What is Adventure Time and why does a cartoon matter in Creative Writing? How can we use it to stimulate our own work? First, let’s look at its concept and creation: According to series creator Pendleton Ward, the show’s style was influenced by his time at California Institute of the Arts and his work as…
Tag: arts
What Can a Crane Pick Up? by Rebecca Kai Dotlich and other great picture books
What makes a good picture book? Remember what it’s like to see spring for the first time? To get your first grown-up bed? To run in the park, on the beach, along the Brooklyn Promenade, and never want to slow down? To find sneezes hilarious and wrapping paper the best toy in the world? wrote…
The poems in NASTY BUGS Lee Bennett Hopkins are itchingly great
Crossposted on Daily Kos Gross! … Boys will love this collection … a book of poetry with a decided ick factor. The bugs are delightfully nasty and include magots, chiggers, wasps, lice and bed bugs. Nasty Bugs by Lee Bennett Hopkins is a collection of creepy, crawly poems by some of today’s most beloved children’s…
BEAN DOG & NUGGET: Charise Mericle Harper Cooks Up Another Great Book Idea (plus three giveaways!)
This is an excerpt from an excellent blog entry by Charise Mericle Harper. The other day I was at my son’s book fair, talking with his teacher. A few of my books were included in the event, and she picked one up and flipped through it. All of a sudden she asked, “Where do you…
Artists Create Stunning Tribute To Maurice Sendak
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim:…
Jane Yolen and J. Patrick Lewis provide LAST LAUGHS: ANIMAL EPITAPHS, illustrated by Jeffrey Stewart Timmins
“Last Laughs” Here at Amen Creature Corners, beasties weep like misty mourners, but when they read an epitaph, it always brings them one last laugh. Forget the hankies. Read the words of bugs and fishes, beasts and birds. They know it’s not all gloom and doom that’s written once upon a tomb. –from LAST LAUGHS:…
Seeds of Rebellion: The thrills continue in the second action-packed adventure in the Beyonders trilogy
The thrills continue in the second action-packed adventure in the #1 New York Times bestselling Beyonders trilogy. After the cliffhanger ending of A World Without Heroes, Jason is back in the world he’s always known—yet for all his efforts to get home, he finds himself itching to return to Lyrian. Jason knows that the shocking…
Story Workshop: The Power of Playful Literacy
Presenter: Susan MacKay, Director of the Museum Center for Learning, Portland Children’s Museum Date: Sunday, March 24, 2013 Time: 7:00-8:00 p.m. EST This Web seminar is FREE and sponsored by the Whole Language Umbrella (WLU) Join Susan MacKay in this Web seminar for an exploration of Story Workshop. Susan and her fellow teacher-researchers at Opal…
Steven Kellogg’s Illustrations in Jack and the Beanstalk Possess Extraordinary Texture and Dimension
Though his text remains true to the popular version of this English fairy tale, Kellogg’s ( Paul Bunyan ; Pecos Bill ) typically antic art gives this rendition a visual dimension that is uniquely his. Created with colored inks, watercolors and acrylics, the full-page illustrations have extraordinary texture and dimension. With a mouthful of pointy…
Puffling Patrol: Written and illustrated by Ted Lewin and Betsy Lewin
Every April, the Westman Islands off the coast of Iceland become home to hundreds of thousands of puffins, small black-and-white seabirds with colorful bills. They spend the summer on the rocky cliffs of the islands, caring for their newly hatched chicks. By the middle of August, it is time for the young puffins, called pufflings,…
Young People's Pavilion 