Mondays with Mira: Goldie takes A Stand by Barbara Krasner and some exciting news!!!

Last week was quite the magical week with lots of creativity happening all over the place and now this week we officially open registration for the Craft and Business of Illustrating Children's books, which I'm thrilled to say I will be co-teaching with Kristine Brogno, Chronicle Books' Design Director (and Art Director extraordinaire)!!! Here's the link if you'd like to find out more. It's for the whole range from fearful beginners, to adventurous authors, to award-winning illustrators. Hmmm. Come check it out. Lots of goodies. 

                         Kristine Brogno                              You Know Who                            Mandy Yates

I also got to see three former students present and do book signings at Sacramento's Fairytale Town and they all did brilliantly!! Congratulations to author/illustrator Linda Knoll for Patience for Pumpkins about farmer's markets and produce, which mixes a lovely story and nonfiction information with beautiful watercolor illustrations.

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Fabulous multi-award winning author/illustrator Kathryn Otoshi has followed up from Zero and One to Two, which on the surface is about playing with numbers but is really about friendship, bullying, being left out, conflict, and tons of other meaty concepts. It's quite extraordinary as is Kathryn. When time allows, I'll be reviewing each of these books and doing interviews with them so do check back.

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Finally, Gayle Pitman's simple rhyming book This Day in June is one of, if not the only, children's books about Gay Pride and the many different kinds of people and families who participate. The short stanzas are later explained in a section called Reading Guide that unpacks both the words and images for readers. It's quite fabulous. Needless to say, I felt like a proud mama.

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Interestingly enough, just after my former students finished one of my current co-teacher's, Barbara Bottner's, former students, the inimitable Barney Saltzberg also presented and signed books. He played guitar and sang and drew and was quite the showman. Linda, Kathryn, and Gayle were also super interactive with the audience and that's a whole other topic I'd love to explore in a blog post at some point.

Meanwhile I want to share a wonderful book by Barbara Krasner and Kelsey Garrity Riley that's a great new nonfiction approach to biography published by Kar-Ben publishers, an imprint with Lerner.

OK and because I couldn't resist, I usually save these for courses, but here's an interview with Joni Sussman, Kar-Ben's publisher. I hope you enjoy all of these. ~ Yours in children's book love ~ Mira