcasts, Episode #75 "Best Books of 2011", she hosted two school librarians, Travis Jonker (@100scopenotes) and John Schumacher (@Mrschureads). Jonker and Schumacher shared their views on their favorite children's books of the past year. It was entertaining to listen to and made my cooking adventures in the kitchen this morning much more pleasant. When she was asked about her a podcast in an interview on The Happy Accident she said, "I love doing it. I love talking books, or the book business with colleagues. I love that there are a bazillion subjects I could cover and still have more to talk about. I love promoting other people and helping my listeners with their careers."

Katie Davis has illustrated all of the books that she has written. In a Patricia Newman article, I learned that she uses numerous different mediums for her illustrations. Who Hops? and Who Hoots? were painted with acrylics. Mabel the Tooth Fairy and How She Got Her Job and Little Chicken's Big Day were illustrated with pencil sketches and Photoshop. Kindergarten Rocks, appropriately used crayon colored sketches and Photoshop.

In addition to illustrating, writing and podcasting, Katie also writes a regular blog. Her blog is available on her website. She includes links to all of her podcasts and then shares other children's literature related material. Recently she shared a few posts about, Picture Book Month, which she was a co-founder. There is so much good information on her blog. I found myself just scrolling through all the fun posts.

My family has had a love affair with her first book, Who Hops? since my 6 year old daughter was very little. The book is just plain fun fun! I joked with Katie over email that I have read it to my children collectively over 800 times. I asked my daughter how many times we read it together and she said, "I think, like a million!" The book begins with a simple question, Who hops?, and then three animals are shown that are able to hop and then a cow -- which of course can't hop. Our favorite part is on the next page when we shout "NO, THEY DON'T!" The book follows this pattern for other actions like flies, slithers, swims, and crawls.

My youngest son, 18 months old, is currently obsessed with the book. I thought we needed to include him in celebrating Katie's birthday. We started the celebration by reading Who Hops? and then watched the YouTube video at the end of this post of Katie Davis reading Who Hops? This prepared my youngest son for the game he was about to play with his family.

To play our game, we then laid out four animal tiles that matched animals from the book -- a frog, a kangaroo, a bird, and a snake. My daughter started hopping, my son was flying, and I was slithering (Look for a picture of me slithering below). My wife told our son to give the animal tile to the person that was like his animal.

We had foam tiles of many of the animals in the book. To play this game at your house you could draw the animals or download and print photos from Google Images. Here my daughter was hopping with the frog tile that my son had given her. Then, he tried to give her the bird tile too! Whoops!

He was so excited to play this game. Here he hands a kangaroo to my son who was flying. Oh well! 1 out of three isn't bad! He would be in the baseball hall of fame with that average!

After the game, he tried to brush up on the animals for next time!

I was surprised that my other two children wanted to play the game too as "the pickers" who picked the animals from the pile of choices. They enjoyed handing out the animals plus hopping, flying, crawling, slithering, and swimming was pretty fun too!

We finished the activity by extending the idea of the book to other animals and actions. Here is what we came up with:

Who climbs? - monkey, squirrel, gorilla
Who creeps? - jaguar, snake, puma
Who waddles? - penguin, duck, mommy (I said this, shame on me, she is 7 months pregnant.)

In closing, I emailed Katie to ask if she had any birthday thoughts/memories/traditions that she would be willing to share. This was her response:

The best birthday I every had is today's, because I get blog-celebrated which is incredibly cool! But, I do have a couple of older birthday memories...if you look at my lower lip, you'll see the scar I got on my second birthday when I fell and hit my face on my "bopple," what I called my baby bottle. That is my first memory, followed by my second when I turned 10, and got very excited to be a whole decade old. Sixteen was cool, because I had these awesome dark green velvet pants that I felt made me very sophisticated, and then there was my 21st birthday. My dad took me to the very special 21 club in New York City, where he purchased and stored a bottle of wine from the year of my birth. With great ceremony, we opened it, toasted, and sipped. I thought it was disgusting! I should've stuck with the velvet pants for sophistication.

I've had a lot of fantastic birthdays, a very few bad ones (a flat tire on my way to my own 24th birthday party, every guest canceling over the course of the day, so no 27th birthday party, and did that 24 hour flu really have to pick the 24 hours over my 40th birthday?!) but this is the first that I've been blog-celebrated, so I thank you, for giving this to me! I love it!

Katie, thank you for the birthday thoughts. We hope you have a FANTASTIC birthday!

Links:
1. The Official Katie Davis Website
2. Follow Katie Davis on Twitter - @KatieDavisBurps
3. Katie Davis - YouTube Channel
4. The Katie Davis Blog and Brain Burps Podcast
5. Text Interviews with Katie Davis - Cynsations, The Happy Accident, Into the Wardrobe, Paula Yoo
6. Katie Davis on Good Morning Connecticut - (many episodes)
7. Brain Burps App Available at the iTunes Store for iPhone and iPad
8. Patricia Newman writes about Katie Davis
9. Little Chicken's Big Day Book Trailer - YouTube
10. Kindergarten Rocks Book Trailer - YouTube
11. Check out her ebook, How to Promote Your Children's Book - Available for $9.95 on her website
12. Banana Peel Slip Ups with Katie Davis - BananaPeelin Blog

Happy Birthday Author Top Tens for 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 03:50:00 +0000

2011 was a wonderful year for Happy Birthday Author!

This year we brought you 70 birthday celebrations of children's authors and illustrators. This brings the total number of birthdays celebrated on the blog to 122!

I want to thank all of my readers for their comments and support. You don't know how wonderful it makes me feel to have someone say, "Hey, I read your latest birthday post!" or to have someone share/retweet my story.

I want to thank my family - My wife for proofreading every one of my posts before they were published. My children for staying enthusiastic about authors and their books -- and for going along with all of Daddy's crazy ideas! My brother-in-law for his many ideas that have helped grow the blog's subscribers.

I want to thank all the local teachers that welcomed me into their classrooms to share author birthday celebrations with their students.

I want to thank all of the authors that responded with birthday memories and stories. Your thoughts really made the birthday celebrations special!

You all made 2011 a great year!

My favorite part about the year's end is all the top ten lists that reflect upon the events of the year. I put together a few top ten lists of my own.

Top Ten Viewed Birthday Celebration Posts in 2011:
1. Kindergartners Celebrate Leo Lionni's Birthday - May 5 - Making collage mice
2. Happy Birthday Mo Willems - February 11 - Elephant and Piggie skit
3. Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss - March 2 - Oobleck
4. Happy Birthday Dav Pilkey - March 4 - Flip-o-Ramas
5. Happy Birthday Anita Silvey - September 3 - Great Grandma and Grandpa's Favorite Childhood book.
6. Happy Birthday Steve Light - March 19 - Truck Tire Painting
7. Happy Birthday David Weisner - February 5 - Post-its for Wordless Books
8. Happy Birthday Tom Lichtenheld - June 14 - Cloudette Rain Barrel Painting
9. Happy Birthday Beverly Cleary - April 12 - Dear Mr. Henshaw Activity Sheets
10T. Happy Birthday Eric Carle - June 25 - Where's My Hat?
10T. Happy Birthday Sandra Boynton - April 3 - Cows!

This year, we participated in the Picture Book Reading Challenge hosted by There's a Book at our house. We set our goal to read 200 picture books. We read a total of 944! (Check out the list of books we read -- with a little commentary about each). I would like to thank Danielle of There's a Book for organizing and hosting this reading challenge. It inspired me to capture of whole year of reading with my children.

The Top Authors of our Reading Challenge Experience in 2011:

1. Mo Willems - 23 unique books read

2. James Marshall - 17

3. Mercer Mayer - 16

4. Rosemary Wells - 15

5. Cynthia Rylant - 14

6. Jon Scieszka - 14

7. Lane Smith - 14

8. Tomie dePaola - 13

9. William Steig - 12

10. Barbara Joosse - 12

Others to Mention: Dr. Seuss (11), Pat Hutchins (11), Seymour Simon (11), Kate McMullan (10), Dav Pilkey (10), Steven Kellogg (10)

Happy New Year Everyone! I wish you all a happy and healthy 2012!

Happy Birthday Mercer Mayer - December 30

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:23:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Mercer Mayer - December 30

Can you freeze bubbles? My first thought was, "Sure, it's just water and soap. Of course, it can freeze." Then, I did a Google search and found one of those unreliable "Answers" websites that said, "The ice crystals would pop it. The air on inside would shrink and create a vacuum that would automatically pop the bubble." Even after reading this, I wanted to believe that my kids and I could freeze bubbles. I found hope in a YouTube video shot in New Hampshire of bubbles blown outside in extreme sub-zero temperatures.

(First, a little about our author and then more about frozen bubbles!) Mercer Mayer has published over 300 books and for over fifty of those books he collaborated with his wife, Gina. He is most well-known for his Little Critter Series. I have never met a child who doesn't enjoy having a Little Critter book read to them. Mercer Mayer said, "Most of my books are about things that happened to me when I was a little kid. Now I'm a big kid and I write about things that happen now, especially with my own children and grandchildren." (Littlecritter.com).

In addition to the Little Critter Series, which started with a doodle of "eyes and a funny nose, and he was crying and had all this hair," (National Book Festival Transcript 2007), Mercer Mayer has published books about monsters and dragons and even alligators. One of my daughters all time favorite books is There's An Alligator Under My Bed. (Check out the video below of Mercer Mayer telling this story!)

This week we discovered Bubble Bubble by Mercer Mayer, a picture book about a boy who buys a Magic Bubble Maker and blows bubbles that turn into a scary snake. Then, they turn into a ferocious cat and a mean elephant. The boy does not panic and knows exactly how to stay safe. I immediately wanted to bring this book to life because my children are huge fans of bubbles. But, it was snowing outside and very cold. It was then I decided I would investigate freezing bubbles.

To be honest, I wasn't certain that this activity was going to work -- but it wouldn't be the first time one of my birthday celebrations flopped (making gebeta boards for Jane Kurtz's birthday wasn't a success, neither was the Ethiopian food!) I thought we needed to make different kinds of bubbles to have a better chance at success since I didn't have sub-zero temperatures or dry ice.

First, I had my daughter whisk Dawn dish soap and water to make really tiny bubbles. We scooped out the bubbles and placed them on a plate. We ran downstairs to put the plate of bubbles in our deep freezer and then headed back upstairs.

Then, we made bubbles the traditional way. Our store bought bubble solution didn't work real well so we found recipes for homemade solutions at bubbleblowers.com. We used the following recipe:
1/4 cup Dawn dishsoap
1 cup water
1 tsp. sugar

My kids were so excited to be blowing and catching bubbles in the kitchen.

We lined the plate with some bubble foam. Then caught as many bubbles as we could and transferred them to the plate. After many trials we found that the foam was necessary because a dry plate immediately popped the bubbles. Then, we ran downstairs to put our bubbles in the freezer. However, by the time we got there they all popped!

So, we moved our operations downstairs to the basement floor and were successful at getting a plate of big bubbles into the freezer. At this time we decided to check out tiny bubbles.

I breathed a sigh of relief when my kids shouted, "They are frozen. We froze bubbles!"

After a few minutes we checked our big bubbles but they all popped. We tried stacking as many bubbles on the plate as we could. Then, tried freezing the bubbles once again but they all popped too! My daughter said, "Wow, this is like science!" Then, she ran to get her microscope that she got for Christmas and they were looking at bubbles at 100x magnification.

While they were playing, I was determined to see a bubble freeze. I tried stacking many bubbles once again and started watching the clock. After five minutes I checked the freezer and the bubbles were all gone. Then, I tried leaving the freezer door open and that didn't work either.

After just a couple of minutes, I checked and I actually saw a few crystals form on one of the bubbles (honest!) and by the time I snapped a picture the bubbles popped. The picture above doesn't show any visible crystals but I did notice the bubble looked a little different. Then, I got the idea to try a video.

So, yes, I think with our experience and the very good YouTube video of the people from New Hampshire in sub-zero temperatures, it is safe to say that bubbles can be frozen. Maybe I should head over to Yahoo! Answers and post my thoughts (and my proof!). Happy Birthday Mercer Mayer!

I hope everyone has a very Happy New Year! I am REALLY looking forward to 2012!

Links:
1. Mercer Mayer's Website
2. The Little Critter Website
3. Mercer Mayer Biography - Greenville Public Library
4. Mercer Mayer's YouTube Channel - Lots of Little Critter Videos
5. Mercer Mayor at National Book Festival - Library of Congress
6. There's a Nightmare in My Closet, Read by Billy Crystal - YouTube

Happy Birthday Jerry Pinkney - December 22

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 03:55:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Jerry Pinkney - December 22

I have never written a belated-birthday post. I am usually very particular about publishing the night before the author's birthday so that it is ready for the next morning. This time, however, my idea for an activity was just not feasible before Jerry Pinkney's birthday. However, many other blogs including Anita Silvey's Children's Book-a-Day Almanac recognized the very special day.

I enjoyed reading many of the comments made about Jerry Pinkney on his birthday. Jean Holmbald posted on Facebook, "I shouted for joy when he finally got a Caldecott; so deserving." In 2010, Jerry Pinkney received the Caldecott Medal for his book The Lion and the Mouse. Before winning this award he received the Caldecott Honor distinction five times. His first was in 1989 for Mirandy and the Brother Wind written by Patricia C. McKissack.

Deborah Taylor also commented on Facebook, "He is such an elegant man who means so much to the field." He began illustrating children's books in 1964. According to Anita Silvey, "he was one of few black illustrators at the time" and he helped service the "emerging body of black writers who needed illustrators." Since then he has published over 100 books. He has collaborated with great authors like Julius Lester, Patricia C. McKissack, Mildred D. Taylor and his wife Gloria Jean Pinkney.

Sondra Eklund (@sonderbooks) mentioned on Twitter, "Happy Birthday Jerry Pinkney! Such a nice man. (I've heard him speak 3 times and really love him!)" I missed an opportunity to hear him speak this past November at the Mazza Museum in Findlay, Ohio which I really regret. However, there are numerous videos that he has issued that give a sense of how wonderful he would be to hear speak.

I read Patricia C. McKissack and Jerry Pinkney's book, The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll to my children twice before Christmas. I chose to read it one night and then three nights later my daughter asked for me to read it again! She was intrigued that the three sisters in the book, (Eddy Bernice, Laura Nell, and Odessa Mae), received only a sack filled with treats and a Baby Betty Doll for Christmas. I asked her, "What if we didn't have a lot of money like the Pearson's and were only able to afford one big gift for the three of you?" My daughter responded, "Well, that wouldn't work, because their family had three girls. We have two boys and a girl. So, there would have to be at least two presents!"

The Pearson family was living during the Great Depression. Laura Nell wanted the doll she discovered in the newspapers they were covering their walls with to insulate the house for winter. Her sisters were appalled that she would ask for such a gift when she knew her parents didn't have the money. However, after a letter to Santy Claus and many day dreams her wish came true on Christmas Day!

Reading this book through the second time with my children made me curious to find out more about the Christmas experiences in our family. On Christmas Day, when the chaos of the holiday meal and gift giving festivities were complete, we gathered in one room. I read The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll to four generations -- my grandparents, my mom, dad, uncles, my sister and brother-in-law, my nephew and my own children. At the conclusion of the book, I asked if anyone would be willing to share their memories of Christmas or how Christmas has changed for them over the years.

My mom, who grew up on a farm with two brothers and a sister, talked about how Christmas stockings used to be filled only with fruit -- an orange and an apple. My mom and her brother, the youngest of the four, remembered Christmas as "generous"and always having many gifts like books and toys, but many of the gifts were things that they needed like pillow cases, sheets, socks and underwear. All these gifts were then kept in a pile under the tree to show guests that came to visit for the holiday. My grandmother, a child of the depression herself, remembered getting very little for Christmas, maybe a doll. My brother-in-law shared that his grandparents were very generous with gifts. He explained that even though they didn't have a lot of money, they saved a little each month to give him and his brother the Christmas experience they never had. My grandfather, our family's favorite storyteller, reminisced of a time around the age of 6 or 7 years old, when he was with his friend's family gathered around the Christmas tree to light the candles. The candles were lit, the lights in the room were out for ten minutes as they enjoyed the sight, and then the candles were blown out. My dad, an only child who was born in Belgium but grew up here in the United States, shared that he was asked to select one thing that he wanted the most and that was the one big gift he received on Christmas Day. Lastly, my grandfather recalled a Christmas gift from his father of savings bonds that were lost in the shuffle of the day and were probably burned up with the trash.

I had the video camera rolling throughout the discussion. It ran out of memory, but the stories continued for over an hour - then, into dinner, and beyond. As I listened to the stories, I realized that the Christmas experiences from the past are still alive today. My dad's family tradition of one special gift he received as a child continues as he always gives one special gift to each of us with a label that reads "From Santa." My grandparents give savings bonds to the children every year at Christmas -- now the savings bonds come in the mail which keeps us from losing them! My wife and I provide an abundance of gifts for our children on Christmas Day but many of the items are things that they will need throughout the year. My kids were actually excited to get socks and underwear this year -- they really needed them!

At the end of the day, we concluded that at every family gathering a video camera needs to be placed in the room to capture the stories. These stories and memories from the people we love are gifts that need to be cherished. Just like in The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll, Laura Nell realizes that it isn't the Baby Betty Doll that makes Christmas special but whom we spend time with on the holiday that matters most.

Check out Jerry Pinkney's latest book Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star which was released October 3, 2011. We loved the chipmunk!

Links:
1. Jerry Pinkney's Website
2. Video Interview with Jerry Pinkney - Reading Rockets
3. Text Interview - RIF, SchoolLibrary Journal, KenLaird Studios Part 1 and 2
4. Witness the Art of Jerry Pinkney: Norman Rockwell Museum - YouTube
5. Jerry Pinkney on Sweethearts of Rhythm: Norman Rockwell Museum - YouTube
6. Jerry Pinkney on The Little Match Girl: Norman Rockwell Museum - YouTube
7. Jerry Pinkney on The Three Little Kittens: Penguin Young Readers - YouTube
8. Jerry Pinkney at the National Book Festival: Library of Congress - YouTube
9. Jerry Pinkney's Birthday - Children's Book-a-Day Almanac
10. Jerry Pinkney and Erin Stead: A Caldecott Conversation - 100 Scope Notes
11. Anita Silvey talks about Jerry Pinkney - About.com

Happy Birthday Keiko Kasza - December 23

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 02:07:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Keiko Kasza - December 23

December -- O, December! I think it is one of the busiest times for reading at our house. Every year we read from stacks of holiday favorites that include books like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Polar Express, and The Christmas Blizzard. The author birthdays in December are fantastic and lead us to read books like George Shrinks, Punk Farm, and The Wall. This year, we even found a library used book sale that produced many old comic books that were too much fun to ignore. Our trips to the library presented books that were too good to pass up like graphic novels by Erik Craddock (my kids love Stone Rabbit). There are so many good books connected to the month of December. How about a few more?

Keiko Kasza is an author and illustrator of 18 books for children that have been translated into 14 different languages (keikokasza.com). Her books were delightful to read aloud and were enjoyed this week by all three of my children -- my oldest is 6 years old and my youngest is 18 months old. In the teacher's guide that Keiko Kasza provides on her website, she states, "as an illustrator and writer, my goal is to create text and art that is simple, uncluttered, and funny."

In addition to creating stories that are "simple and funny," and easily enjoyed by children of various ages, her stories have great characters. Our favorite characters were Badger from Badger's Fancy Meal and Uncle Wolf from The Wolf's Chicken Stew. Badger is growing tired of apples, worms, and roots to eat and sets out to find a better meal, but encounters quite a few difficulties (i.e. He is not as quick as he thought he was when he tries to catch a rabbit). Then, Uncle Wolf realizes he has many fans of his cooking even though he fails to fatten up Mrs. Chicken for his stew. Keiko Kasza talked about developing great characters when she said, "I become the character that I'm working on at that moment. I pretend that I'm a bird looking for a mother, or a pig trying impress his girlfriend. When I'm acting, I'm a child myself." (Penguin Group).

In her book, The Mightiest, a lion, a bear, and an elephant discover a crown sitting on a tree stump that has the words "For the Mightiest" carved in it. The three animals argue over who should wear the crown and even try to prove their mightiness by scaring a little old woman. A giant is nearby, scares the animals, and decides to show his mightiness by scooping them up to drop them off a cliff. The mother of the giant, the little old lady, scolds him to leave the animals alone. It is then clear to Lion, Bear, and Elephant who should wear the crown after all.

When I read The Mightiest I noticed how the animals all wanted to wear a crown. I thought my children would like to do the same.

We started with strips of thick paper (These are sentence strips from a classroom lesson). I wrapped the strips around their heads to measure the size and then stapled the ends together.

Then, I provided yellow construction paper to make triangles that could be glued on the paper strip. My daughter chose to make triangles but didn't cut all the way through the paper so they stayed together.

My littlest one enjoyed The Mightiest too. He loved the lion, bear, and elephant. He colored his yellow construction paper with markers to decorate his crown.

We used scraps of foam sheets to make jewels for our crowns.

Once my youngest son was finished coloring, I cut and glued his yellow construction paper to the paper strip to complete his crown.

Is he the mightiest?

Apparently, he wasn't finished coloring as he tried to color the crown while it was on his head.

While we worked we tried to come up with compliment words to describe each other that ended in "est". After being at odds with each other, we agreed that my youngest was the "silliest", my middle son was the "coolest", and my daughter was the "smartest". It was nice to hear complimentary words instead words like strangest, meanest, and stinkiest (well, my youngest can be "the stinkiest" at least once a day!)

I would like to wish all of my readers a Happy Holidays! I hope you have memorable time with your family. I am so thankful for many things during this season -- Thanks for being a reader of Happy Birthday Author.

Links:

1. Keiko Kasza's Website - Check out the in depth Teacher's Guide
2. Keiko Kasza talks about A Dog Who Cried Wolf - Scholastic Video
3. Biography - Penguin Group

Kick Off to the Jarrett Krosoczka Reading Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 01:26:00 +0000

The countdown had been on for quite a while. The anticipation grew with each passing day. My daughter could hardly wait any longer for (no, not Christmas) me to be the "Guest Reader" in her first grade classroom.

At Parent Night, before the first day of school, a sign-up sheet circulated the room for parents to volunteer to read aloud books to the class. I chose December 16th because I recalled quite a few great author birthdays around that date -- William Joyce (Dec. 11), Eve Bunting (Dec. 19), and Jarrett Krosoczka (Dec. 22). I figured it would be easy to come up with a few books to read. But then, the pressure started to build with my daughter's persistent excitement. Then, her teacher wondered if my guest reading could kick off their Jarrett Krosoczka Reading Experience. I questioned whether I would meet the high expectations.

I prepared for my visit much like I would have planned for a lesson as a teacher. This preparation put me at ease. I was ready to rock or I guess... punk rock!

I started with a little introduction about Jarrett Krosoczka -- the author and illustrator. We viewed a few of his "Book Talks" videos on Studio JJK website. Then, I placed his books Punk Farm and Punk Farm On Tour on the chalkboard ledge. I wasn't sure all the kids had prior knowledge of punk music so we listened to the MP3 of Punk Farm from the website and talked about the different instruments needed to form a punk rock band.

At this point, the lesson was pretty simple. The children were having fun, but I needed to kick things up a notch. So, I pulled out a bag that I had brought and told the kids that I couldn't read the Punk Farm books dressed the way I was. I needed to be dressed like.... a punk rock star! I pulled out a silver studded belt, a fancy jacket, a pink tie, multiple pairs of glasses, and some bling. My outfit was almost complete when I asked the kids, "What is the coolest thing about punk rock stars?" The first student said, "Their hair!" I said, "Absolutely," and pulled out a container of hair gel and gave myself my first ever mohawk!

All the theatrics worked. They kids were dialed in and focused. I read both Punk Farm books aloud and we yelled the lyrics of the songs by Punk Farm into the pretend microphone. It was a blast. However, the best part about the whole experience was that my wife informed me later in the evening that my daughter told her grandmother, "Today was the best day ever, Grandma! My dad was a guest reader in my class!"

I guess I lived up to the hype!

The students in my daughter's class will be spending the last few days before the holiday break doing many of the activities in the Jarrett Krosoczka Reading Experience packet. All the activities were designed with the intent of engaging students in higher level thinking. Additionally, I was very pleased that Jarrett Krosoczka supported the Experience, repackaged it, and made a few additions. The new and improved JJK Reading Experience is available on his website. It includes activities for all of Jarrett's books along with the corresponding worksheets! ALL FOR FREE! Check it out!

You may also want to check out these two blog posts that I have previously published:

More about the JJK Reading Experience

Happy Birthday Jarrett Krosoczka - December 22 (Complete with childhood birthday memory and photo!)

Peace Out, Wisconsin! Peace Out, Colorado!
Peace Out, Everyone!

Win William Joyce's The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore for iPad

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 03:12:00 +0000

This Contest was for Today Only, William Joyce's Birthday - December 11!
It is now closed.

Congratulations: CStoycos, Lauren Sealy, and @funkifrog! They were chosen throughout the day and awarded the iPad app The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Thanks to everyone who spread the word about this giveaway. I had a lot of fun celebrating William Joyce's birthday with you and my family!

For more information about the app watch this video:

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore iPad App Trailer from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

While you are here, I thought I would let you know that I am trying to become a published children's author. My manuscript, Hey! Hey!, is currently up for an online vote over at the website for e-Book publisher, MeeGenius. I would love for you to take a second to read it! (Click Here) According to Mr. Morris Lessmore, "Everyone's story matters." I wholeheartedly agree. After checking out my manuscript check out many of the others too!

Or Click Here --- Or Here! --- Or even Here!

Happy Birthday William Joyce - December 11

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:06:00 +0000

Happy Birthday William Joyce - December 11

William Joyce described the main characters in his new series, The Guardians of Childhood, as "capable of extraordinary things, all in the defense of kids -- to keep them safe, to keep their imaginations alive, and their hearts happy and soaring and full of possibilities." (Simon and Schuster). The Guardians include The Man in the Moon, who Joyce describes as "The Dude. He's the Guy who starts in all." (Amazon.com Video from Book Expo America). Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, the Easter Bunny, are a few of the other Guardians. Joyce came up with the idea for the series over 20 years ago to rescue these heroes from possibly fading away or becoming not as relevant with today's kids. When I heard all of this I became so excited to celebrate his birthday and to begin to share the stories or "mythologies" behind these real childhood heroes with my children.

The Man in the Moon is the first picture book in The Guardians of Childhood series. I was lucky enough to reserve a copy from my local library and was slightly nervous to read it because the expectations I had were so high. However, I was not disappointed. We learned that in fact, there is a Man in the Moon and that before he was a man he was a little boy. An epic battle lead his moon to Earth. When he was older he learned all about the children of Earth -- their wants and their fears -- from balloons that floated all to way to him. He wanted to help the children of Earth but he knew he couldn't do it by himself. Together the Guardians work with Moonbots and Moonmice to give the children a wonderful gift.

Last week we celebrated Colleen Kessler's Birthday and in her book A Project Guide to the Solar System I remembered an activity called Cocoa Craters. I thought with a twist this activity could be a great way to celebrate William Joyce's birthday and his new book.

We had just read The Man in the Moon the night before -- it was fresh in our minds -- so we went right to the part of the book where MiM (Man in the Moon) kicks a rock to reveal bright white sand. In the background of the illustration on the page there are a few very cool craters. I told my son that we were going to make the surface of the moon and have meteors come flying in to make craters.

To begin this activity we covered the counter with newspaper and located a baking tin. Then, my son scooped 2 cups of white flour into tin.

Two cups of salt were added to the two cups of flour.

He smoothed the lunar surface with a spatula.

He sprinkled (then needed a little assistance -- as it was flying everywhere) NesQuik chocolate powder over the lunar surface. The NesQuik helps the meteor impact show up better. The recipe from A Project Guide to the Solar System called for cocoa powder which I didn't have so we improvised with the Nesquik and it worked fine.

We found meteors (aka rocks) outside around our house. He placed them in order from largest to smallest.

Then, he let the biggest meteor fly by holding it above the lunar surface and dropping it straight down.

We compared his crater to the illustration by William Joyce. After comparing these craters, my son tried out the rest of the meteors he collected and we talked about the similarities and differences.

Now for the twist, we dumped the mixture of flour, salt, and cocoa into a round pie tin.

I once again sprinkled NesQuik on the surface. In Man in the Moon, MiM had been observing the children of Earth and learned that "growing up is tricky business." He wanted to help them in some way. While he was thinking about what to do is when he kicked a rock to reveal the brightly colored sand underneath. This gave him an idea.

My son pretended he was the Moonbots and Moonmice and the other Guardians as he flicked his finger to reveal the bright white moon sand.

After a couple of attempts and a little extra cocoa he flicked his way to making his own Man in the Moon -- complete with a meteor nose. A word of caution -- my kids had a hard time understanding kicking all the cocoa off but leaving the cocoa in place for the eyes, nose, and mouth. So, we just flicked away and then added cocoa to darken up those places!

If you would like more creative and fun activities with books by William Joyce, download The William Joyce Reading Experience. There are many activities including investigating what it would be like if you shrunk like George in George Shrinks. Click here to Download and Print the activity sheet.

Don't tell my children but I ordered The Man in the Moon for them for Christmas. Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King (for children 7-11 years) is also available. Support Happy Birthday Author by purchasing at Amazon.com:

Links:

1. William Joyce Website
2. The Guardians of Childhood Website

3. George Shrinks Website - PBS Kids with lots of activities

4. Meet the Robinsons - Disney DVD Page

5. Reading Rainbow Episode - Dinosaur Bob and his Adventures with the Family Lazardo - Vimeo

6. Complete Video Interview with Reading Rockets

7. Text interview - HarperCollins

8. The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore - Website

9. Moonbot Studios - Website, Blog, Facebook, Twitter

10. William Joyce Art Exhibit Photos - About.com

11. NCCIL Page on William Joyce

12. Lesson ideas and Activities for George Shrinks, A Day with Wilbur Robinson, Bently and Egg, Snowie Rolie, Rolie Polie Olie, Santa Calls - Happy Birthday Author
13. William Joyce discusses The Guardians Series - Book Expo America

I appreciate that you have read through to the end of this post! But, if you could spare another minute, please stop on over to MeeGenius and check out my first children's book manuscript. Your votes could help me become a published author! Thank you for supporting me! (Click Here to vote!)

December Video Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:35:00 +0000

Discussed in this Video Blog:

Happy Birthday Jan Brett - December 1

Happy Birthday Andrea Zimmerman - December 2

Happy Birthday William Joyce - December 11

Happy Birthday Jarrett Krosoczka - December 22

Downloadable Reading Experiences - William Joyce and Jarrett Kroscozka

MeeGenius 2011 Author's Challenge - I Would Love to Have Your Vote!

Happy Birthday Colleen Kessler - November 29

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 02:00:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Colleen Kessler - November 29

Five...Four...Three...Two...One...Happy Birthday! This week we had a very special birthday celebration with Colleen Kessler. She is a local non-fiction author who has published numerous books including many for teachers -- Super Smart Science, Hands-on Ecology: Real-life activities for kids, and Picturing Math: Hands on activities to connect math with picture books. I met Colleen through the Northern Ohio chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. I expressed interest in celebrating her birthday and she responded, "Sounds like fun! Bring the kids over to the house and we can do science experiments!" After the celebration date was set, I mentioned to my kids that we were going to an author's house to make rockets and exploding geysers and they began counting down the days to the event just like the mission control center at NASA!

Upon arriving at the Kessler house, Colleen immediately engaged our two families (and many children in the neighborhood) in making Mentos-Diet Coke Geysers. For Colleen, a former teacher and currently a homeschooling mom, it seemed better to have more kids involved! She supplied 5 two-liter bottles of Diet Coke, about 10 rolls of the white Mentos chewy mints (this included lots of extra mints for eating), and mentos geyser dispensers (these are available on Amazon.com - Steve Spanglers Geyser Tube).

Colleen shared Mentos with the girls as they prepared the geyser dispenser. She explained that the Mentos chewy mints have a hard coating that causes a reaction with the soda pop. (Check out the Mythbusters video below for more information).

I was given the honor of exploding the first geyser. I like this picture of me with Colleen's son running away because it looks like I did a great job. However, I failed miserably as only one mentos candy dropped in and I was splattered with Diet Coke!

Colleen showed everyone how to do it correctly.

My daughter used a Mentos dispenser that had a pull-cord which was perfect for the kids (I probably should have used it too).

The second activity that Colleen Kessler had planned for her birthday celebration was from her book, A Project Guide to The Solar System, which is one of seven books available in a series that she has written. The opening pages of the book mention important scientists -- Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton -- and how their theories and contributions built upon each other to provide the foundation for future discoveries. Each chapter of the book -- fourteen in all -- provides a project to investigate ideas in more depth. Step-by-step directions are provided to make cocoa craters, sundials, homemade micrometeorites and even ROCKETS!

Colleen showed my son the directions and a full color photograph of the rocket he would soon be making.

We started our rocket with a small plastic film canister. (Ask your local photo developing center such as Walgreens or CVS if they have any of these containers.) We taped a piece of construction paper near the end of the canister with the lid (we started by attaching the short end of the paper to make shorter rockets). Make sure you leave about an 1/8 inch of the film canister sticking out of the paper. The rest of the piece of paper was tightly wrapped around the rest of the film canister and then fastened with tape along the edge.

Next, we made a cone for the top of the rocket. After we shaped it correctly we trimmed extra paper off the bottom of the cone to make it even.

Here my daughter used tape to attach her cone to the top of her rocket.

Then, we cut triangle shaped pieces of construction paper and made a slight fold along the base that gave us an area to tape the fin on our rocket.

Lastly, we decorated our rockets with markers!

My son was ready to launch his rocket. He was a true scientist by wearing safety goggles to protect his eyes.

To launch our rocket, we tipped it upside-down, opened the film canister, and placed in two effervescent antacid tablets (Alka-Seltzer). When we were ready, we added enough water to cover the tablets. The hardest part was quickly putting the lid back on the canister to prepare for lift off. We learned quickly that if our paper was attached too close to the edge of the film canister the lid wouldn't go on!

We had many successful launches in the backyard!

Our time spent with Colleen Kessler and her family was a BLAST!

I am so thankful that Colleen Kessler took the time over the busy holiday weekend to share a birthday memory and tradition:

As far as birthday memories go...I don't have too many wonderful ones to share. Since my birthday is so close to Thanksgiving, I always got shuffled to that day as the family was already gathering. We'd have a birthday cake as one of our desserts and the relatives would bring my presents to Thanksgiving dinner. I DO remember one year, though, that stands out. I had a few girlfriends sleeping over -- just two or three, not a big party, and we slept in the rec room, in the basement (a very spooky basement) of our house. It had been snowing a lot that day (one of the things I hated about being born in November -- my brother got to do the fun outdoor and swim parties since he was a summer birthday, and we were always stuck inside for mine!), and we were finally snuggled in for the night around the smoldering fireplace that the basement had. About one or two in the morning we woke to a crash. When we finished screaming, and my dad came down and flipped on the lights, we saw a BIG bird -- I still don't know what kind it was -- had broken though a part of the wall that was exposed to the outside. There were nest remnants -- and ice and snow and dangling legs -- all over the basement...well, the dangling legs found their way out pretty quickly and vanished. Needless to say...none of us slept much after that and we'll all remember that sleepover party forever!

Since, my son's birthday is even closer to Thanksgiving, I now make sure that, even if it actually falls ON Turkey-Day that we always celebrated separately. In fact, we make it a point to decorate for Christmas AFTER his birthday too, so it is always special to him and he gets HIS day :)

Our fun science day also included birthday cake! Happy Birthday Colleen!

These other books by Colleen Kessler would be great gifts for teachers:

Links:
1. Colleen Kessler's Website
2. Author Biography and Books - Prufrock Press
3. Learn more about Colleen Kessler - Bio
4. Colleen's Blog - Raising Life Long Learners

Help Me Celebrate My Own Birthday!

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 05:07:00 +0000

I have spent over 2 years celebrating children's author and illustrator birthdays with my children here at Happy Birthday Author. I have told myself that one day I want to celebrate my own birthday on the blog. However, I learned that it is not as easy as it looks. The biggest challenge for me has been confidence. But, with support from my family, my writer's group, and joining SCBWI -- I did it. I took the plunge. I submitted my first manuscript to the writing contest sponsored by the ebook company, MeeGenius. I was happy to find out tonight that my submission was posted on the website! I want to ask for your support by voting for my manuscript:

http://www.meegenius.com/challenge/hey-hey-by-eric-van-raepenbusch

Thank you to my editor and my wife!

Thank you to my writer's critique group for the positive feedback that led to this submission.

With many thanks, Eric Van Raepenbusch

Happy Birthday Marc Simont - November 23

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:21:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Marc Simont - November 23

November 2011 is shaping up to be quite a memorable month of reading! To begin, it is the inaugural year for Picture Book Month. The daily posts from authors and illustrators have been very inspiring. My family once again made pancakes while reading Nate the Great to celebrate Marjorie Weinman Sharmat's birthday on November 12. Secondly, we discovered that Marc Simont, the illustrator of many books in the series, also celebrates a November birthday which gave us an excuse to read Nate the Great all month long!

Marc Simont, also a well-known political cartoonist, was asked in an interview with WritersCast, which children's book in his amazing 70 year career did he love working on the most. He responded, "Nate the Great is a good series because of the author, Sharmat. She took the staccato language -- way of speaking like a detective -- short sentences which is ideal for that age group. They want to get involved and lose themselves. I was very fortunate in doing those. They have sold very well."

In addition to his successful Nate the Great Series with Marjorie Weinman Sharmat, Marc Simont was awarded two Caldecott Honors for The Happy Day by Ruth Krauss (1950) and The Stray Dog (2002) which he wrote himself. He also received the Caldecott Medal in 1957 for The Tree is Nice by Janice May Udry. My favorite part of that book was,

A tree is nice to plant. You dig the biggest hole you can and put the little tree in. Then you pour in lots of water and then the dirt. You hang the shovel back in the garage. Every day for years and YEARS you watch the little tree grow. You say to people, "I planted that tree."

This reminded me of a sapling that my son found, a few weeks ago, in a flower bed in the front yard. He thought it was strange that is was growing there. I suggested that we transplant it in the backyard. We placed bricks around it to protect it from the lawn mower. However, it was certainly missing something. Something to let everyone know that it was an important tree -- one that we planted. We decided to find a way to let everyone know this tree was special to us.

My son gathered sticks from the backyard and he found quite a few in his fort.

We then mixed some concrete in a bucket.

It was chilly outside so we took our project inside. We covered the kitchen counter with newspaper and readied a rectangular baking tin.

My son evenly spread the concrete throughout the tin.

I broke the sticks that he gathered into small pieces. Then, my son formed letters by pushing sticks into the concrete. He used the book cover as a guide. He said when I handed him one stick to make the letter I, "I need two more small sticks for the top and bottom of the I."

Once the sticks were in place we added the year in which we planted our tree. I used a stick to make the 2 - 0 and he used a butter knife for the 1-1.

The concrete hardened overnight and we took our tree marker to our special tree. We read A Tree is Nice as we blew into our frozen hands before my son headed off to preschool.

We looked up as we read the first line of the book, "Trees are very nice. They fill up the sky." We are so thankful for our trees in our backyard.

My son said to me today as he looked outside at the rain, "Today is good day to stay inside and read books." We started with a Thomas the Tank Engine book then he found How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World by Faith McNulty with illustrations by Marc Simont. I hadn't planned on writing about this book but he absolutely loved it. The book describes what it would be like to dig a hole for 8,000 miles through the center of the earth and out the other side. Contained within the book were so many great science vocabulary words like loam, mantle, geyser, basalt, magma, and volcanoes. While reading we stopped to watch YouTube videos of Old Faithful and lava flows. Here are a few of our favorites:

I wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving! I am very thankful for everyone that has supported me in the making of this blog over the past year. The positive comments really keep me going. Enjoy your time with your family this week.

Links:
1. Political Cartoons by Marc Simont Website
2. Audio Interview with Marc Simont - WritersCast
3. November 23 - Children's Book-a-Day Almanac
4. Text Interview - HarperCollins
5. Nate the Great Website - RandomHouse
6. The Stray Dog Lesson Plan - LiveOak Media
7. Marc Simont: His Life, his work, and the state of the world - Brenda Underwood

Your purchases on Amazon.com for Holidays can benefit Happy Birthday Author! Just click on the advertisement below or use the search bar in the upper left hand corner. Thank you so much!

Happy Birthday William Steig - November 14

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:26:00 +0000

Happy Birthday William Steig - November 14
(November 14, 1907 - October 3, 2003)

This month I read the article by Anita Silvey, "Make Way for Stories: There's a good reason why people are passing up picture books", that was published by School Library Journal. In this article Silvey states, "If I could chart a course to rescue picture books, I'd suggest that we establish the writer again as half the equation. We need real stories, and long stories, that can be read more than once." This suggestion was in response to the controversial New York Times article, "Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children" by Julie Bosman. I have some anecdotal evidence to support Anita Silvey's suggestion. Tonight, I told my son to pick his book for before bedtime reading. I was surprised when left his bedroom to pass up the library bag with many Star Wars and Super Hero early readers and his bookshelf packed tight with his favorite books. I figured he was heading for the two crates of recent acquired picture books from a used book sale. Yet, he returned with Shrek and Doctor DeSoto Goes to Africa by William Steig (which he found near my computer waiting to help me compose this post). These two books were among the dozen "real stories, long stories" we read this week by Steig. His choice told me that he was thinking, "These stories are so good I want to read them more than once."

William Steig has been called the "King of Cartoons". He contributed more than 1600 drawings and 117 covers for the New Yorker magazine (Norman Rockwell Museum). His many "symbolic drawings"(for more information view section 3 of this PDF from The Jewish Museum) have been described as "an exploration, in graphic form, of the unconscious" which were published in book form in the late 1930s and early 1940s (New York Times). But, it wasn't until after the age of 60 that he published books for children. His books gave us the characters Shrek, Sylvester, and Doctor DeSoto. The characters and their stories gave Steig $500,000 (from Dreamworks to create the Shrek movies - Boston Globe), a Caldecott Medal (1970, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble), and a Newbery Honor Award (1983, Doctor DeSoto).

Strangely, Steig said in an interview with the Boston Globe, "I hate to illustrate my books, because I find it hard to repeat scenes and characters." He didn't have to worry about this when he published his first book, CDB! My children loved how this book used only letters to convey an idea and that each turn of the page provided another puzzle to solve. For example, CDB is "See the bee" and D C-L S N D C is "The seal is in the sea." I thought all week for a way my children could explore this idea further and I came up with making our own CDB! t-shirts.

We gathered our art supplies and white paper. I explained to my children that we needed a theme for our CDB t-shirts. My daughter immediately shouted, "Princesses!!" After discussing all of our options we decided on Thanksgiving for a theme. We realized in the book that William Steig wrote the words "thank you" with an N and a Q. (if you say NQ fast it actually does sound like "thank you".)

We added the number 4 for NQ4 - "Thank you for..." Then, we drew things we were thankful for. My son drew Captain Rex from Star Wars. I drew our family. My daughter drew stuffing -- as in Thanksgiving stuffing. We then had only food on our mind. Once our drawings were complete we scanned and printed our final drawings on special iron-on printer transfer sheets. We purchased a pack of this special paper at Michaels for about $5. They are also available on Amazon.

My daughter took this picture to show how we ironed the transfer sheets on to the t-shirts. Michael's also carried plain t-shirts in a variety of colors for about $4 each.

The iron-transfer paper peels right off after it cools.

Here they are in their shirts -- my son says, "NQ4 Mac and Cheese!" and my daughter says, "NQ4 pumpkin pie!"

I made a shirt for my youngest that said, "NQ4 Cheese!" He just started eating dairy after having a dairy allergy for the first 15 months of his life. Boy, does he love cheese! I think we might have to wear our shirts to Thanksgiving dinner with our extended family!

Links:

1. William Steig's New Yorker - Audio Slide Show
2. From the New Yorker to Shrek - The Jewish Museum Online Feature
3. William Steig Wood Sculpture Work - Life Magazine
4. William Steig Love and Laughter Exhibit Trailer - YouTube
5. William Steig Interview - Boston Globe
6. Interview with Jeanne Steig - SAIC fNewsMagazine
7. William Steig Information - MacMillman
8. Tough Youths and Jealous Satyrs Scowled in His Cartoons - NY Times
9. Meryl Streep reads Spinky Sulks - The Jewish Museum