Understanding Courage
Had the honor of appearing at the National Art Education Assosciation’s Art Education & Social Justice Conference in Baltimore last week. I spoke about the Understanding Courage Project, a community project co-created by Curious City and based on the life of Claudette Colvin as outlined in the book Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice by Phillip Hoose. Curious City was happy to join Simon Adams, David Shennett (above), and Kelly McConnell from Maine College of Art as they presented their design of the art project at the center of Understanding Courage (UC). UC invited middle...
Read MoreTragically Embarassing!
Just launched the book trailer for Erin Dionne’s hilarious heroine, Hamlet whose Renaissance Fair-going, Shakespeare scholar parents are (you guessed it) tragically embarrassing! A HUGE thanks to the Martell family who run the fabulous children’s costuming company, Shire Attire for sharing their 20 years of Renaissance photos and stories and serving with humor and grace as Hamlet’s model family. Thanks too to artist Jamie Hogan for illustrating Yorick, Hamlet’s chorus in the book trailer and my, oh, my to the amazing narration of the voice of Hamlet by Rebecca Soler....
Read MorePullman on Censorship
How I do adore and respect our man, Philip: Philip Pullman, addressing an audience at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, was asked about whether his latest book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, was offensive. Here’s his reply: “It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don’t have to like it. And if...
Read MoreSudipta Bardhan, Ringmaster
Had a grand old time working with author, Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen to create an event kit for her greatest-show-on-earth of a picture book, Tightrope Poppy: The High-Wire Pig (Sterling Publishing). The event kit allows a children’s programmer to add Big Top elements to a story hour using Sudipta’s picture book (illustrated by Sarah Dillard). We extracted the ringmaster character, Zig E. Zailey from the book and use him as the host of the event. Through simple face painting, costume making, and a (very low) high-wire act, Zig E. Zailey invites young readers (aka story hour...
Read MoreIndia’s Ink
Working with a character who is such a marvel with the declarative sentence led us to create a character blog for The Accidental Adventures of India McAllister by Charlotte Agell. “I’m suspicious of people who don’t like to read, although Colby is one of them, and I like him fine. He’s just wrong about reading.” –India McAllister Using WordPress we were able to categorize each entry creating special pages to send to our target audiences. Any guesses who we might be talking to? Beyond grand to have both Charlotte’s words and artwork to work with! Share...
Read MoreMeteor Shower
Amongst the meteorological and astronomical events of February, ones birthday usually goes unreported. Upon turning 40 this past week, I was caught unaware by a surprise meteor shower of creativity. I was both illustrated and feted in ways I can hardly fathom. I am astronomically beyond lucky to work beside you children’s book creators, friends, and propagators of curiosity. More from the chronicles of the brillaint Jamie Hogan and Cathryn Falwell (and photos from the asteroid belt.) Share...
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