merry christmas!

you should take care

Thanks to freepeople blog for alerting me to the beautiful paintings of Pakayla Biehn. Her show is called "You Should Take Care."

Lately Lily

Very cute idea! What a nice combination of illustration, story, and fashion marketing for kids.
This site Lately Lily features an adorable girl who travels the world -- on the site you can find out where Lily has been most recently, read her notebook, find out what she carries in her suitcase and why, or buy a Lily t-shirt!

creatures go bump in the night

The Province, a BC newspaper, just ran a lovely article, "Creatures Go Bump in the Night", about Sleepless Kao, author of Monchan's Bag and her latest gallery show, Chotto Motto, at Blim Gallery in Vancouver.
My favorite part of the article was finding out what Chotto Motto means ;)

adorable saffy

A fan of Paola Opal's adorable Simply Small books -- including Saffy, Saffy Looks for Rain and Saffy and Ollie -- created this amazing stuffie of the baby giraffe, Saffy.
If only it was available to buy!

Come celebrate a book launch!

Our new and lovely book, I Want to Go to the Moon, by Tom Saunders and illustrated by Cynthia Nugent, about Neil Armstrong's growing up, is finally out! Join us in celebrating its release!
When: Saturday, December 17, 2 to 4 pm
Where: Coast Capital Playhouse, 1532 Johnston Road, White Rock BC
Come hear Tom Saunders perform the song, enjoy refreshments, and buy the book -- a signed book makes a great Christmas present!
(There will also likely be a launch of this title in Vancouver in the new year!)

free holiday gift tags!

The lovely Christmas season is upon us and one of the Simply Read illustrators who recently launched her awesome on-line shop of art inspiring activities for kids, Draw Me a Lion, has just put out a series of free downloadable gift tags.
What makes these gift tags even better is that they are coloring gift tags--so that a kid can help out with all the holiday wrapping!
For the free download check out Lisa's Draw Me a Lion blog, here.

adorable children's book jewelry

What could be better than jewelry inspired by children's books? Thanks to Betsy Bird over at Fuse #8 for posting about the new jewelry based on Oliver Jeffers books such as Heart in the Bottle, The Great Paper Caper and Lost and Found.




You can see the whole collection here.
I wish we could do this for some of the Simply Read books.
It would be so cute to have a little Saffy or Ollie necklace. Or something inspired by one of Julie Morstad's lovely titles.

interview with illustrator Abigail Halpin

Here's a wonderful interview on 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast with Abigail Halpin, illustrator of The Melancholic Mermaid.

Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been...

In glowing reviews and starring in book trailers, that's where!
Check out the adorable book trailer below for Dan Bar-el and Rae Mate's book.

yoyomama's 5 favourite books for gifts!

Yoyomama just wrote an article about their 5 favorite books to give as gifts to babies... and out of five, three are Simply Read books!

ABC by Matthew Porter


Calling All Animals by Matthew Porter


Monkey World by Matthew Porter


Thanks, Yoyomama!

Chotto Motto - new work by Kaori Kasai

Come to the opening of a new art show of Kaori Kasai, author of the adorable Simply Read Book, Monchan's Bag.
When: Friday, December 2, 8 pm to 11 pm (Show Runs December 2-29_
Location: 115 Pender St. E, Vancouver BC Canada V6A 1T6
What: Little creatures pop out of Kao's brain around midnight and tell her, "more, more...". They demand more room,
so she puts them onto large canvases. Other creatures do not stop moving, so she makes a short animation of
them. Come to BLIM to see Kao's work. Enjoy chotto motto holiday gifts by Kao, including prints, dolls, lucky-charms, and a little more.

Under the Mound Book Launch

When: Sunday November 20th, 2:00 pm
Where: Christianne's Lyceum of Literature and Art, 3696 West 8th Ave, Vancouver
Join us for the wonderful launch of Under the Mound by Cynthia Heinrichs.
Light fare and beverages will be provided.

Cybils Award Nominations

The Cybils Nominations have been announced and two of our picture books are included in the Fiction Picture Book Category!
Singing Away the Dark by Caroline Woodward and illustrated by Julie Morstad

Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been? by Dan Bar-el and illustrated by Rae Mate

The Cybils is a great program that advocates rewarding books that combine literary merit and kid appeal. (As they say, they like books that are both "yummy and nutritious"!) They also are run by children's literature bloggers and help foster a sense of community among children's lit bloggers. Yay!
More about the Cybils here.

70 million by hold your horses

Check out this amazing music video that references classic, famous paintings. Love!

draw me a lion!

Lisa Cinar, author and illustrator of Paulina P. for Petersen and The Day It all Blew Away, has just launched a new site called Draw Me a Lion where she is selling prints, color your own postcards, coloring posters and even a story activity kit, which is awesome!
Check it out!

exploded flowers

Beautiful series of photographs by Qi Wei called "Exploded Flowers". They really show how amazing and complex nature is. Thanks to free people blog for the link.

make way for stories!

This is an interesting article by Anita Silvey from School Library Journal that we here at Simply Read Books agrees with.
Her main argument in her article is that picture books shouldn't shy away from having longer texts!
Some of our recently published picture books definitely do have more of a story to them--such as The Boy in the Oak, The Melancholic Mermaid, Oliver's Tantrums to name a few. It's something we believe in.

Launch for When I Was Small

When: Monday November 7th, 7:00 pm
Where: Christianne's Lyceum of Literature and Art, 3696 West 8th Ave, Vancouver
Join us for the lovely launch of When I Was Small by Sara O'Leary and Julie Morstad.
Both Sara and Julie will be there to answer any questions about their delightful series!

picture books we have known and loved

Check out this wonderful article posted by Canadian Bookshelf and written by Sara O'Leary, author of When I Was Small.
She reviews a handful of Canadian pictures that "are now part of the family and wherever we go, they go with us".
She includes two Simply Read titles, "Singing Away the Dark" and "Foggy"!

picture book proclamation

What an excellent thing! This picture book proclamation is for all lovers and writers and publishers of picture books.

cute to kill

If you are in Vancouver, check out this awesome Halloween animation event featuring the animation work of one of Simply Read's very own illustrators--Sleepless Kao.

Cute to Kill II — Special Halloween Edition

Friday October 28 | 8 – 11 PM | $12/10 | @ VIVO (Main St. × 4th Ave.)

Cute to Kill 2 is an expose of recent video works from local, national, and international animators and video artists. Each short film explores the artists’ morbid fascination with dark subject matter through the guise of “cute” (a prevalent juxtaposition in contemporary Asian pop culture). In their first co-production, Yuriko Iga (of Blim) and Asa Mori bring together a wide range of adorably despondent short films to be viewed as a collection for this one night only.

Featuring local, national, and international Japanese artists:
Yuriko Iga / Kaori Kasai / Mirai Mizue / Asa Mori / Kei Oyama / Sachiyo Takahashi / Yuki Takahashi / Atsushi Wada

With special print exhibit, live performance, animations, and limited edition t-shirt.

Advance tix available at Blim for $10/12 at the door.
Seniors, PSF members, and Halloween costumed: $10 at the door.

Call 604 872 8180 or info@blim.ca for information.

For more, check out here.

starry starry night

This is a lovely, inspiring idea to spruce up a child's room. Use a star punch to cut out stars from a window shade and create a lovely night sky in the bedroom.


Thanks to Color Me Katie for the idea!

Picture This, Pussycats!

This exhibition by Vancouver artist and illustrator Rae Maté features original illustrations on canvas and paper from her three children's books, including her latest, Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been, as well as playful "portraits" of cats and crocodiles.

Where: Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, 950 W. 41st, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Thur Nov 3, 2011 • 7-9 pm
Artist in attendance • Free Admission
Exhibit continues to Sun Dec 4, 2011

Singing Away the Dark on North by Northwest

This previous Sunday, North by Northwest, the CBC radio show hosted by Sheryl MacKay, featured Caroline Woodward talking about her beautiful book, Singing Away the Dark!
Listen to the show here and find out more about what inspired Caroline to write this story.

summit for the small

The Mouse City Summit, an event planned by Small Print Toronto, is about the most adorable and intriguing event this fall, and makes me wish I could fly to Toronto to attend.
The idea is for kids aged 2 to 8 to gather for a day to imagine and create what an entire city created specially for fictional mice would look like. The kids will be given recycled materials and inspiration, too, in the form of the well-known children's book Phoebe Gilman's Something from Nothing and the fable City Mouse/Country Mouse, and
You can find out more about the event at Small Print Toronto here.

Of course, an event like this makes me think of our newest book, and a beautiful one, When I Was Small, by the amazing team Sara O'Leary and Julie Morstad. It is all about imagining what it would be like to be very very small.
Look at the beautiful cover and illustrations:












Check out as well Sara O'Leary's great blog and Julie Morstad's great website!