Happy Book Birthday to 'Kenya's Art'

To celebrate the release of 'Kenya's Art' written by Linda Trice and illustrated by myself, I'm giving away a copy! All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post about your favourite artist and share this post on social media. Good Luck!
(Winner will be chosen on Friday 22nd January 8pm, USA only please)

Find out more about the book online at Charlesbridge Publishing : http://www.charlesbridge.com/products/kenyas-art

Find out more about the author at  http://www.lindatrice.com/

Recycle! Reuse! Make Art!

Kenya's class is on spring vacation and their teacher asked them to write a report about how they spend their time. But vacation is almost over and Kenya hasn't done anything worth noting. A late visit to a museum's recycling exhibit and a walk through her neighborhood with her daddy inspire Kenya to use her old, broken toys and other neglected items to make art with her family. Now she's prepared to teach her whole class how to Recycle! Reuse! Make Art!

Toodles!
Hazel

ALA San Francisco 2015 - friends and books and a lot of walking.

I always enjoy the American Library Association Summer Conference! It's a chance to catch up with what's new, meet publishers and friends old and new. This year, though, was made even more fantabulous by the chance to meet up with some of my Nevada SCBWI Mentor Alumni buddies from 2010/2011. Five us us shared a sweet apartment near the Moscone Centre in San Francisco and you can bet there was laughter, gossip and deep conversations into the early hours ... So often in the book world the friends you make are spread far and wide, only social media keeps you in touch. Even more special was the fact that all of us are now published or agented and several of us had author events at the conference. It was also a lot of fun to go to each other signings! Back in 2010 we were all newbies, mostly unpublished and the raw material. As you can imagine, we celebrated fully! I cannot speak highly enough about the Nevada SCBWI Mentor Programme, I'm proud to be going back as a mentor myself for the coming session (click here to find out more  http://nevada.scbwi.org/nevada-scbwi-mentor-program/)

ALA highlights for me this year included the Caldecott/Newbery/Wilder Awards ... Dan Santat, Kwame Alexander and Donald Crews gave outstanding speeches that had the audience alternately in floods of tears or gales of laughter. (See links below to read the speeches).

Dan Santat 
http://www.ala.org/alsc/sites/ala.org.alsc/files/content/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecott2015-speech-lores_final.pdf

Kwame Alexander
http://www.ala.org/alsc/sites/ala.org.alsc/files/content/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newbery-2015-peech_final.pdf

Donald Crews
http://www.ala.org/alsc/sites/ala.org.alsc/files/content/awardsgrants/bookmedia/wilder-2015speech_final.pdf

I leave you with some photos from around the conference. (Click on each for details!)

(Oh and so much walking, SO MUCH!)

Toodles
Hazel
 

Imani's Moon Audiobook

It was fun to learn recently that Imani's Moon was to be made into an audio book by Live Oak Media - and even nicer to find that one of my illustrations is the cover for their catalog!

You can find out more about the audio book HERE.

For teachers and librarians there's a READER'S THEATRE script for Imani ... download the PDF.

Find out more about the author of Imani's Moon JaNay Brown-Wood in this video.

It's been great to see Imani recognized by several great institutions including ...
Reading is Fundamental 2015 Multicultural Books
Maine Libraries Cream of the Crop 2015
ACLNC 2014 Distinguished Books
We're the People Summer Reading 2015
+ a bunch of great reviews and write ups.

I feel extremely lucky to have illustrated JaNay's book ... Imani has touched many hearts. 

Both JaNay and I will be out and about at book fairs and festivals this summer, so come by and say hi if you see us, including ALA Midsummer conference in San Francisco where we'll be signing at Charlesbridge booth on Saturday 27th at 11am-12pm. (and meeting for the first time!).

Toodles
Hazel

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