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How About A Night Out?
How About A Night Out?
Have you ever wondered what cats do when the sun goes down? Sam Williams “How About A Night Out?” gives a glimpse into the life of a city cat. Illustrator Matt Hunt beautifully illuminates the night life of a city cat. The characters are cute and fluffy and I want to take them all home!
Story
The lights go out and the cats go out to prowl. Sam Williams story is both realistic and magical. He takes you through a the journey of cats throughout the night. My favorite page in the book says, “How about a night out? A walk about? A prowl about?” There are a lot of phrases in this book that are just a joy to read out loud.
The story is in rhyme. In most stories this type of rhyme wouldn’t work, but the focus is more on the repetition of the words than the actual rhymes themselves. It’s a very fun story to read out loud. My 3 year old loves this book, but it’s fun enough that I’d read it to myself.
Art
These cats look like they are having a lot of fun throughout this book! Though the story is at night, and Matt Hunt uses a lot of black in the backgrounds, the pictures are bright and cheery. There are no drab pages. Matt uses bold, bright, colors in his art.
Matt uses several angles to tell his story. Most of the story is close up to the cats or an overview of the city rooftops (but always with the cats in view). My favorite image is in the center of the book where silhouettes of cats travel over a bridge. The perspective he uses for the different planes of the top and bottom of the bridge aren’t accurate, but put together they make a strikingly beautiful scene.
Get The Book
Pick up How About A Night Out: https://www.amazon.com/How-About-Night-Out-Williams/dp/1912757141/
Sam Williams’s Website: Sam Williams doesn’t appear to have an official website or use social media at all. Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/36802.Sam_Williams
More about How About A Night Out?: http://ww.boxerbooksltd.co.uk/uk/book/210/how-about-a-night-out
Illustrator Matt Hunt: https://www.matthuntillustration.com/
Remember to ask your library to pick up a copy of this book. Also leave a good review for this book on Goodreads and Amazon!
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Queen of Physics
Queen of Physics
If you are looking for a fun non-fiction book as a Christmas gift look no further than “Queen of Physics”. Even if you think you want a fiction book this is the book for you! Queen of Physics is a realistic story that’s magical in it’s telling of the life of Wu Chien Shiung. The beautiful illustrations will have you going back and revisiting the lovely pages of this book. It’s written by Teresa Robeson and illustrated by Rebecca Huang.
Teresa Robeson is a friend that I’ve been talking to on social media for a while. She has written a ton of stories for magazines. She’s also likes sewing, crafting and baking. I love her posts on things she has baked, and seeing the wonderful food her husband has made. I’m so happy that she has a book that I can share with everyone! She also has a second book coming out soon called “Two Bicycles in Bejing”. You can pick up that book here: https://www.teresarobeson.com/two-bicycles-in-beijing.html
Story
“Queen of Physics: How Wu Chein Shiung Helped Unlock The Secrets of the Atom” starts with Wu Chien Shiung’s childhood. As a child she left her family to study far away from home. Chien Shiung loved all kinds of science, but physics is the one science she adored the most. This book helps us see the journey Chien Shiung went through to become a great scientist. Teresa shows Chien Shiung’s struggles throughout her life and succeeds though the odds are stacked against her.
What I love the most about this book is that it features a strong female that did a lot for the world while she was here. She had a huge impact the scientific world. She also was a large social influence and organized protests and strikes to help her country. Chien Shiung’s journey is wonderful for all children and shows them what they can achieve despite their gender or obstacles in life.
Art
The colors in this book are absolutely lovely. Rebecca Huang did a fantastic job. She uses mixed media to create her pictures. I wasn’t able to find any more information on how she created these illustrations. The textured paper made the story feel more like it was a page out of history. The character expressions were wonderful. I love Rebbeca’s use of white space throughout the book. The white space (or negative space) wasn’t always white, but the pages that were white were particularly striking.
Get The Book
Pick up Queen of Physics here: https://www.teresarobeson.com/queen-of-physics.html
Teresa Robeson’s Website: https://www.teresarobeson.com/
More about Queen of Physics: https://www.patriciamnewman.com/litlinks-connecting-nuclear-physics-to-language-arts-really/
Illustrator Rebecca Huang: http://www.rebeccamhuang.com/
Remember to ask your library to pick up a copy of this book. Also leave a good review for this book on Goodreads and Amazon!
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Book Review of “Another”
I found this beautiful book by searching my library for new books! There are so many GREAT books coming out right now. The books I want to review are piling up! If you’d like me to review your book please send a request via my contact page: http://ngi.c96.myftpupload.com/contact/
Story
Cover of "Another" 
My toddler loving "Another"! “Another” by Christian Robinson is a story about a child and their cat who both visit another dimension. In the beginning the child’s cat sees a portal open and a black cat (that looks just like the child’s cat) come through the portal. The cat and the child follow the cat into the portal and explore this strange new world.
The story of “Another” is completely wordless. Absolutely everything is told in pictures. It’s very imaginative and fun. There is no explanation as to how things happened. It just happened and it’s fun!
Art
A quick sketch of "Another" drawn upside down (for a class project). Here it is right side up! The artwork for another is as bright and imaginative as the book. “The illustrations for this book were rendered in paint and collage, with digital editing.” I’ve seen a lot of collage/paint collage being used, but Christian’s strong paint style separates it from other pieces.
The strange thing is this book has almost no backgrounds. When the child steps into the portal the background becomes a stark white. I feel like this exaggerates the strangeness of this whole world.
This book is a lot of fun and a great book to “read” over and over again.
Buy the Book
Pick up Another here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/another-christian-robinson/1128864446
Christian Robinson’s Website:https://www.theartoffun.com
More about Another: https://www.theartoffun.com/another
Remember to ask your library to pick up a copy of this book. Also leave a good review for this book on Goodreads and Amazon!
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Planning Out Your Pages
Note: I will not be doing a book review this week (and possibly next week) because I have several things I want to get ready for Smart Dummies this year! Interested in a critique group this year? https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5MCFDBL (Survey closes September 5th and is on a first come first served basis).
Before you start planning out your pages, I’m going to refer you to Marla Lesage’s post about Picture book Length: https://marlalesage.com/2019/08/12/picture-books-length-layout/ It’s important to know how long you want to make your story before you separate it out. This is for picture books, but a lot of the books you will be writing will use one of these templates. Creating a longer book? Make sure that the number of pages that you are creating are divisible by 8.
This year I’m doing Cinderella. I will be using the Cinderella published by George Routledge and Sons as an example. You can read the story here in many formats: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23303
While I will always strongly suggest that you have a fully finished text before you start planning out pages. Sometimes you wont have that text because you are working on a wordless book or you just work better visually. If this is you then you might want write down the important plot points and then separate these into pages and spreads.
A spread is 2 pages put together. When you have a book open in front of you those two pages are a spread.
Important Plot Points for Cinderella
The numbers by the plot points indicate the number of spreads I’d use for each of these plot points.
- Cinderella’s father remarries. (1/2 spread)
- Cinderella’s step mother and sisters are mean to her. (1/2 spread)
- The prince announces there will be a ball so he can find a wife. (1 spread)
- Cinderella told she’s not allowed to go to the ball which upsets her. (1 spread)
- Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother appears and gives her everything she needs for the ball (Cinderella must be back by midnight). (2 spreads)
- Cinderella meets the prince at the first ball. Because she’s so punctual getting home the Fairy Godmother is happy to let her go to the next ball. (1.5 spreads)
- The princess (Cinderella) at the ball is mysterious and everyone talks about her. (1.5 spreads)
- Cinderella falls in love with the prince at the second ball. (1 spread)
- Cinderella forgets about the time and rushes out of the ball at the last minute leaving her glass slipper. (1.5 spreads)
- Cinderella comes back in rags with only one glass slipper. (1/2 spreads)
- The prince looks for Cinderella with the one lost slipper. (1 spread)
- The slipper fits and Cinderella has the other slipper. (1.5 spreads)
- The prince and Cinderella live happily ever after. (1/2 spread)
This version differs a bit from the Disney version. You can already start to see how you can break down this story into 14.5 spreads and 13 plot points. I have the number of spreads I would use in the right hand column to show you how this story would be dividedIf you have a manuscript you can write the pages/spreads directly on your manuscript. You can also go to page 18 of your booklet and write 3-4 words under each thumbnail describing the scene you are creating. This will help you visually plot things out. For some pages you are going to want to use 2 pages (or a full-spread) for creating your image. Make sure those two pages are next to each other in your thumbnails.
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Who’s in for Marks and Splashes?
For those who are following my drama today I was unable to get onto my website to make a post about editing. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I’ll be saving that post for tomorrow. Today I have EXCITING NEWS about Mark Mitchell’s course. I just heard about it a few hours ago, so I just had to post!
Mark Mitchell’s “Make Your Marks and Splashes” course is starting up soon! I was signed up for the Children’s Book Academy “The Craft and Business of Illustrating Picture Books” when this class started last year, and was unable to attend. This year will be different! I will be taking Mark’s class this year. I’m so excited. Here’s the link: https://illustratechildrensbooks.com/childrens-book-illustration-school-fall-2019/?affiliate=daniduck
I’m a bit embarrassed that I forgot about taking (or talking about) Mark’s class. Apparently Mark forgot to get the word out about the class, so he’s giving us all kinds of bonus material if we sign up by Saturday August 24th! (Now I’m kind of glad I forgot because there are so many bonuses now!)
Bonuses
- Four complimentary months of Marks & Splashes Guest Group Critiques, led by top illustrators and other professionals in children’s book publishing.
- A vintage interview series I did with 16 children’s book illustrators who work(ed) in traditional water media, several of them well known, like Patricia Polacco, Ted andBetsy Lewin, Ashley Wolff, E.B. Lewis, the late Leonard Everett Fisher, and Caldecott Medal winners Jerry Pinkney, Emily Arnold McCully and the late Barbara Cooney. The lavishly visual articles, which I completed in my years as a contributing editor of American Artist Watercolor Magazine feature the artists’ drawing steps, research methods, painting processes, thumbnail and dummy page examples and much more.
- An complimentary semester (Winter 2020) of live group homework huddles with Mark
On top of these bonuses
- Going Pro with the Girillustrators video workshop series
- Cindy Wilder’s Drawing Basics Intensive Video Series
- Julie’s Story Town – An Epic Look at Storycraft
- Live Monthly Sessions to get Feedback on Your Work
This is all on TOP of the Make Your Marks and Splashes course. It is packed FULL of things to help us get our Picture Books done beautifully and quickly. Here are some of my favorite things I want to learn.
Creating a Thumbnail in 30 Seconds (it takes me a couple minutes right now)
Keeping Characters Consistent in Every Page
How to Navigate My Art Business
Finding New Strategies for Creating Dummies
Join Me!
Do you want to join me? Maybe we could create our own critique group for the class. I would love to get to know more of you better. I will be there so I can give you personal help at any time during the course. You can sign up for the course here: https://illustratechildrensbooks.com/childrens-book-illustration-school-fall-2019/?affiliate=daniduck
But What About Smart Dummies?
What we learn in this course is going to directly translate into what we are doing for Smart Dummies, so this course is great if you want a bit of extra help creating your dummy this year. This will not take away from what we are doing in Smart Dummies, but it will inform what I talk about for the Smart Dummies event!
Didn’t see this soon enough? Join anyway! I was going to join before I knew about any of the bonuses!
Please let me know if you are joining me for this course! I’ll contact you so we can get the most out of this course.
- Four complimentary months of Marks & Splashes Guest Group Critiques, led by top illustrators and other professionals in children’s book publishing.
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Review of Teach Your Giraffe to Ski
Inside of my copy of Teach Your Girafee to Ski! “Teach Your Giraffe To Ski” is a fantastically fun story about a child teaching their giraffe to ski. The story is written by Viviane Elbee and illustrated by Danni Gowdy. I picked up this copy because Viviane is one of my wonderful critique partners! Unfortunately (or fortunately) she had submitted and had this book accepted before we were in a critique group together! I can not claim to have helped her with this one, but she obviously didn’t need my help, because she wrote a wonderful story!
This is one book I’m happy to have on my shelf. I was so excited that my local indie bookstore could get the book in. Since Viviane lives so far away she sent me a lovely bookplate which I love. My kids were so excited to get this book as a gift for Christmas!
Story
This story is written in the second person. I don’t know that “Teach Your Giraffe to Ski” could have been written as well in a different P.O.V. I’m not sure how many other kids books are written in the second person. The second person usually doesn’t work for most books. It’s especially hard for picture books to use the third person, but Viviane did a wonderful job writing this book.
I love the humor in this book. The illustrations and words meld perfectly together to make this a laugh out loud story! One thing about the story, be sure to read this on a full stomach. All the french fry and pizza talk was making me hungry. Be sure to have lots of french fries and pizza before starting this book! Especially pizza, pizza, pizza. That word is used a lot in this book.
My toddler wants you to get this book! Art
I love the color scheme in this book. The colors are cool and perfect for a winter scene. I love the beautiful soft colors.
All the characters have big, beautiful, outlines. It makes the whole story more comical. I also love how Danni makes the images so expansive. I believe that there is a whole wonderful world beyond the confines of this book.
The expressions on the characters faces are priceless. Especially the poor child’s face who is just trying to get the giraffe to ski. It’s a very big task teaching a giraffe to ski!
Buy the Book
Buy the Book: https://vivianeelbee.com/wheretobuytygts.html
Viviane Elbee’s Website: http://vivianeelbee.com/
More about the book: http://vivianeelbee.com/teachgiraffetoski.html
If you can’t afford to buy this book consider leaving a review or requesting your library buy this book!
