our happy halloween!

Well, I think Halloween is more fun when you have a child. It's definitely more hectic!

This year, the holiday stress came from trying to pin down Rain Dragon's costume.  As I mentioned before, she has an affinity for peripheral characters which made it a little difficult. Originally, she wanted to be Dr. James Lewis (the doctor in Lyle and the Birthday Party) and then she wanted to be Dr. Cohn from Madeline, and then the "fat fireman" in Curious George.

But, finally she decided. She would be Jack-be-Nimble. We first read the rhyme together in Richard Scarry's Mother Goose:

And she loved it so much that I searched online for longer versions of the rhyme, finding this:

and this:

She now loves anything by Mother Goose Club 

So we had to combine them all and we got:

 Jack-be-Nimble Bunny!

 But it was all worth it because Halloween was great fun. She was a little tentative about trick-or-treating:

But she quickly got the hang of it:

and didn't want to stop:

 even when she was tired:

Happy Halloween!

fortune cookie friday

"If you touch black paint, you will have black fingers"
- Chinese Proverb

this year's pumpkins

We're a little late with our pumpkins this year!  Again, no pumpkin party (what? nobody wants to have toddlers and sharp knives together?) and, to Rain Dragon's protests, I carved mine alone:

But to make up for not letting her do any of it, I carved her current favorite bedtime book:

her favorite is Lyle and the Birthday Party which she calls "Lyle go to hospeetall"

The Sasquatch carved her favorite characters from her favorite TV show, Peppa Pig. Oddly,  her favorite characters are the periphery characters that barely in the show like Mr. Rhino and Mr. Potato. 

Mr. Rhino silhouette and a Mr. Potato outline!

And, of course, we did let her paint her own:

She was pleased with our finished display during the day:

But we all agreed that it looked best at night:

Happy Halloween!

get this exclusive print and support WNDB!

The WNDB Indigogo campaign is going full throttle! It's going great, but there's still more than half of the goal to achieve. To sweeten the pot, I've donated some exclusive, never-before-sold prints to the WNDB Indiegogo campaign! There are five of these available now:

from "Bringing in the New Year"

If/when those sell out, there will be five of these up as perks:

from The Ugly Vegetables

These prints are 13x19 inches and can be personally autographed by yours truly! And, most importantly, they want to have a home with you!

So, please contribute to the WNDB campaign! Even if you are unable to contribute, please spread the word wide and far!

on my desk monday

more work on Ling and Ting book #4!

just blocking in colors

We Need Diverse Books Needs YOU

Go to the WNDB Indiegogo Campaign!
WeNeedDiverseBooks, whose advisory board I am proud to say I am a part of,  has just launched its Indiegogo Campaign! Please consider donating!

Your donations will help bring diverse books and authors to disadvantaged schools, host the Inaugural Kidlit Diversity Festival and more!As well as art for their holiday card, I've donated a personal event and dinner (Will I make you cupcakes? You'll have to find out...). Or you could have dinner with the incredible Jacqueline Woodson in Park Slope or a signed Dav Pilkey print or even more! Lots of fun prizes, go check it out!

Please spread the word!

Just in case you missed it!

Just in case you missed it in my last newsletter (sign up HERE to get on the list)...

Ling and Ting: Twice as Silly is coming! Pre-order your copy  (and/or any other books by me) at my local bookstore, Broadside Books,  and I will autograph the book plus include a surprise small gift (maybe a magnet...maybe a pin...maybe a pocket pacy! You'll have to see what you get!). You can pre-order a personalized autographed copy HERE , just add to whom you'd like the book to be autographed to in the "order comments" section at checkout.  Or you can call Broadside Books at 413-584-4235 and place your order over the phone! Not only will you receive the surprise gift from me (I promise it will be nice!), you'll be supporting a great local independent bookstore! You may remember from my last newsletter that Amazon is in dispute with my publisher, so they are not shipping my books out in a timely manner. This, unfortunately, makes it quite difficult for my new book (or really any of my books) to be successful.   So, please, please consider supporting this bookstore or any other bookstore near you!

on my desk monday

I wrote a review of four wordless picturebooks for the NY Times:

It's always fun to see your name in the NY Times, maybe even more fun as a byline:

fortune cookie friday

"It is not economical to go to bed early to save the candles if the result is twins."
- Chinese Proverb

on my desk monday

Painting the cover art for the 4th Ling and Ting book:

The publisher always asks for the cover art first for marketing their materials. Usually, that is not my preference--I'd rather do the cover art last after I've done the art for the book--but this time I was so eager to paint these rainbow dresses that I was happy to do it.

Can you believe I'm working on a 4th Ling and Ting book? The 3rd one, Ling and Ting: Twice as Silly comes out next month!!!