supernatural collective nouns

Our new board book Calling All Animals, by Matthew Porter, is all about collective nouns--but of the animal sort.
This amazing index lists all kinds of supernatural collective nouns! They are so great: a tizzy of fairies, a rage of orcs, a dignity of dragons. I'd love to see these illustrated.



Thanks to bookninja for the post!

Singing Away the Dark Shadow Puppets

Singing Away the Dark by Caroline Woodward and illustrated by Julie Morstad just came back from the press and we are very excited!


So excited in fact that we've created a fun activity to go along with the book - creating shadow puppets!
Specifically to go along with illustrations from the book like this:


A downloadable pdf of the instructions and templates are available from our website here.

And here are the instructions too.

Materials you need:
- white paper
- pencil
- thick board paper, any color
- brass paper fasteners
- extra-long straws or rods (around 40 cm long)
- tape or glue gun
- screen and light

Step 1.
Use the provided templates of the animal you want to make a puppet of on plain white paper. You can also draw your own
template! If you want your puppet to move you probably want to have two parts to it: the head, and then the body. You don’t want more than three (You don’t want more joints than a single puppeteer can manipulate). Cut the template out.

Step 2.
Trace the template onto a thick board. Cut the shape out.

Step 3.
Poke holes in the template where the hole marks are and stick a wire or brass paper fastener through fi rst the head, then the
body.

Step 4.
Using a glue gun or tape, affi x a stick or an extra long straw or rod to the back of the puppet. Attach one rod to each part that
moves. For example, use one rod for the body and then one rod for the head.

Step 5.
Prepare a surface for refl ecting the shadows, such as a wall, screen or the side of a tent, free of pictures or wall hangings.

Step 6.
Choose a light source like a fl ashlight, lamp, or lantern. Even a projector makes an excellent screen.

Step 7.
Construct the performance area. Make sure you include an area for the puppeteers to maneuver the puppets between the light
source and the shadow surface.

Step 8.
Perform!





Next up will be a pom pom activity to go along with Foggy by Judith Steedman and Robin Mitchell-Cranfield.

beautiful limited edition classics

Wow! These limited edition puffin designer classics are so beautiful. The Secret Garden designed by Lauren Child especially so. (Unfortunately this one is sold out.)
Check it out and others here.

In Mania's Memory book launch!

This beautiful book is one of the first to launch Simply Read Books' new imprint Read Leaf of fiction, art and photography books and pop culture books.
In Mania's Memory is a powerful Holocaust story by award-winning journalist Lisa Birnie. The story follows the lives of two women, one a Holocaust survivor (Mania) and one an ex-Nazi guard (Johanne), as they cross paths on a search for the truth: did Joanne save Mania's life during the Holocaust?

The advance reception of it is exceptional so far:
The Vancouver Sun says: "A thorough and satisfying exploration of how two people on opposite sides of a great divide survived an unspeakably grim period of human history.”
Robbbi Waisman said, "I almost missed my plane - I couldn't put it down!"
He will be speaking at the book launch in Vancouver next week!

When: Thursday September 23, 6 to 8 pm
Where: Bau Xi Gallery, 3045 Granville Street

If you are in town, please join us for this amazing launch!

TimeOut New York Kids!

TimeOut New York Kids has been posting weekly picture book picks, including great books like More Life-Size Zoo by Teruyuki Komiya and It's a Book by Lane Smith.
This week they chose Julie Flett's Owls See Clearly at Night!
They say: "The gorgeous, bilingual ABC book Owls See Clearly at Night: A Michif Alphabet introduces kids—and, likely, parents—to the language and culture of the Métis people of North America."
And the review ends with an awesome field trip idea (if you're in New York, of course): Consider pairing a reading with a visit to the National Museum of the American Indian.
For the full review, click here.

red riding hood animation

To continue fairy tale interpretations: here's a bizarre video of red riding hood by Tomas Nilsson, a Swedish art director and motion graphics artist.

how pretty

In the mode of fairy tales -- we're working on a version of Wild Swans, and Alice Through the Looking Glass -- I came across this lovely image of Cinderella by PCP... more cute stuff here.