Get Drawing!

GetDrawing

Get Drawing! (Dream It, Do It!)
by Charlotte Guillain (Author)

Booktalk: Stop dreaming about becoming an artist—and take steps to make your dream come true! These helpful tips for finding inspiration, keeping a sketchbook, and always thinking creatively will help you open your own gallery in no time!

Snippet: Ideas come when you don’t expect them. Carry a sketchpad with you and keep all of your drawing and doodles. You could also cut out any pictures that you like in magazines and stick them in your sketchbook.

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Use the tips at the end of the book to stage your own gallery show!

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
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Ed Emberley

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Ed Emberley
by Todd Oldham (Author), Caleb Neelon (Author), and Ed Emberley (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Ed Emberley is a Caldecott award-winning children’s book illustrator and writer who has been creating original books since the 1960s. He has written and illustrated more than 100 books. Contemporary working artists today often cite Ed Emberley as a beloved early inspiration in their development as artists. By encouraging kids to draw using just a few simple shapes, Emberley has made drawing and creating accessible to everyone.

Snippet:
Early Work
As Ed Emberley began his children’s bookmaking career in the 1960s, he had a young family and a new home to support. He found that working in several different styles of drawing (and soon after, printmaking) would allow him the freedom to work on enough book projects to make ends meet. He quickly realized that this variety of style was a key part of who he was as an artist and not simply an approach to launching a career.

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Try it yourself! Make art in these different styles…

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Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
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LEGO Space: Building the Future

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LEGO Space: Building the Future
by Peter Reid (Author) and Tim Goddard (Author)

Booktalk: Spaceships, orbital outposts, and new worlds come to life in this unique vision of the future, built completely from LEGO bricks.

A selection of step-by-step building instructions will have you constructing your own cosmic creations to play with at home. Marvel at interstellar battlecruisers, space pirates, charming robots, and other stunning builds from an amazing future!

Snippet:

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STEM Friday

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
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Moví la mano / I Moved My Hand

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Moví la mano / I Moved My Hand
by Jorge Luján (Author), Mandana Sadat (Illustrator), and Elisa Amado (Translator)

Booktalk: When a little girl moves her hand, she changes the world as she discovers it. As she moves her known world she discovers her own power and creates everything anew.

Snippet:
Moví la mano y encontré un coco.
I moved my hand and I found a coconut.

Agité el coco y encontré un lago.
I shook the coconut and I found a lake.

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STEM + the Arts = STEAM

STEAM DIY Activity

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Make a Moon Painting.

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poetry friday

This week’s Poetry Friday Round-up is hosted by Reflections on the Teche.

Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
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Ferret Fun in the Sun

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Ferret Fun in the Sun
by Karen Rostoker-Gruber (Author) and Paul Rátz de Tagyos (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Fudge and Einstein are a ferret duo. They’re going on a vacation adventure out west, to Arizona. Fudge doesn’t want to go. He likes to relax. Einstein likes action and can’t wait for their trip. But when they get to the ranch, Fudge experiences the biggest adventure of his life. Maybe trying new things isn’t so bad after all…

Snippet:
The back cover gives you a taste of this fun picture book comic:
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STEM + the Arts = STEAM

STEAM DIY Activity

Make a fun pets comic online with Pixton.

Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
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It’s a Seashell Day

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It’s a Seashell Day
by Dianne Ochiltree (Author) and Elliot Kreloff (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Sunny-as-a-summer-sky rhymes chronicle a mother and son sharing a day of sand digging, seashell collecting, and seashore exploring. (See the seashell facts in the back of the book.)

Snippet:
I rush down the path, over the dune.
Salty breeze blows. We’ll be there soon!

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STEM + the Arts = STEAM

STEAM DIY Activity

Try this Sand Art project.

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poetry friday

This week’s Poetry Friday Round-up is hosted by iWrite in Maine.

Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
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Party In A Book: Spots, Dots, and Stripes

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Party In A Book: Spots, Dots, and Stripes
by Rebecca Emberley (Author, Illustrator)

Booktalk: Everything you need to throw a party! DIY: Hundreds of perforated paper pieces, easy to assemble in dozens of ways to create your perfect party. Simply punch out the shapes desired, add some glue and string and you can make garlands, cupcake toppers, tray covers, chains, gift wrap, invitations, labels, tags, boxes, and much more.

Snippet:

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Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
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Red Light, Green Light

Red Light, Green Light

Red Light, Green Light e-book
by Anastasia Suen (Author) and Ken Wilson-Max (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Roll into one little boy’s make-believe traffic world, filled with flashing lights, zooming cars, whirring helicopters, and racing fire engines. He’s turned records into rotaries, shoe boxes and books into highway ramps, crayons into lane markers, and dandelions into trees. It’s a world where imagination rules and creativity abounds.

Snippet:
Red light, stop.
Green light, go.

Cars and trucks
drive to and fro.

Author’s Note:
It’s the 10th anniversary of my picture book, Red Light, Green Light and the e-book has just been updated! Hooray!

Here’s the short version of the long story…

I sold this book in 1999 and it came out in 2005. It was on the final Gulliver Books list and then that imprint of Harcourt was closed. A few years later, Harcourt was sold and then the company that bought them, Houghton Mifflin, went into bankruptcy. After the new Houghton Mifflin Harcourt came out on the other side, they re-organized several times.

In the middle of all this change, Red Light, Green Light was converted to an e-book. It was still the early days of e-books and I’m sorry to say that the conversion was not a success. There were extra words on top of the art and the art itself moved up and down as you “turned” the pages. But all of the people that I worked with on this book were long gone, so my efforts to get the e-book fixed went nowhere for a long time. In May I tried again and a very friendly customer service representative said she would talk to her manager…and it worked! On June 1st an email came saying that the book was being remade. Three weeks later, the e-book files were updated on Amazon, Google Play, and iTunes!

For me, this is a summer book because of driver’s ed. That’s when my two teens took it (and so did I, lo-o-o-o-ng ago.) I wrote this book because of the 100 hours of required driving practice. I was sitting on the passenger’s side of the car pressing my foot on that imaginary brake at each intersection…making my new drivers crazy! (Mom!!!) The book dedication reads: “For my two new drivers, it feels like just minutes ago that you were driving toy cars.”

STEM + the Arts = STEAM

STEAM DIY Activity

Make my Traffic Light Necklace Craft.

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Materials:
red, green, and yellow yarn
black construction paper
red, green, and yellow dots (I used 3/4″ dots from Office Depot)
scissors
glue stick

Directions (before the kids arrive):

1) Cut the yarn in to 36″ lengths.

2) Gather the yarn into triple strands (one red, one yellow and one green for each child.)

3) Cut the black construction paper in strips. (I used 9×12″ paper so I cut the 12″ side into 2″ strips. Each strip was the 2″ wide and 9″ long.

4) Fold each black strip in half to make a tent. (Now it’s 2″ wide and 4 1/2″ tall.)

Directions (after the kids arrive):

5) Put the yarn inside the black paper “tent” and center it so approximately 18″ of yarn extends out on each side.

6) Rub glue on the inside of the tent. Then press the paper tight so the glue holds.

7) Place a green dot, a yellow dot, and a green dot on the black paper. Green is Go! Yellow is Slow! Red is Stop! Now you have a traffic light!

8) Tie the ends of the yarn into a bow. Now put the bow over the child’s head. It’s a traffic light necklace!

poetry friday

This week’s Poetry Friday Round-up is hosted by Mainely Write.

Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
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How Does My Garden Grow?

How Does My Garden Grow

How Does My Garden Grow?
by Gerda Muller (Author, Illustrator)

Booktalk: Sophie lives in the city, and her vegetables come from the supermarket. When she goes to visit her grandparents in the countryside — she discovers how things grow!

Snippet:
After breakfast, Grandad John took her out into the garden and gave her lots of tools, all just the right size.

“Oh, thank you!” said Sophie.

Grandad John showed Sophie a small patch of garden where she could grow her own vegetables.

“Before sowing the seeds, you need to rake the ground.”

STEM + the Arts = STEAM

STEAM DIY Activity

Plant an Easy and Tasty 4 x 4-foot Kids’ Garden.

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Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
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Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America

Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America
by Carole Boston Weatherford (Author) and Jamey Christoph (Illustrator)

Booktalk: His white teacher tells her all-black class, You’ll all wind up porters and waiters. What did she know? Gordon Parks is most famous for being the first black director in Hollywood. But before he made movies and wrote books, he was a poor African American looking for work. When he bought a camera, his life changed forever. He taught himself how to take pictures and before long, people noticed. His success as a fashion photographer landed him a job working for the government. In Washington DC, Gordon went looking for a subject, but what he found was segregation. He and others were treated differently because of the color of their skin. Gordon wanted to take a stand against the racism he observed. With his camera in hand, he found a way.

Snippet:
Twenty-five years old and all but broke
when a magazine spread
about migrant farm workers
inspires him to buy a used camera. That $7.50
is the best money he will ever spend.

STEM + the Arts = STEAM

STEAM DIY Activity

Try one of these National Geographic Photographing Your Neighborhood ideas.

STEM Friday

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
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