Happy Birthday Author

Happy Birthday Joyce Carol Thomas - May 25

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Fri, 25 May 2012 02:54:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Joyce Carol Thomas - May 25

Joyce Carol Thomas was asked in an interview with The Brown Bookshelf, "What was it that made you decide to begin writing for children?" Her response was, "When my children were born, I noticed that they watched me reading books. Then, they would pick up a book and pretend to read it. Children, I think, soak up everything their parents do and say." My experience tells me that she is right.

Joyce Carol Thomas has published more than 30 books. Many of them have received Coretta Scott King award recognition including The Blacker the Berry and I Have Heard of a Land. In addition to writing, she has spent time as a motivational speaker, teacher, playwright, and professor (joycecarolthomas.com). In an interview with HarperCollins she said, "I hope that my stories and poems create a bracing and embracing sense of joy in children. Word by word, song by song. Young children need to believe in the special beauty that already exists in them."

This week we read two picture books by Joyce Carol Thomas that are collections of poetry, Gingerbread Days and Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea. Publishers Weekly reviewed Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea and stated, "Joyce Carol Thomas celebrates the beauty and heritage of African Americans in a lyrical collection of poems. Couched in language that is learned yet emotional, the verses focus on family life, love, freedom and dreams." Many the poems in the book mention honey and bees. I remembered while reading the poem, Honey, that my son asked many weeks ago if he could get his own bee suit, so that he could help me work with our bees. I thought a perfect way to celebrate Joyce Carol Thomas' birthday we be to take a trip with three of my children to a special little place to fulfill my oldest son's dream of becoming a beekeeper.

This sign greeted us at Queen Right Colonies in Spencer, Ohio.

My son could not wait to try on the bee suit despite a bout with conjunctivitis.

Brother beekeepers!

My boys enjoyed Honey Sticks while I fed the baby before we headed home.

Before we left I noticed a gentleman in this barn making bee boxes. I asked him how many he makes in a week. He said, "It depends on the time of year. But, generally 75-150 boxes a week." Wow! They also specialize in paraffin wax dipping for wood products. Who knew there was such a thing? Notice the giant vat to the left. He warned me not to get too close!

My little beekeeper with our Kenya Top-Bar Hive (Click here to see how we built the hive.) and Joyce Carol Thomas' Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea.

He got to inspect one of the bars. The bees began this bar less than two weeks ago. Upon careful inspection this comb has honey and developing bee larvae (darker cells).

A look inside the hive.

One happy beekeeper!

My little one insisted on trying on the bee suit too!

Just for fun:

My oldest son has put up with his older sister picking on him for a long time. My wife and I said quite often, "One of these days he is going to haul off and get her back and we will have to pretend we didn't see it." That day has come and gone and he is making up for lost time. He now knows how to push his sister's buttons. This week he used Joyce Carol Thomas' book, The Three Witches, with illustrations by Faith Ringgold, to scare her out of his room when we were reading books before bedtime. The book has a "creepy" cover, story, and illustrations but he and I loved it. My daughter, well...not so much!

Links:
1. Joyce Carol Thomas' website
2. Interview - Miss Rumphius Effect, HarperCollins, The Brown Bookshelf

Happy Birthday Arnold Lobel - May 22

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:22:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Arnold Lobel - May 22
May 22, 1933 - December 4, 1987

I have been looking forward to celebrating Arnold Lobel's birthday with my children for quite some time. The stack of used books that I have been collecting, including Mouse Tales and Whiskers and Rhymes, was ready to be read. The Frog and Toad series was checked out from the library. I expected it to be an exciting week of reading all of Arnold Lobel's classic stories for the first time to my children. What I didn't expect was for my family to actually meet the real Frog and Toad.

And our experience with Frog and Toad...well, let's say it was... thrilling...dangerous...and it was like no other author birthday celebration.

My son was pedaling his bike on a path around a lake near our house. I had fallen off his pace while pushing my other two children in the stroller. The next thing I know, my son was running toward me. "Dad, there is a snake!" I raced ahead. We got a quick look at it on the path. Then, in my rush to get my camera out of my pocket to take a picture, I scared it away. I was upset that I wasn't more delicate with my actions. I didn't get a photo and I wasn't able to identify the species.

My son turned around and right near the path, just a few feet from where we saw the snake, he saw Toad --frozen in fear. We knew it was Toad right away because we had just read Frog and Toad Are Friends the night before.

Toad even let me get really close for a few photos. What a handsome fellow!

As my youngest son was introducing himself to Toad, I realized that I might have saved the life of this famous children's book character. The snake I scared away was big and certainly capable of eating our famous amphibian.

Toad eventually loosened up and let my son chase him around the path.

Before parting ways Toad and I hugged. He thanked me for saving his life and I thanked him for his great books.

When we got home, my son wanted to tell Frog all about what happened. We knew he lived in the pond in our backyard.

Frog is very friendly and approachable in the books however we knew that we would have to catch him to get a chance to talk to him.

I was patient and after a few failed attempts I caught Frog. I told him all about the snake and saving Toad's life. He thanked me and asked me politely to let him go back to the pond.

I asked him if it would be okay to place him in a milk container until my daughter got home from her friend's house. He was a good sport and said, "I'd love to meet her." (Full disclosure: He was placed in a milk container. The top of the container was partially cut to create a hinge. No lids were used. I would never intentionally harm Frog.)

I closed up the top of the milk container and placed Frog on our deck (which sits about 12 feet off the ground). I was cooking dinner on the grill and I realized that the container was EMPTY! I looked around on the deck -- no Frog! I nervously looked down below the deck -- no Frog! I double checked the container -- no Frog! I felt awful. I thought, "Today, I saved the life of one famous children's book character yet I managed to end a life too!"

We ate dinner outside and then while I was cleaning up the dishes I looked over and saw Frog. He was contemplating a jump that would probably be his last. I knew if we went near him or said anything, like "HEY, Frog, Don't Jump," he would get scared and jump. I made a quick decision and realized that jumping actually was the best option for Frog.

My daughter and I ran downstairs to get an old painting sheet. We positioned ourselves where we thought would be the best place -- but we really didn't know how far Frog could jump.

I was thinking, "Frog, I am really sorry for putting you in this position." Then, on the count of three my wife scared Frog into plunging off the ledge.

Frog made a safe landing in the middle of the sheet. He jumped off, waved goodbye and went into the backyard. I was relieved! Two lives saved in one day! Frog and Toad will continue to live on and on.

Arnold Lobel won the 1981 Caldecott Medal for Fables. He won Caldecott Honor for On Market Street by Anita Lobel (1982), Hildilid's Night by Cheli Duran Ryan (1972), and Frog and Toad Are Friends (1971).

Links:
1. Arnold Lobel Biography - Greenville Public Library, Scholastic, Education.com
2. Arnold Lobel's Obituary - NY Times
3. Excerpt of an Interview with Arnold Lobel - Project Muse
4. Fables Extension Activities - Scholastic

Happy Birthday Dan Yaccarino - May 20

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Sun, 20 May 2012 03:10:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Dan Yaccarino - May 20

My kids are growing up quickly. On a weekly basis people warn, "Enjoy the times when your kids are young. It goes too fast." My daughter just turned seven and her life is much busier than it was just a year ago. My oldest son is 4 and a half and my wife and I have been saying, "Boy, he is getting big!" Not only is his body growing but so is his self-confidence. My youngest son is about to turn two years old in a couple weeks. He's no longer a baby! He makes me laugh every day and surprises me with all the things he can do. (And my youngest daughter is almost 2 months old already!) My response to the warning is always, "It does go fast. I am very thankful for time I have with my children."

This week we celebrated Dan Yaccarino, who's name might not be familiar to most children but many would certainly recognize his work. He has written and illustrated over 30 books for children including All the Way to America: The Story of a Big Italian Family and a Little Shovel, The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau, and Every Friday. He has illustrated books for famous authors such as Kevin Henkes and Jack Prelutsky. He has developed the award winning animated television shows Oswald and Willa's Wildlife. My kids were excited to find out that he designed the characters for one of their favorite shows, The Backyardigans.

According to an interview with Seven Impossible Things, Dan Yaccarino said, "I started out, as many children's book illustrators, as an editorial illustrator which was great training for conveying information visually and simply." His first published book was Big Brother Mike in 1993. In an interview with Core77 he said, "After I had several picture books under my belt, the next step was to move to story books and chapter books, which I both wrote and illustrated. I was gaining confidence with my writing and illustrating, and this was an opportunity to tell more detailed stories." In 2001, a new type of storytelling -- producing an animated series -- began for Yaccarino with the debut of the Oswald TV show on Nick Jr. "I don't think I can experience a feeling like seeing Oswald on TV for the first time ever again. It was a high watermark in my career and for me personally." (Core 77). Yaccarino continues to produce the things he has always loved to do -- children's books like Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman and TV shows like Willa's Wild Life. He said in an interview with Patricia Newman, "What I do now, I did as a kid. I used to make Super 8 movies, write scripts and record them on a tape recorder, and write and draw comics."

Our current favorite book illustrated by Dan Yaccarino is Cooking with Henry and Elliebelly by Carolyn Parkhurst! I have purchased this book for my children as a gift, but they will have to wait until July to get it. I hope to get Dan Yaccarino to sign the book at the Mazza Museum Summer Conference in Findlay, Ohio. (I'm just a little excited to meet him!) We love this book because of its read-aloud-ability. Henry, the older brother, is pretending to have a cooking show with his sister Elliebelly. I admire Henry for including Elliebelly in his show but he quickly learns that it can be frustrating to pretend play with two-year-old. Elliebelly is the star of the book (or show, I guess!). She makes Henry wear a pirate hat and her baby dolls go swimming in the waffle batter. The book is so much fun that it was the inspiration for our birthday celebration activity!

My youngest son (he's our Elliebelly) wore his pirate hat to cook the raspberry-marshmallow-peanut butter waffles just like Henry and Elliebelly did in the book.

He found the page that was just like him!

Here is my oldest son (he's our Henry) mixing the waffle batter. We used a peanut butter waffle recipe from Culinary Kaleidoscope.

We also made regular waffle batter for those in the family that didn't want peanut butter waffles.

In the book, Henry and Elliebelly also make barbequed banana bacon. We had all the ingredients but my son said, "Yuck! Don't make that!"

Henry says in the book, "You have to count how many years old you are: That's how many marshmallows and raspberries you need to add." My son added four of each!

Good counting! It looks ready to go!

He was quite pleased with how his waffles looked...

and how they tasted! He ate the whole thing before we were even finished with the other waffles!

I also have to mention that one of our most beloved books in our house illustrated by Dan Yaccarino is Trashy Town by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha. We highlighted this book when we celebrated Andrea Zimmerman's birthday, Dec. 2:

Links:
1. Dan Yaccarino's Website
2. Dan Yaccarino's YouTube Channel
3. Follow Dan Yaccarino on Facebook
4. Text Interviews - Core 77, Patricia Newman, Publisher's Weekly, Seven Impossible Things Blog
5. Biography - NCCIL
6. Interview with Janna Longfellow - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
7. Cooking with Henry and Elliebelly Trailer - YouTube
8. Backyardigans Website - Nick Jr.
9. Oswald Website - Nick Jr.
10. Willa's Wild Life - Qubo

Happy Birthday Renee LaTulippe - April 26

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 03:47:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Renee LaTulippe - April 26

Contains over 40 Rhymes
by Renee LaTulippe

April is National Poetry Month. It was established in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets with the hopes of "increasing the visibility and availability of poetry in popular culture while acknowledging and celebrating poetry's ability to sustain itself in the many places where it is practiced and appreciated." (poets.org). At the start of the month, I pegged April 26th as the day our family would experience poetry with a birthday celebration of one of my favorite poets and with one of my favorite poetry activities.

Today we are celebrating Renee LaTulippe's birthday. I have gotten to know Renee through the 12 x 12 Picture Book Writing Challenge. One of the things I have learned about her is that the word "busy" does not even to begin to describe her life. She is an author, poet, editor, video blogger, wife, and mother of twin boys -- and she sings in a local choral group in her town in Italy! She writes educational materials for All About Learning Press and has published books with her co-author, Marie Rippel including Lizard Lou: a collection of rhymes new and old and What am I?: a collection of short stories. Renee has been described as, "one of the top editors in the educational market today," and also works with adult authors to polish their work. (WordSpark Editing).

I have become one of the biggest fans of her unique blog, No Water River, where she delivers her poetry not only in text but also in video. To celebrate National Poetry Month, Renee expanded her video poetry platform to feature numerous poets and authors sharing their own poetry including the U.S. Children's Poet Laureate, J. Patrick Lewis and Deborah Diesen, author of The Pout-Pout Fish (a family favorite!). Renee expressed her thoughts on video poetry on Katie Davis' Blog, "Poetry is alive! Poetry is meant to be spoken and heard and savored by ears, mouth, eyes, bodies." Additionally in an interview with DeoWriter she said, "I like the idea of setting a poem free in the wild, unfettered by walls and ceilings." Our family had to try our own video poetry to celebrate Renee's birthday. Her idea of presenting the poems "in the wild" actually led us to write poems about two events that are happening right now in our own backyard.

Three days ago we noticed a bird's nest under our deck.

My daughter was worried that the nest contained trash. She asked, "Should we take it out for them?"

This picture was taking through the slats of wood on our deck. The first day we saw that the nest had only one egg. When we took this picture there were two eggs. The following day we saw three eggs. We learned that American Robins will usually stop at four eggs. My kids are looking forward to the seeing the last egg.

Here is my daughter, who will be seven years old next month, working on her poem. I was excited to find a post that Renee wrote for the All About Learning Blog describing her first poem that she wrote at the age of seven.

Here is my daughter's first "real" poem, Here Lay the Eggs:

Here lay the eggs

all blue and light

in a nest made with straw.

One egg the first day,

Two the next,

maybe three,

maybe four.

Two weeks to wait then

on the third week

check every day

soon you'll see

two or more

baby birds.

Chirp! Chirp!

My poem was inspired by my latest adventure of beekeeping. My bees arrived on April 18, 2012. We had beautiful weather for two days and then it got unseasonably cold! I was quite worried about my new bee friends so I wrote this poem:

My suit is bright white.

My hive is brand new.

I'm a beekeeping newbie

with so much to do.

The weather is cold.

I must keep them warm.

I am knitting them sweaters

so they do not swarm.

It is complete coincidence but so appropriate that, April 26th, is also national Poem in Your Pocket Day. I decided to carry the poem Jake the Snake by Renee LaTulippe in my pocket. Random strangers better watch out while I am running my errands today as they may hear some hissing coming their way as I read this fun poem to whoever will listen! Stop by No Water River today to find a poem by Renee LaTulippe or one of the many other poets to carry in your pocket.

(I absolutely love the idea of carrying a poem in your pocket for children. It is an excellent social and reading activity. If you are interested in my experience of coordinating a Poem in Your Pocket Day at a local school check it out here.)

I emailed Renee to ask if she would share a birthday memory or story. Here is her response:

My most memorable birthday was when I turned 30 and celebrated by jumping out of a plane. When I was a little girl, I remember going to the airfield with the family to watch my dad skydive, a hobby he had picked up when he was in the Army and stationed in Germany. This was back in the day when they used the traditional white silk parachutes and the landings were harder, so before jumping, Dad practiced the hit-and-roll by leaping off a really big crate. After that, off he'd go in the plane, and we'd be there scanning the sky, waiting to see the white dot. The funny thing is that -- at least in my little girl memory -- we usually heard him before we saw him. My Dad had a big tenor voice and sang all the time -- though apparently he had also picked up yodeling on a couple of side trips to Switzerland, so he'd yodel his way down from the sky. Those are images that never left me, and I always wanted to know how it felt up there in that vast quiet blueness.

So I jumped from 13,000 feet. And since I knew I would probably do it only once, I got the deluxe package that included a somersault out of the plane and video and pics on the way down. The best part was the free fall, an exhilarating 45 seconds of rushing wind and tilting horizons. Then the chute and total peace. That's when I understood the yodeling, and had I been alone (it was a tandem jump, of course), I might have tried it myself. It's such a feeling of liberty that singing is practically mandatory. The only thing that could have improved that birthday memory is if I had jumped with my Dad...but by then he'd come to his senses!

Renee, thank you so much for sharing your birthday story and for inspiring our family to create our own video poetry. We hope you have a wonderful birthday! Eat lots of cake!

Links:
1. No Water River
2. No Water River - YouTube Channel - Lots of Video Poetry
3. Follow No Water River and Renee on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest
4. WordSpark Editing
5. Text Interview - Deo Writer
6. All About Learning Press + Renee's blog posts
7. Renee Talks About Video Poetry - Katie Davis' Blog, On the Way to Somewhere by Rena J. Traxel

Happy Birthday Melissa Ivey-Staehli - April 17

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 03:29:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Melissa Ivey-Staehli - April 17

My two oldest children and I attended Ohio Author Day and Book Fair at the Hudson Library and Historical Society this past weekend. In the morning we listened to five children's authors discuss writing and publishing children's books. I was proud of my kiddos for behaving so well during the panel discussion that I treated them to ice cream for lunch! My daughter insisted that we return after lunch for the author fair.

The last author we met at the fair was Melissa Ivey-Staehli. I picked up and read her book, I Love You to the Moon. I immediately felt a connection to the book. I knew my almost two-year-old son would love the colorful illustrations and the rhyming text. Then, I said to Melissa, "I run this blog, Happy Birthday Author.....I would love to celebrate your birthday." She said, "My birthday is in a few days on April 17th." I was silent for a few moments, processed the possibility, and realized that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share her book. I said, "I think I can put something together for your birthday. Do you have a special birthday memory or story you could share?" She said, "I don't have a birthday story to share, but I do have a story about the greatest GIFT I ever received."

Here is her story:

The most amazing GIFT I ever received was my son, Caleb Andrew! He is the light of my life and the joy of my heart. I thank the Lord every day for blessing me with a precious son to love.

My husband and I have been married for 18 years now, but for the first 13 years we were not successful in getting pregnant. Yes, it was very disappointing especially when everyone around me was getting pregnant. The disappointment started to turn to frustration which I was not liking at all. So, at that point in my life I knew I had to lay it all at the Lord's feet. Once I laid my cares down at the foot of the cross, in that moment, I knew in my heart that God was not going to forsake my dream of being a mother.

In 2005, my husband and I started checking into foreign adoption, but we didn't tell anyone yet. We truly thought we would be adopting a baby from Korea. Unbeknownst to us...the Lord had other plans! We had finished all of the piles of paperwork, interviews and such needed for adoption. Now, we just had to save up the final (large) amount of money needed for the Korean adoption -- which we knew would take a while. Well, towards the end of June 2006 we received a phone call about a domestic adoption. Mind you, we were not on any list here in America to adopt! God, being the BIG God he is, orchestrated the entire miracle of Caleb all on His own. From the time we received that amazing phone call - around June 22, 2006 - and the day Caleb was born was just 12 days! That's crazy and unheard of! But God did it! He gave me and my husband the greatest gift of our lives!

God answered my hearts cry and I did not miss one moment with my baby boy! What an honor it was to name my son, Caleb and have the birth mother really like it. I saw his sweet face when he took his first breath. I saw his feet being printed on a card for me and my husband to take home. The birth mother handed Caleb to me to hold and to love. At that moment...my heart was overflowing with such love for this precious baby boy that the tears began to roll down my face. I sat down in the rocking chair at the hospital and gave him his first bottle. I got to change his first diaper. I was thrilled beyond words that God had answered my prayer for a baby. He allowed me to experience everything a new mommy would experience, and for that I am forever grateful.

The love I have for my son, Caleb is what inspires me to write children's books. I Love You to the Moon came straight from my heart. It started out as a little rhyme that I would say to Caleb before bedtime, and suddenly it became the poetic lullaby that it is now. It blessed both Caleb and I so much that I realized I wanted to share it with others in hopes that it would bless them as well.

Every child is a gift from God, no matter how they come into a family.

Thank you Melissa for sharing your story. I enjoyed reading your book with all of my children. My oldest son said, "I think this is a good book for me to read." He read the "I love yous" throughout the book! My oldest daughter took a turn reading it to everyone. My youngest son loved the illustrations of the moon, boat, deer and bee. My wife even came up with an activity for her and I to do for our children.

We found a 8" x 10" frame, scrap book paper with stars, and 2" x 3" photos of each of our children.

She traced the backing of the photo frame on the scrap book paper with a pencil and cut it to size.

She printed a title for her collage, "I Love You because..."

Then, she arranged and glued a picture of each of our children on the paper.

Reassembled the frame.

She left space in the middle to write a message with a dry-erase marker on the glass. She drew a heart around the child that the message was intended for -- "I love you because you helped your brother on the computer."

We put the frame in our kitchen on a shelf. We intend to write a message each day to point out something positive that one of our children has done.

Melissa, we hope you have a wonderful birthday! I am so happy that my family was able to meet you this past weekend. We wish you good luck with this book and your upcoming book, Charlie's Gingerbread House.

Melissa Ivey--Staehli's books is available on Amazon.com:

Links:
1. I Love You to the Moon Website
2. Melissa Ivey-Stehli's Blog
3. Read her articles at Christian Children's Authors
4. Child's Birth Inspires Book About Unbounded Love

I Love You to the Moon Trailer from Jared Staehli on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday Susanna Leonard Hill - April 14

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 01:45:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Susanna Leonard Hill - April 14

As parents, we make plenty of sacrifices for our children -- losing sleep to care for a sick child, spending hours in the car to shuffle children to countless activities, setting aside money for their education or other ventures...the list goes on and on. It is fair to say that these sacrifices can cause stress and frustration in daily life. I believe that all of the sacrifices and the feelings of frustration and stress are erased from our memory when we receive a spontaneous hug, see a smile after an accomplishment, or hear our children say "thank you". These are a few examples of how our children repay us for our hard work. Recently, I have been thinking that one of the greatest gifts a child can give to a parent is by inspiring us to be our best.

Susanna Leonard Hill received a "gift" from her children. They have inspired her to write her "best" stories. Her two-year-old son's love of heavy machinery lead her to write her first book, The House that Mack Built. Her book Not Yet Rose was written after her experience of helping her own children understand the anticipation of a new baby. Her son's troubles falling asleep at night may have been frustrating at times, but it was partially responsible for her book Can't Sleep without Sheep (Iza Trapani). In many interviews including one with Miss Marple's Musings Susanna talks about being a mom and a writer, "My routine for writing is as follows: Write whenever I have time! Even though writing is my career, my first duty is to my family." Despite this commitment to her family, she has managed to publish ten books for children including the very popular April Fool, Phyllis! that just went on a World Tour. In addition to the books she has a very successful website and blog that helps teachers with lesson ideas, parents with book recommendations, and aspiring writer's with advice.

I was so excited to celebrate Susanna's birthday with my family after getting to know her through the 12 x 12 in 2012 Picture Book Writing Challenge. With so many great books to choose from I wasn't surprised that a birthday celebration activity came easily. My two boys loved her book No Sword Fighting in the House. It is a story about two brothers, their gardening-award-seeking-mother, a couple of cows, and ruined daffodils. From an interview with Just Children's Books, "When my son was 3, he was very interested in knights. My husband thought it would be a great idea to make the kids little wooden swords (they were 5, 3, and 1 mind you!) Then, as an after-thought, he made them cardboard helmets (something backwards there.) Predictably, the kids loved them. They ran around the house and jumped all over the furniture swinging their swords and yelling, and I did have to say, "No sword fighting in the house!"

My thoughts were in sync with Susanna's husband. However, instead of wooden swords and cardboard helmets I had the idea to make swords (or light sabers) out of a common swimming pool accessory.

We measured our swimming "noodle" and marked it at the middle.

We cut the noodle in half using a kitchen knife.

We covered one end with duct tape to make the grip handle. My son chose to use the shiny tape.

We used regular duct tape for my younger son's sword. I wrapped enough tape around to cover the "noodle" completely to make a nice grip.

We used Sharpie markers to add buttons and controls to our sword! My son said that one of this buttons made his sword go "super fast"!

The little man was really serious about his sword decorating.

The seriousness didn't last long when it came time to fight! And yes, we were sword fighting in the house!

For on this afternoon my children inspired me to be the best dad I could be. I was able to walk away from the computer and chores to spend time playing swords with my dudes!

I emailed Susanna Leonard Hill to ask if she would be willing to share a few birthday thoughts. This was her response:

The most obvious birthday memory is that my dad always made birthday hunts for us. I have two brothers and a sister, and from the time we were 3 (when my dad would read the clues to us) until we were about 13 (except for my older brother who got a hunt until he was 16), every year we would wake up the morning of our birthday to find a piece of paper taped to the headboard of the bed. "Good Morning! Happy Birthday!" followed by a clue! The clues were riddles, codes, mirror writing, crosswords, symbols, anagrams -- you name it, my dad did it. The older we got, the harder the clues got. Each clue would lead us to a present, with the next clue taped on it. We would collect all the presents one at a time as we solved the clues and found them, depositing them on my parents' bed. Only when we'd found them all would we start opening. It was totally fun. And we all helped each other :) The clues were challenging enough anyway, but on a school morning there was also a time limit :) It was these hunts that gave me the treasure hunt idea for April Fool, Phyllis! (And one of the reasons the book is dedicated to my sibs!) It was such a part of my childhood that I continued the tradition with my own children.

I also remember my 6th birthday party. We lived in New York City, across the street from Central Park. For my 6th birthday, we took my friends, a picnic, and birthday cake to the meadow where we climbed on the rocks and flew a kite (not at the same time:)) It was very breezy that day -- perfect for the kite, but a challenge for my mom to light the candles on the cake.

My 8th birthday was my first slumber party. I had desperately wanted one, and agonized over who to invite, because my mom said no more than 6 friends. We borrowed a book of scary stories from the school library and read it in the dark by flashlight -- very spooky! I still remember one about a vampire who had to be stopped by pressing a silver cross into his forehead! But what my mom remembers is that I was sound asleep by 10pm, while the rest of my friends were up well into the wee hours to my parents' considerable lack of amusement!

Happy Birthday Susanna! My family had so much fun reading the Phyllis books, Can't Sleep Without Sheep, and No Sword Fighting in the House! We hope you have a wonderful birthday and we want to thank you for sharing so many of your birthday memories!

Links:
1. Susanna Leonard Hill's Website + Blog + ACTIVITY IDEAS!
2. Susanna Leonard Hill - Facebook, YouTube,
3. Interviews - The Reading Tub, Just Children's Books, Clarbojahn's Blog + part 2, Iza Trapani's In and Out of My Studio, Miss Marple's Musings
4. Perfect Picture Book Friday Catalog
5. Phyllis's World Tour

April Video Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:07:00 +0000

Happy April and National Poetry Month!

Mentioned in this Video Blog:

Tad Hills (April 1)
Sandra Boynton (April 3) -- Also Picture Books and Pirouettes
Graeme Base (April 6)
Jerdine Nolen (April 6)
David A. Adler (April 10) -- Tic Tac Toe with Picture Book Biographies Printable
Beverly Cleary (April 12) -- Drop Everything and Read Day
Susanna Leonard Hill (April 14) -- Perfect Picture Book Friday Book Recommendations
Jane Kurtz (April 17)
Jon Agee (April 19)
Eileen Christelow (April 22)
Stuart J. Murphy (April 25)
Renee LaTulippe (April 26) -- Video Poetry at No Water River
Ludwig Bemelmens (April 27)

Happy Birthday Tad Hills - April 1

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 02:52:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Tad Hills - April 1

Keep the kids busy! This is my mantra on days when all my children are home together. I don't know if Tad Hills sensed anxiety in my email I sent him last week asking him to verify his birthday. I saw a triple trifecta coming that could have lead to some serious badness -- end of Spring Break, a weekend before a holiday, and serious changes to our family dynamics with a new baby in the house. Thankfully, for the sake of my sanity, Tad Hills responded to my email confirming his birthday for April 1st and mentioned, "When I tell people that my birthday is on April Fool's Day they always assume that I must have been tormented with joke gifts. But, oddly I never was." It is no April Fool's joke that our family kept ourselves from tormenting each other by reading Tad Hills' books and coming up with a few fun activities.

Tad Hill's best selling book How Rocket Learned to Read is a favorite of many teachers and librarians. It is a story of dog that is unable to read and an enthusiastic bird that is determined to teach him. The bird sparks Rocket's interest by reading aloud to him. Then, she introduces him to the letters of the alphabet and the sounds the letters make. She moves on to teaching Rocket how to spell the words of things they observed like F-A-L-L and R-E-D. Before migrating south for the winter the bird shares her words of wisdom, "Don't forget. Words are built one letter at a time!" Rocket spends the winter practicing his letters in the snow and when Spring arrives he practices in the mud. Once bird returns, Rocket and her read books together again and again.

According to The Children's Book Review Tad Hills said, "the seed for the story was planted when my family got a dog and named him Rocket. I later used him as the subject for a PW cover illustration (spring children's books 2008). That cover image of the dog sitting quietly with a yellow bird perched on his nose reading -- inspired the story." My favorite illustration in the book was of Rocket practicing his spelling in the mud. His paws were covered with mud and so was his head and nose. This illustration inspired us spell our own words.

Instead, of using mud, we made pudding. I didn't have chocolate pudding in the house so we added cocoa powder and crushed chocolate cookies to vanilla pudding to make our "mud pudding".

The kids used their hands to spread out the "mud pudding" on a cookie sheet.

We started by spelling M-U-D just like Rocket did in the book.

There was lots of licking and spelling going on. My daughter was having me challenge her to spell hard words, my youngest son was practicing his favorite letter O, and my oldest son wrote his name!

"Mud Pudding" was everywhere! All the kids went straight to the bathtub and their clothes went in the washer!

I learned, by reading Tad Hills' biography on TadHills.com, that when Tad was younger his mother was teacher for the Audubon society. He said, "Raccoons, snakes, owls, and turtles were common guests in our house." These experiences along with living in a rural area instilled a love of nature. Tad's grandmother, who was an artist, "encouraged him to look at the world from different angles" and "was delighted when, instead of seeing a pansy, he saw a monkey's face, or instead of a puddle of spilled milk, he saw an elephant." (Tadhills.com)

I loved this childhood memory. I told my oldest two children that we were going to go on an "Imagination Hunt". I showed them images of pansies and cloud formations. We talked about how if you use your imagination you can see things in other things. We set off around our neighborhood to see what we could find.

Right near our house we found a tree that looked like a one-eyed alien or even a man.

My son found this water line cap that looked like a smiley face.

Think we were having fun? My daughter thought this stick looked like one of the prankster arrow-through-your-head hats.

I found this piece of wood that I thought looked like a spooky ghoul!

My daughter found this nut carved by a squirrel that she thought looked like a jack-o-lantern.

Our most exciting find was this knot on a tree that my son thought looked like a bear's face.

Our boots and bottoms were muddy but we had a great adventure!

Tad Hills also is the creator of the successful Duck and Goose series. According to an interview with The Children's Book Review Tad Hills said, "I would have to say that Duck and Goose had the biggest impact on my career. Prior to Duck and Goose I had published a bunch of novelty books, such as touch and feel board books and books of knock-knock jokes. Duck and Goose was my first attempt at writing a picture book. It was the book that made me feel like an illustrator and an author."

All week I read many of the board books featuring Duck and Goose to my youngest son. His favorite was Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin. To bring these books to life we went to feed the local ducks and geese.

After the warm weather the last few weeks we were back to having chilly mornings. But, this didn't stop us from venturing out to see our featured friends.

A hungry goose accepts a treat!

Quack! Quack! Honk! Honk!

Tad, we hope you have a wonderful birthday. Now that I have publicly shared that you have never had tormenting joke gifts on your birthday you can blame me when you get your first! We had so much fun celebrating your birthday this week. I don't think I have ever celebrated with three activities before. You and your books gave us some very memorable family reading experiences.

Links:

1. Tad Hills' website
2. Tad Hills Bio - RandomHouse
3. Tad Hills Interview - Patricia Newman, Children's Book Review, School Library Journal
4. How Rocket Learned to Read App for iPad Trailer - YouTube
5. How Rocket Learned to Read Printable Activity Packet - RandomHouse

Happy Birthday Eric VanRaepenbusch - March 29

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 06:35:00 +0000

Hi Happy Birthday Author readers! I’m Colleen Kessler, from Raising Lifelong Learners, and I am SO excited to be guest posting about a VERY special birthday today:

Happy Birthday to author

ERIC VANRAEPENBUSCH!

Yes… today is the birthday of your {usual} blog host, Eric. My kids and I wanted to celebrate HIM, so we *cooked* up a special birthday celebration for one of our favorite bloggers, a talented author, and someone I consider a great friend…

Eric’s sweet books, featuring THREE GHOST FRIENDS are available from iTunes for iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone. While we have a used iPad coming to us, it hasn’t arrived yet, but that didn’t matter – my kids loved reading the books on both my phone and iTouch. Logan (2) said, “Do it again!” every time I finished a reading {and we read… and read… and read… and read… and… well, you get the picture}!

In the first book, Three Ghost Friends Learn about Colors, three ghosts eat fruit and change color. When they start dancing and playing, some unexpected consequences occur – they squish together, mixing primary colors and creating secondary colors. The book is super-silly and Trevor’s favorite of the two.

The second book, Three Ghost Friends Learn about Opposites, features the same three quirky ghosts acting out familiar opposites. Molly loved this one! Logan… well, she liked them both equally, and has discovered how to access iBook on my phone, and she keeps disappearing with the ghosts.

Readers of this blog are very familiar with Eric’s love of children’s literature, but he wasn’t always into books… in fact, he was a pretty reluctant reader when he was young. Reading was tough for him, and he was embarrassed to read aloud (sounds like a certain nine year old I homeschool…), but he eventually discovered fun books by Dr. Seuss, Remy Charlip, Judi Barrett, and moved onto Choose Your Own Adventure Stories. In high school, he became discouraged again as he wasn’t at all interested in the assigned books.

He finally got excited about reading again once he took a children’s literature class in college. Rediscovering favorite picture book authors like Richard Scarry, and finding new ones like Ezra Jack Keats and Faith Ringgold reignited his enjoyment of children’s books, and he’s found great ways to incorporate that love in all he does.

Eric taught special education, and used the hook of celebrating authors’ birthdays to get his students reading… who can pass up a good birthday celebration? Not this family…

…so yesterday we headed over to Eric’s to combine our love of hands-on science with his love of picture books, and created an author birthday celebration both sets of kids {seven in all!} won’t forget… the adults had a good time, too!

When we got there, we spent some time getting to know the newest little Van Raepenbusch – super sweet and only SIX days old!! Isn’t she just the sweetest little thing you’ever seen…

And… while I was tempted to hand over the project materials and hide out in a corner to nuzzle and coo, and kiss little fingers and toes, I pulled myself together and headed to round up the rest of the brood. With my “let’s do science!” cry, boxes of My little Ponies and *ahem* a warehouse of Star Wars action figures and ships were abandoned and the troops headed upstairs to ~~destroy Eric’s dining room~~ mix some colors. {a side-note for Eric… I just need to know when I can drop Trevor off for awhile to play. He knows we’ll never have a Star Wars collection that can even touch yours (I mean your son’s), and ours just isn’t good enough now that he’s seen the Holy Grail of action figures. I think if he stays with you for a week or two, he’ll be ready to visit us again… If he’s any trouble, just set your bees on him.)

As the ghosts in Three Ghost Friends Learn about Colors play with primary and secondary colors, we decided to as well. We used:

Color Changing Tablets – these are great for science experiments and sensory play because they’re designed for the bathtub so they are safe, non-toxic, non-staining, and they fizz in a fun way as they dissolve
Four clear cups per child
Water
A bowl for dumping color after they’ve been mixed
Medicine syringes, droppers, pipettes, etc. I got mine from CVS by telling my pharmacist I needed them to do science activities with kids… I have a lot now!

Then we set them up by giving them three cups with water, an empty one, three color-changing tablets (red, blue, yellow) and a syringe:

We told each kiddo to put their tablets in their water cups – one in each – and watch what happened:

Next, they mixed red and blue together:

We asked questions like, what color did you get (purple), how could you make the purple lighter (adding red), and then told them to try it out:

Finally, we asked them to dump their purple and try mixing other combinations. And then we stepped back… It’s amazing the magic that happens when you let kids explore their world.

Eric’s older son worked on making black, his younger one wanted more and more color {and splattered it all over his cute little face in the process}, his daughter was methodical and mixed and dumped, mixed and dumped. My kids tried very different things, too. Trevor played with the streams of water coming out of the syringe to see the difference as he shot it close to and far from his cups. Molly worked on “squirt-dyeing” her paper towel, and Logan poured colored water back and forth from cup to cup. The same materials… six kids… six different experiences…

Once experiment/exploration/playtime was done, it was time to clean up for cake! And, since Trevor loves to bake, and I love playing around with cake decorating, and we love Eric, we decided to replicate his adorable ghost as a three-dimensional ghost cake. It turned out FABULOUS! And… I think Eric liked it. His younger son, whose love of ghosts was the inspiration for the books, was fascinated by the cake. To complete the theme, Molly, Trevor, and I dyed the three layers different primary colors. {Come visit us on our blog sometime next week for a tutorial on how to make a ghost cake of your own!}

What do YOU think? Did Eric and his kids like it:

And while this was a fun celebration and a great way to kick off a new year for Eric – a year older, a sweet new baby, TWO books launched, a “blog party,” and a big mess – he’s been blessed with a lifetime of great birthday memories. Here are some in his own words:

“When I was younger, my family always recognized birthdays with a party — grandmas and grandpas, uncles and aunts, and cousins came together with my mom, dad, and sister. My immediate and extended family has always been and continues to be very generous with gifts and for this I am very thankful.

In addition to the tradition of getting together with family, I have had a few birthdays that stick out in my mind. I remember my first party with school friends that was held at McDonalds. I can remember enjoying the party games including dropping clothespins in a jar. I remember my 21st birthday when my father fulfilled a promise to take me to Las Vegas. He had said for many years that he would take me there once I was legal gambling age. I didn’t win any money but I had an unforgettable trip with my dad.

Lastly, I remember my first surprise birthday party. I was in college and I had just started dating a lovely gal (who I ended up marrying). We went to a movie and then headed over to Chi Chi’s Restaurant. When I arrived, she had reserved a party room and all my friends from school were there! I even got to wear a sombrero!

I need to take this moment and tell my whole family that I love them very much and thank you for all the great birthday memories!”

Eric, thank you for welcoming us into your home yesterday, for becoming such a great friend in such a short time, for the inspiration you’ve blessed me with, and for trusting me with this baby – your blog. I hope this is your best year yet. I’m so proud to have been able to celebrate YOUR birthday…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AUTHOR!!

***************************************

Colleen Kessler is a homeschooling mom to three highly gifted kiddos and is passionate about hands-on learning, fun, and exploration. She is the author of seven books for teachers including “FREE Resources for Elementary Teachers” released this week from Prufrock Press, seven books for kids, and lots of other classroom and educational materials. She spends her free time playing with her kids, launching rockets, hunting for salamanders, dreaming up new activities to try, and blogging about life, learning, and kids at: www.raisinglifelonglearners.com

Happy Birthday Wendell Minor - March 17

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 02:45:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Wendell Minor - March 17

My search for books by Wendell Minor at the library gave me quite a thrill this week -- yes, I was actually giddy. I found books about space, animals, history, famous americans, and even Halloween! I immediately thought to myself, "It has been too long since I made one of my 'Reading Experiences'." This week I unveil my third "Reading Experience" that features Wendell Minor, many of his great books, and lots of fun activities.

Wendell Minor's reputation has him pegged as a hard working illustrator that pays attention to details. In an interview with On Beyond Words and Pictures he said, "I have spent the last four decades working 12-14 hours a day in the studio - reading, writing, researching, sketching, painting, and designing; sometimes 7 days a week." His career began in 1968 by illustrating book jacket covers. He was quite successful creating over 2,000 covers including Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. It wasn't until 1988 that he illustrated his first children's book, Mojave by Diane Siebert. As I read his books to my children, I appreciated his commitment to making sure his illustrations were historically accurate. In a video from Simon and Schuster about his book Night Flight he said, "My research for Night Flight was extensive. To make it absolutely as accurate as I possibly could, I sent my drawings to experts and pilots to make sure that what I was doing in this book was absolutely as close to historically being correct as possible." (Watch the video below to learn of all the ways he researched the event and the plane -- it is remarkable!).

This week my kids and I read a dozen books illustrated by Wendell Minor including Look to the Stars by Buzz Aldrin and Sitting Bull Remembers by Ann Turner. As we read each book, I began compiling ideas to include in the Wendell Minor Reading Experience. Once I had an activity idea for each book I arranged them all on a grid which became the first page of the printable packet. I feel the activity grid is like a road map. A child can look at this page and decide where they want to go with their learning. I have included activities that focus on art, acting, drawing, writing, and much more to appeal to a variety of learners. Since I read only a dozen of his books and he has published over forty, I also left space on the grid to add your own activity for a book of your choosing.

My son was attracted to the book, Fire Storm by Jean Craighead George. We read the book and then he decided he wanted to try the activity -- "Design a public service poster that explains the dangers of intentionally set wildfires and the benefits of naturally occurring wildfires." He was so excited about his poster that he took his own photo so that it could be featured on the blog.

His poster was actually a retelling of the story, but I was impressed.

The Wendell Minor Reading Experience also includes the worksheets necessary to complete many of the activities. I hope you enjoy this free resource from Happy Birthday Author. Please pass it on to your fellow homeschooling friends, librarians, or teacher colleagues. Click on the image below to download the packet! It is also available on my Teachers Pay Teachers page as a free download. If you like this Reading Experience, more of my reading experiences are available by clicking on the Lesson Plans tab under the logo banner at the top of this page.

Click Here to Download

My boys and I really enjoyed Pumpkin Heads! by Wendell Minor.

Links:

1. Wendell Minor's Website + Explore lots of multimedia
2. Wendell Minor Birthday - Children's Book-A-Day Almanac
3. Text Interviews - Harcourt, On Beyond Words, Wild Rose Reader
4. Bios - Scholastic, Wendell Minor Art, Children's Literature Network, Answers.com, NCCIL
5. Pumpkin Heads! Video - Wendell Minor Art
6. Audio Versions of 7 of Wendell Minor's Books - Wendell Minor Art
7. Mary Higgins Clark and Wendell Minor discuss The Magical Christmas Horse - YouTube
8. Wendell Minor's New Britian Museum of American Art Exhibit - YouTube

Happy Birthday James Warhola - March 16

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 01:54:00 +0000

Happy Birthday James Warhola - March 16

It would come as no surprise that I love hearing birthday stories. Last summer at the Mazza Museum Summer Conference, I heard James Warhola tell the story of the birthday card he gave his Uncle Andy Warhol, a famous artist, at the age of 7. On the birthday card was a hand-drawn Campbell's Soup can (click here to see the postcard, near the bottom of the webpage) and it said Happy Birthday Uncle Andy, August 6, 1962 from James. The intriguing thing about this card was that it was made before the Campbell's Soup art became popular. However, James knew from visiting his Uncle Andy's house that it would make the perfect birthday card.

James Warhola has published over 30 books for children including If You Are Happy and You Know It: Jungle Edition, Bigfoot Cinderrrrrella by Tony Johnston, and The Wheels on the Race Car by Alex Zane. He began his career illustrating over 300 science fiction book covers -- a few I actually remembered from when I was younger! His reputation for excellent book covers caught the eye of Mad Magazine where he later became a frequent contributor. Additionally, he also was one of the artists behind the popular Garbage Pail Kids trading card series (my mom never let me buy these cards!) In 1987, he illustrated his first children's book, The Pumpkinville Mystery by Bruce Cole after he was "handed a kid's book manuscript by an art director and was instructed to do as he pleased." (jameswarhola.com).

This week we enjoyed reading Uncle Andy's: A faabbbulous visit with Andy Warhol. James Warhola's father, Paul, was Andy Warhol's oldest brother. Andy dropped the A from his name simply because he thought it was easier to say. Uncle Andy's is about one of James' family trips to visit his Grandmother and Uncle Andy in New York City around the year 1962. My favorite illustration in the book is one where James is sleeping in a room of Campbell's Soup boxes from floor to ceiling! The text on the page says, "Uncle Andy didn't buy those soup boxes, he built them out of wood and painted each one. They were art and really important too, because Uncle Andy told us not to touch any of it."

When we finishing reading Uncle Andy's, my daughter said, "I know what we can do! We can paint!" She went to the kitchen to find a common item to paint in the style of Andy Warhol. I assumed she would come back with a Campbell's Soup can, but instead she came back with a -- BANANA! In the meantime, I had found a YouTube video on Andy Warhol. We watched it before heading downstairs to paint.

Before she started sketching, I tried to talk to her about the paintings that she had just seen by Andy Warhol in the video to help her with her painting. However, she explained she had a clear understanding of Pop Art. Her mind was set on what she was going to do and I wasn't going to get in her way!

This gave me the opportunity to set up the little man with a canvas of his own.

While her Banana-Pop-Art painting was drying my daughter asked for another canvas. She must have been inspired by Andy Warhol's 25 siamese cats that were all named Sam. You can read more about these cats by reading Uncle Andy's Cats by James Warhola.

This painting my daughter called Love Cats.

This one she called Banana Smile. Maybe someday these paintings will bring over a million dollars at auction like many of Andy Warhol's paintings!

I was intrigued by James Warhola's stories about his family's junk business in Uncle Andy's. It is obvious that there was stark contrast within the Warhola family -- Jame's dad was a junk dealer from Pennsylvania and his uncle was famous artist from New York. However, from reading the book and doing a little research, James Warhola explains that his junk-dealing father was somewhat of an artist too. "My dad was almost a frustrated artist in his own right. He had a good eye for things. In fact, early on he was always bringing home things for me to make art out of. I was more of a traditionalist in certain ways and I couldn't see it the same way as my father." (NPR).

The experience reading Uncle Andy's helped inspire my son to build a bug out of junk. This week is Right to Read Week at his preschool with the theme "Camp Read A Lot". Every child was asked to make a bug to display at school. I thought of James Warhola's father as I was gathering up a bunch of odds and ends from the garage for him to make his art project.

I told my son that he could use anything in the box to make his bug. Then by coincidence, I was pulled away by my youngest son (probably to change a diaper!) and I left my other two kiddos alone in the garage. I came back to a bug that already had legs, a body and a head!

I shooed away his sister after creative differences started to surface. He added a few final touches like eyes, a nose, and wings.

Here is my son with his Ship Bug 2000. He thought the wings made his bug look like a ship from Star Wars. I think he learned what James Warhola learned early on from his father and Uncle Andy "that art can be anything and is all around us all of the time." (Warhola.com).

Just like last week with Harry Bliss, I have to share a photo from last summer 2011, at the Mazza Museum in Findlay, Ohio. In this photo James Warhola is talking about the first children's book that he illustrated in 1987, The Pumpkinville Mystery by Bruce Cole.

Links:

1. James Warhola's Website
2. At Home with James Warhola - NY Times
3. James Warhola Biography - PA Libraries, MICA
4. Virtual Art Gallery of James Warhola fantary/science fiction paintings - ImageNETion
5. Andy Warhol Family Album - Warhola.com + Uncle Andy's
6. Fresh Air: James Warhola - NPR (listen below)

Happy Birthday Ezra Jack Keats - March 11

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 05:53:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Ezra Jack Keats - March 11

Children's books have the power to influence. They can help a child learn to read. They can bring a parent and child closer together. They can teach a child a concept. They can make a child laugh or cry. I believe that every children's book can influence. The influence may be big or the influence may be small. Trying to wrap your thoughts around all the small influences made by children's books can be overwhelming. It is actually easier to recognize the big influences of a few particular children's books because of the profound change that occurred after their publication.

Ezra Jack Keats is an author and illustrator of many influential children's books. My family was influenced in a small way this week when I was able to use his books as the basis for activities with my children. Additionally, his book The Snowy Day influenced the world in a big way by breaking down a barrier with a character that in Keats' mind "should have been there all along." (Ezra Jack Keats Foundation).

Fifty years ago, Ezra Jack Keats published The Snowy Day. Claudia Nahson, curator of The Jewish Museum, described the book as "a landmark in children's literature." She clarified, "It was the first time a full-color picture book featuring a protagonist who is an African-American that is not there thanks to a white character. He is not there as a secondary character. He is the story. It is a universal story." (CBS New York). To further discuss the importance of this book, Deborah Pope, Executive Director of the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation stated, "The effect of this book was ground shaking. It opened the door to the publication of many more books about children of many races, but perhaps most importantly; it allowed children of many races to see themselves in the books they read." (Cynsations).

I took advantage of a snowy day this week in Ohio. My oldest two children were off at school. I sat down by the porch doors with my youngest son, observed a few leftover snowflakes falling to the ground, and read a book about one of my favorite characters in children's literature, Peter. The Snowy Day, the first of seven books that feature Peter, tells the simple story of a young boy exploring newly fallen snow. I love how the book captures all the things children love about snow -- making footprints, snowball fights, snowmen, snow angels, and much more.

After reading the book together, I got my son all dressed in red, just like Peter. He wore his hat and boots, his brother's coat, and his sister's pants -- but it worked! (actually he now claims the whole outfit as his own!)

Our snow wasn't piled high, but he was able to make footprints, just like Peter.
In the YouTube video below, I learned that The Snowy Day was illustrated using collage. To make the snow, Ezra Jack Keats, painted pink paper white.

After making footprints, my son found a stick to make tracks in the snow, just like Peter.

He smacked snow with his stick, just like Peter. Luckily, snow didn't fall on his head.

I picked up a handful of snow and packed it into a snowball, just like Peter.

We put the snowball in his pocket, just like Peter.

He got a wet pocket, just like Peter.

Jennie's Hat is another book by Ezra Jack Keats that I love. The story is about a girl, Jennie, that is expecting a new hat from her favorite aunt. Her expectations are high. However, when Jennie opens the box she finds a very plain hat. The only thing that gets her mind off her disappointment is to feed the birds like she does every Saturday. However, she quickly remembers how she dislikes the hat and to make matters worse the next day is a church day. She attends church in her plain hat while looking at all the ladies wearing their fancy hats with flowers. To her surprise, upon leaving church, the birds have a plan for Jennie's hat to repay her for all times she spent feeding them each and every Saturday.

I have wanted to make Jennie's Hats since the moment I first read the book last year. The finished product exceeded my expectations! Happy Birthday, Ezra Jack Keats!

I bought foam visors at Michael's Craft Store for $1 each and about $5 of artificial flowers. I also found colorful feathers and stickers of birds in our craft boxes. My children decided on the arrangement of the flowers on their hat and I used a hot glue gun to make sure everything stayed in place.

Her hat is not a "plain hat" anymore.

He was such a good sport and he made quite fancy hat.

These hats will be "saved and looked at and remembered for a long, long time."

I was so excited to learn that the traveling exhibit, The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats, will be in Ohio from March 16 - June 30, 2013 at the Akron Art Museum. This will make for an extra special birthday celebration next year! Check out the video below for more information about the exhibit!

Links:

1. Ezra Jack Keats Foundation + Like it on Facebook + watch on YouTube Channel
2. Ezra Jack Keats Author Study - Scholastic, Brain Pop Jr., Calico Cookie
3. A Teaching Guide to the World of Ezra Jack Keats - TeacherVision
4. Ezra Jack Keats Art Exhibit - The Jewish Museum
5. Bio - Penguin Group
6. Interview with Deborah Pope, Director of Ezra Jack Keats Foundation - Cynsations
7. Ezra Jack Keats Award for New Writers and Illustrators
8. The Snowy Day told in American Sign Language - YouTube
9. Pope: Snowy Day Broke the Color Barrier - Newsday
10. Lots of The Snowy Day Activities - Penguin Group
11. The Snowy Day Celebrates 50 years - NYTIMES
12. Animated Books from Ezra Jack Keats Foundation
13. Happy Birthday Author - Birthday Celebration from 2010
14. Eye on New York: Ezra Jack Keats - Video
15. Read The Snowy Day - We Give Books

Happy Birthday Harry Bliss - March 9

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 04:11:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Harry Bliss - March 9

I find birthday cake and picture books irresistible. I am tempted by the decorative icing on a cake and the cover illustrations on a picture book. I savor each bite of a piece of cake and each word on a page in picture book. The first bite of birthday cake is as good as the last word of a great picture book. Following each, I often say, "Can I have another?" The only thing better than having birthday cake and reading a picture book would be to have them together! I hope you find our birthday celebration for Harry Bliss irresistible enough to try it yourselves.

You may know Harry Bliss from his The NewYorker magazine covers, which he says has a 90% rejection rate. Or maybe his Bliss daily comic strip where most of his ideas come from his own life. (TitleTales). Or perhaps his picture book illustrations for great authors like Doreen Cronin, Sharon Creech, Kate DiCamillo and William Steig. He credits these collaborations for teaching him how integrate words and pictures. (CBR). I admire Bliss' ability to contribute to a picture book story through thought-bubbles, quirky labels, and funny drawings. He said in an interview with Talking Comics with Tim, "The sight gags in the backgrounds of my books came from my love of Will Elder, a brilliant Mad Magazine cartoonist who was a master at this sort of thing. I try to add as much as I can and I'm careful that the extra gags don't interfere with the central story."

His first children's book was A Fine, Fine School by Sharon Creech in 2001 which became a New York Times Bestseller. (We read and reread this book for the first time this week and we highly recommend!) He found additional success with the Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Spider, and Diary of a Fly with Doreen Cronin. In an interview with TitleTales he said, "I first learned of Doreen Cronin when I stumbled across Click Clack Moo...this book knocked me out, so clever and well done. About a year later I'd met Doreen at a party in NYC and we discussed working together and a year later we teamed up." He later discusses that he signed on from the beginning to make a trilogy with Cronin. It was not a situation "where we made a lot of money off the first book and decided to make more. When I signed on for Worm, I signed on for all three books, a seven year project." Now Harry Bliss has moved into writing his own children's books with Luke on the Loose (A Toon Book) and Bailey, a book inspired by Bliss' cartoons and his own dog Penny (trailer at the end of this post).

Our birthday celebration for Harry Bliss went down a familiar road -- we baked and decorated a cake. Our inspiration for this activity came by way of Zoe Toft at Playing by the Book. Her amazing children's literature blog is hosting the First Annual Edible Book Festival and there is still time to enter by March 16th, 2012. The challenge is simple -- bake and decorate a cake that is in some way inspired by a children's book, take a couple photos, and send them to Zoe (read the official rules on her blog). There will be an online gallery from March 19-23 that displays the entries. Three winners will be chosen and awarded some great prizes.

We hope that our Diary of a Worm cake inspires you to enter this awesome contest! Thank you Zoe for inspiring my son and I!

My son grated a chocolate bar to make "dirt". He did have to clarify, "There won't be real worms on our cake, Dad."

He placed pencils around the base of the cake to create a fancy border.

We recreated the cover of the book with Worm writing at his mushroom desk. In this photo, my son added Worm's friend, Spider.

Another masterpiece! We were challenged to create Worm out of brown sprinkles, because we ran out of frosting!

Worm was writing about Harry Bliss in his diary on March 9.

Did we inspire you to make your own edible book? I hope so!

I had to share this photo. Last summer 2011, I got to hear Candace Fleming, Eric Rohmann, and Harry Bliss speak at the Mazza Museum in Findlay, Ohio. It was fabulous! My favorite quote from Harry's talk was when he was asked if he would ever create a graphic novel and he said, "It's too much work. I am far too lazy."

Links:

1. Harry Bliss' website - Cool Movie Page,
2. Harry Bliss - Facebook
3. Bliss Comic - Go Comics
4. Harry Bliss at the National Book Festival 2011 - Library of Congress
5. Luke on the Loose Interactive Toon Book by Harry Bliss - Professor Garfield
6. Text Interview - Seven Impossible Things Blog, TitleTales, Talking Comics with Tim, Vermont Cynic
7. Q and A with Sharon Creech and Harry Bliss about A Fine, Fine School - Sharoncreech.com
8. Diary of a Worm Activity Sheet - HarperCollins

Share a Story, Shape a Future: Day 4, A Reading Universe

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 04:11:00 +0000

Logo provided by Elizabeth Dulemba

Share-a-Story, Shape-a-Future is in its fourth day and continues through Friday, March 9th. This event is an online, collaborative effort to share ideas and celebrate everything reading has to offer our kids. This year's theme is The Culture of Reading.

Today's focus was A Reading Universe hosted by Terry Doherty from Share a Story. She offers Readers Take Heart: Yes, You Are a Reader. Help her get 26 ways that show we are readers without picking up a book.

I also enjoyed reading a post from Melissa Taylor from Imagination Soup. She provides many helpful ideas to set up a successful family routine of visiting the library.

You may also want to check out the post from Sarah Jamila Stevenson from Family Bookshelf where she describes the Reaching a Reader program that promotes access to children's and young adult books and authors. Also, Pam Courtney of My_LMNOP shares her process and her journey of sharing books with children.

There are even more posts to read at the Share a Story, Shape a Future website.

Every day of the week there is also a chance for bloggers to participate in the event by reflecting upon reading with the Writing @ Reading challenge. I have participated in this way the past two years and found it very beneficial in developing my ideas and thoughts about reading.

The writing prompt I chose to reflect upon today is:

How do you find new books to add to your to-be-read list? (e.g. Goodreads, Twitter, Book Clubs, Friends, browsing library shelves).

My initial thoughts did not completely answer the question.

The new book section in the children's department at the library is often full of tempting books. However, many of these book titles do not ever get written on list because they go right into my library bag.

The format of Happy Birthday Author helps me find new books to read because we try to read as many books as we can by an author before we celebrate their birthday. However, I find myself writing down author's names on a calendar rather than book titles on a list.

I started thinking about where I hear about good books. Recently, my favorite ways to learn about books are from Susanna Hill's Perfect Picture Books and Amy Broodmore's Top 60. Susanna Hill has inspired many bloggers to review "Perfect Picture Books" on Fridays. These posts are then compiled on her site for future reference. I like that each post follows the same format and includes activity/extension ideas. Amy Broodmore, at Delightful Children's Books, has been adding five books to her top 60 list each month. Her suggestions are unique and thoughtful. She is only at #15 so there is still time to start following her posts through the rest of the year.

I would love to hear how you find out about new books to read to your children. Do you have a source you would like to share?

Share a Story, Shape a Future - Day 3, Understanding Readers

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 04:27:00 +0000

Logo provided by Elizabeth Dulemba

Share-a-Story, Shape-a-Future is in its third day and continues through Friday, March 9th. This event is an online, collaborative effort to share ideas and celebrate everything reading has to offer our kids. This year's theme is The Culture of Reading.

Today's focus was Understanding Readers hosted by Terry Doherty from Family Bookshelf. She offers two posts -- Books and the Fourth Grader: Discovering a Reader and No Time to Write: Musings of Children's Book Author, Surgeon, and Read Aloud Dad.

The writing prompt I chose to reflect upon today is:

Is there a young reader (or reader to be) in your life? Write them a letter expressing what you hope for them as readers.

Dear My Dude (my son),

You have been stuck in the middle. Your older sister can read. Your younger brother gets extra read-aloud time because we read to him before his nap and at nighttime. Occasionally you voice your frustration, "I can't read those words yet!" You have even asked your mom and I, "When are you going to teach me to read?" I sometimes see the frustration in your eyes when I am reading aloud and your sister begins reading along too.

I can tell you that it won't be long. I see you pour over the photographs and illustrations in your Star Wars books and the Calvin and Hobbes collections. You are reading and you don't even know it yet! Today, your sister spelled, "V-A-N" out loud and you said, "VAN!" I wasn't surprised because I know you are going to be a great reader.

You have been stuck in the middle. I know it is tough. Some day, those words are going to jump off the page and you will say to me, "Dad, I can read!" I will be so happy to see the excitement in your eyes.

I love you.

Dad

Do you remember the first time your child proclaimed that they were a reader? Do you have reader that is about to say those glorious words, "I CAN READ!"?

World Read Aloud Day - March 7, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:28:00 +0000

March 7, 2012 is World Read Aloud Day. According to LitWorld, "World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people." Check out the LitWorld website for more information.

Check out a few more World Read Aloud Day celebrations at:

Heather Newman Illustrations

Loni Edwards Illustrations

Share a Story, Shape a Future 2012 - Day 2, Reading as a Passport to other Cultures

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 03:46:00 +0000

Logo provided by Elizabeth Dulemba

Share-a-Story, Shape-a-Future is in its second day and continues through Friday, March 9th. This event is an online, collaborative effort to share ideas and celebrate everything reading has to offer our kids. This year's theme is The Culture of Reading.

Today's focus was Reading as a Passport to Other Worlds/Cultures hosted by Carol Rasco from Reading is Fundamental. She offers two posts The Book as a Passport and Blogs to Explore. (At the time of my post the links provided were not working for me. Hopefully, they will be working soon.)

I also enjoyed reading a post from Amy Broadmoore at Delightful Children's Books. She presents a list of 17 books to help add "diversity to your reading repertoire".

You may also want to check out the post from Beth Stilborn of By Word of Beth. She shares information about the "Reading the World Challenge" that she has joined which focuses on multi-cultural literature.

There are even more posts at the Share-a-Story website about reading as a passport.

The writing prompt I chose to reflect upon today is:

Are there cultural traditions from other parts of the world that you learned about through reading that you've incorporated into your own family traditions?

My most memorable attempt to incorporate cultural traditions from other parts of the world into our own family traditions was when we celebrated Jane Kurtz's birthday last year. We read her books Fire on the Mountain, an Ethiopian folk tale that Jane Kurtz remembered hearing during her childhood and Trouble, a traditional tale about a boy from Ethiopia's northern neighbor, Eritrea.

I was so excited to read books about a different culture to my children that I came up with two activities -- making a gebeta board to play Mancala and cooking Ethiopian food. My kids had a blast making and playing with their gebeta boards. The Ethiopian food did not go over so well.

We made injera, a large, spongey pancake used as bread at most meals in Ethiopia and Kik Pea Alecha. Please note my daughter's body language as I am cooking!

The rest of the photos really speak for themselves.

We have not eaten Ethiopian food since last April 17, but we will never forget our experience learning about this culture. Thank you Jane Kurtz! If you are interested, she did share a birthday memory from her childhood in Ethiopia for the birthday post.

Have you had a more successful experience introducing a different culture to your children? Or did your experience flop like mine?

Share a Story, Shape a Future 2012 (March 5 - 9)

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Logo provided by Elizabeth Dulemba

Share-a-Story, Shape-a-Future began today, Monday, March 5th and continues through Friday, March 9th. This event is an online, collaborative effort to share ideas and celebrate everything reading has to offer our kids. This year's theme is The Culture of Reading.

Today's focus was Creating a Reading Culture hosted by Donalyn Miller of The Book Whisperer. She shares six ways to create a reading culture at home.

I also enjoyed reading a post from Kristin McIlhagga of Children's Literature Crossroads. She shares ideas to create a reading culture with preservice teachers.

You may also want to check out the post from Beth Stilborn of By Word of Beth. She shares ideas to create a reading culture from a distance.

There are even more posts at the Share-a-Story website about creating reading cultures.

Every day of the week there is also a chance for bloggers to participate in the event by reflecting upon reading with the Writing @ Reading challenge. I have participated in this way the past two years and found it very beneficial in developing my ideas and thoughts about reading.

The writing prompt I chose to reflect upon today is:

Share a picture of what your ideal/favorite reading space looks like.

My children and I have read books in many different places.

A ballet studio to celebrate Katharine Holabird's birthday.

A clock shop to celebrate Pat Hutchins' birthday.

A dock near a large ship to celebrate Edward Ardizzone's birthday.

A park to celebrate Leslie Patricelli's birthday.

A zoo to celebrate Janell Cannon's birthday.

The backyard to celebrate Marc Simont's birthday.

The driveway to celebrate Erica Perl's birthday.

But, my three favorite places to read books are:

At the library with my children.

At a school in front of a group of students.

In bed with my children before they go to sleep.

Where do you like to read books to your children? Have you read a book in an unusual place with them?

Happy Birthday Suse MacDonald - March 3

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 05:59:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Suse MacDonald - March 3

The slogan for my blog, "creating memorable family reading experiences by celebrating children's author and illustrator birthdays" is something I think about as I prepare each birthday celebration. When I say "memorable," I most certainly mean that I strive for a "good" memory. Our celebration for Suse MacDonald almost was remembered for being a colossal failure. My original idea for an activity was just too difficult for my little ones. Luckily, we found another way to celebrate that had a more positive outcome.

Suse MacDonald has written and/or illustrated 19 children's books including the 1987 Caldecott Honor book, Alphabatics. She said in an interview with California Readers, "I like working with paper. I usually do my books in collage. I like the feel of it. I can cut out the pieces for a whole illustration and arrange them before I have to commit by dry mounting them down." Early in her career, MacDonald worked as an illustrator of science text books. But, after attending two art schools, "her focus shifted and her work became less realistic and bolder and more colorful. It began to look like it belonged in a children's book." (susemacdonald.com).

Right from the moment I acquired Suse MacDonald's books I knew I wanted my children to experience collage. My youngest son was drawn to her book, Fish, Swish! Splash, Dash!: Counting Round and Round. I think he liked it because of the brightly colored fish and the cut-out pages that were fun to peek through. I appreciated the book because the cut-out pages were arranged in such a way that they created fish with beautiful markings. In the YouTube video below she said that the illustration idea for the book came by accident when, "I cut a fish out of colored paper and I had a pile of papers on my desk. Then, I went to answer the phone and put my cut out fish paper on the pile of papers. When I came back I saw that there was a design. I thought, 'wouldn't that be neat to have a book that is made up from the pages behind."

I thought "it would be neat" to try to make my own cut-out book. I quickly realized that it is quite difficult to make a cut-out book. The biggest problem for me was that I didn't have the proper tools like an X-Acto knife or large scrapbooking paper punches. The second problem was that oldest son just wasn't into the idea of cutting out shapes to reveal things below. Oh well! At least, my youngest son got some good practice at gluing shapes.

I still think the idea is worth sharing because I did spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make a foldable book that could lend itself to be "cut-out" and reveal images below. Here is a quick video (sorry the images turned out a little blurry, but you'll get the idea) of what I did:

If I have learned anything from writing this blog it would be that I can't control the outcome of the birthday celebrations. Thankfully, I was able to come up with an another idea to celebrate Suse MacDonald that provided a positive memorable reading experience for my children. We read the book Puzzlers by Suse MacDonald and Bill Oakes. In this book a "colorful parade of animals" are illustrated with numbers of all shapes, sizes, and dimensions. My kids loved looking for the stretched, pulled, flipped, and twisted numbers that brought each animal to life.

I gave each of my children a piece of blank paper and spread out a pile of foam number stickers. I told them I had a challenge for them, and they were instantly interested! They were going to have five minutes to use the numbers to create an animal. At the end of the five minutes they would have one minute to adhere their stickers to the paper.

The wheels in my daughter's head were really spinning!

At the end of the five minutes of designing their collage and the one minute of adhering their numbers, I told them they could have one minute to add details with a marker.

My daughter was very pleased with her "crazy bull". I was impressed that she used 3s for horns, upside-down 9s for eyes, a sideways 8 for a nose, a zero for a mouth, and 7s for legs!

Here is a close-up. Watch out -- this bull is blowing steam out of its nose!

My son said before he started the challenge, "I can't do this!" Yet, he was very proud of his moose!

It was an adventure, but memories were created! Happy Birthday Suse MacDonald! We enjoyed reading your books this week!

Links:
1. Suse MacDonald's Website
2. Bios - Children's Literature Network, Scholastic
3. Text Interview - California Readers
4. Activity Guides from Suse MacDonald - Look Whooo's Counting, Alphabatics, Nanta's Lion, Sea Shapes + More available from her "For Educators" Page on her website.

Two Dr. Seuss Prize Packs! Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

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

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DR. SEUSS!

108 years ago on March 2nd, one of the most creative, innovative, and revolutionary authors of our time was born!

Celebrations are happening in schools, libraries and homes all across the country with books, games, and activities focused on getting our children interested in reading!

Tailor Made Momma has sponsored this giveaway along with 23 other blogs. We hope it helps you celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday!

We are happy to be able to offer our readers NOT ONE but TWO incredible Dr. Seuss prize packs!

Click here for details on what is in each prize pack.

Special Thanks to all of the participating blogs: Kelly's Lucky You, A Helicopter Mom, Social Media and Blogging Tips, The Spring Mount 6 Pack, Upstate Ramblings, Libby's Library, The Shopping Duck, About A Mom, Cute-Ecakes, Savings Is Free, Coupons Deals and More, Couponing for 4, How to Have it All. Transatlantic Mom, Happy Birthday Author, Alpha Wife Adventures, East 9th Street, The Go To Mommy, Naptime Is My Time, The Frugalette, How Was Your Day?, Mama Luvs Books, and Tales From the Nursery

Enter by using the below Rafflecopter form!

Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

March Video Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Eric VanRaepenbusch) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:15:00 +0000

Mentioned in this month's video blog:

1. My somewhat-famous "Cat in the Hat" Hat and my "Captain Underpants" Hat.

2. Dr. Seuss's Birthday Celebration Activity Link-Up with over 75 activities and crafts.

3. Dav Pilkey Birthday Giveaway of numerous copies of Super Diaper Baby 2: The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers - Stay tuned to the blog.

4. The "hat theme" continued with this month's run down of Author Birthdays: Dr. Seuss (March 2), Dav Pilkey (March 4), Chris Raschka (March 6), Ezra Jack Keats (March 11), Keith Baker (March 17), Steve Light (March 19), Bill Martin Jr. (March 20), Kate DiCamillo (March 25), Doreen Cronin (March 28).

5. Birthday Memory from Steve Light!

6. Upcoming Birthday Celebrations - Suse MacDonald (March 3)

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!