Happy Hoppy Easter with Picture Books full of Colors!

I wanted to wish everyone a very happy (hoppy) Easter and blessed Passover for those of you who celebrate that (we do both).

I know a lot of kids get candy, cars and dolls, but maybe a few kids got Picture Books this year!

This colorful book is a wonderful example of what all kids would like.  It's available on Amazon at this link https://www.amazon.com/How-Finch-Got-His-Colors/dp/1945547774/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522577171&sr=8-1&keywords=how+the+finch+got+his+colors&dpID=61ZSNPSe4TL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch.

Go check it out!  I hope you don't fly away until next month when we reveal who our winner is for next time!

Until then, enjoy your chocolate bunnies and Jelly Beans (my personal favorite).

As we all go Marching On...with picture books that is

I can't believe that Spring is right around the corner!  Yay!  I know, we've had a bit of a rough winter here in Massachusetts, but I can feel the Spring air! 

In the meantime, we have a winner for Promoting Picture Books Page:

"Polar Bear Bowler"
by Karl Beckstrand and Ashley Sanborn
(WORDLESS, Sports Humor) “A charming wordless story. … Sanborn’s cartooning is full of … polish and physical comedy.” – Publisher’s Weekly. The adventures of a polar bear who hitches a ride to Antarctica. He’s never seen penguins before; to him they look like something fun to play with. Children cement vocabulary as they describe the action. (Stories Without Words series, Vol. 1 for ages 2 – 6, hard/soft/ebook) 30 illustrations, PremioBooks.com, Walmart .com, iBooks, Kobo, EBSCO, Nook, Smashwords, SCRIBD, ISBN: 978-0985398835
https://www.amazon.com/Polar-Bear-Bowler-Without-Stories-ebook/dp/B00Q0OCRA6

Happy 2018! We start our year out hopping!

Hopping off to a great start of 2018 we hope!  Here is this months winner!

"Cami Kangaroo has too Many Sweets!" written by Stacy C. Bauer and illustrated by Rebecca Sinclair

This looks like a great book for kids to understand what it means to have too many sweets.

I have a weird kid (age now 13) who doesn't really like that many sweets, although he DOES like Cookie Dough Ice Cream...(really, who can blame him).

I hope you get hopping into reading and don't have your kids eat too many sweets!

Until next month! 

Happy Holidays and Happy Reading!

Well, the fact that is now already December came fast this year!  I know I get really (really) busy in the summertime, but boy this year seemed to go very quickly!

We have a winner for the cover contest!

"The Good Night Knight" by Josh Will.  This is actually a Kick Starter Campaign - which you can find here Kick Starter campaign for The Good Night Knight.

I personally love this idea since my husband and I run small Renaissance Festivals here in MA and every time I see a young boy dressed as a Knight, I always (in character) will say "Oh Good night, Knight!" and pretend to fall asleep...:)

Please do go and check it out!

In the meantime, this is my last post for this year!  I certainly hope you all have a lovely holiday (whatever it is you celebrate) and get lots of picture books for your young ones (and some older folks like them too).

I also appreciate all the support! <3 Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

Fall into reading! Our winner for this month!

Wow, is it fall already?  It is here in New England!  I do apologize for not posting during the summer time.  My other live(s) get rather busy with our events we do (we do two events).  In the meantime, I'm working on ideas on how to get my picture book back out on the marketplace (hello research time!).

In the meantime, we have a winner on our Fan page! 

"Einstein & Moo and the Unexpected Visitor" by Jennifer Milius!  You can find this adorable book on http://www.amazon.com at this link https://www.amazon.com/Einstein-Moo-Unexpected-Visitor-Book-ebook/dp/B07443QNKJ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506897412&sr=8-1&keywords=einstein+and+moo

If you love animals and your kids love animals this would be a great book for them.  Or if your kids aren't sure of animals yet but are curious about them, this might be a good introduction of them.

Congratulations!  Keep raking those leaves up!  Hopefully I'll post up again in early November!  Have a safe Halloween and get lots of goodies!  (Ooh, books might be a great treat for the kids this year...)

Hello March (and hopefully Spring soon) & our winner for this month

Hello March! 

Here in New England, it's still a bit cold (okay, today it was FREEZING!), but still, we are seeing some red robins about and also I've been watching "The Brittish Baking" show, so I might be slipping into a bit of an English/Scottish Accent (don't worry, I only try to attempt a phony one when we do our Renaissance Festivals here).

This brings me to our winner for this month.

"A world of Pausabilities" by Dr. Frank Sileo is "An Exerscise in Mindfulness).  Here is the link from Amazon.com - https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=a+world+of+pausibilities.

Most kids don't realize what mindfulness is unless it comes from their parents, and these days it doesn't hurt to have a bit of it with other kids.  Even if it's not my kiddo (and oh last week he got into serious trouble and got caught not once, not twice but THREE times by the School Principal - sigh), I try my best not to parent other kids, but sometimes you can do that in a kindly or polite way without being a jerk.

I know sometimes moms (and dads) have their days with their kiddos that they just can't take the pressure of daily life or even having kids have a breakdown/melt down (which happens at certain ages), it's okay to smile or share a giggle just to break the tension in the air.

I hope this book will help your kids learn about being mindful and look forward to next month!

Our first winner of 2017!

Wow, has it been a few months since I last posted?  Sorry about that, I guess I got a little caught up in all the Holiday stuff (we have two Holidays we celebrate in our house :)).

So with no further ado, we have a new winner of our Art Cover Contest!  It's "Prince Premie"

   

This was submitted by Claudie Lenart (the illustratrator), isn't it precious?  The medium is Wool - which I personally never heard of, but it's really neat!  I believe this author is out of Ontario, Canada!

So, go check this out!  I think your little guys will love it!

Until next month!  Keep reading!

Happy Halloween everyone and Saga of a Princess

Happy Halloween everyone!

Let's keep reading to our kiddos and make sure that they also get books along with candy this Halloween!

This month, we ran another art cover contest and we got a clear winner!

Saga of a Princess by Judith Martin -find out more about this book on her website at http://www.sagaofaprincess.com/

Maybe this will inspire your kids to read!

Until next month my friends, keep reading!

Happy Autumn and our Cover Winner for October!

Hello everyone!

Happy Autumn (well, here in New England it is anyway) along with the crisp weather (and rainy here) I am a little under the weather, and nothing picks up sick kiddos than a great picture book!

We ran another art cover contest this month and we have a winner!

"Princess Jellibean" by Cindi Handley Goodeaux

Princess Jellibean Fan page

Go read to your kiddos!  Hope they are enjoying school - my son just started Middle School!  Yikes!  Right now we're reading "The Wizard Of Oz" and it is SOOOOO much different than the movie!  

Enjoy the fall everyone, I'll be back in November with another winner :)

 

Summer is all gone and School approaches - and another winner for Promoting Picture Books

Sigh, summer is all done.  Kids are heading back to school (if they haven't done so already!).

I had a pretty busy summer myself and there was an issue with my book so, now it is no longer on the shelves (I'm still processing what steps I need to take next, but don't worry, I have other plans for another book and I might re-publish it again even if I have to self publish it).

I've learned so many things about promoting picture books and I'm proud to say that I can help in some small way to promote other folks that work hard to get their works out there.

So, the winner of the September Cover Art contest was this:

Princess Willow and the Magic Fairy Brush

Pretty huh?  I hope you all go check it out and help the kids get ready to go back to school this week!  

Happy Memorial Day - A Search and Find of Every Kind - Rosie Russel

Happy Memorial Day everyone!  I ran another cover art contest, and this was the clear winner -
A Search and Find of Every Kind by Rosie Russell

Her website is here: booksbyrose

I want to wish you all a happy Spring - and to just let you all know now that I will be super busy come July and August (in my other life, we run small Renaissance Faires here in MA).

I hope you search and find a new book for your kids to read today!
 

Birds and sweet books

Ah, the sweet sounds of spring have arrived here in New England with all the birds chirping sweetly around, which brings us to this months winner of the Art Cover Contest:

"I Dreamed I Was a Bird":By Christopher P. Stanley and art by Alex LaVasseur

I wish I was a bird too so I can fly away...into the sunset - this looks like a lovely book- here is the  Amazon link 

I want to thank all of you for your continued support!  :) 

Happy Spring! Ooh Butterflies!

Welcome to Spring!  Ah, we had a pretty good winter here in New England considering.  Last year was much worse, and hopefully I didn't just jinx us by writing it here in the blog.

I do want to thank you all for reading this blog and supporting wonderful picture books that you may or may not have heard of.

I'm all for helping and promoting others that are not in the main stream of media or not a major published book.

Please do know that I have not read any of these books but did want to inform readers about them :)

This month's winner of the art cover contest was a book by Karl Beckstrand : "Butterfly Blink: A Book Without Words"

I hope you check it out!

The Ponds of Wonder

Our winner this month is "The Ponds of Wonder", but of course, there is a story behind the story, and personally, that is my favorite - from the author:

Hi everyone, I'd like to introduce a story I wrote for young readers ages 8-13 called The Ponds of Wonder. A story which had taken root when I was in grade 7 and held a special place in my mind for a good number of years until I finally sat down and fleshed it out back in 2011. I felt it was the right time to do so and had placed a special dedication to my son, Eric, who was born with Mowat Wilson Syndrome and had fought through a number of medical issues in the first five years of his life. He lives with a severe visual impairment and shows me with each passing day the true meaning of being a father.

My wife and I are readjusting our place of residence to suit his needs and one such project will involve a new therapy room for him. Since I also believe in promoting healthy reading habits with the children of today, I would like to offer this story for your consideration. Any proceeds collected from the sale of the digital copy will be going towards helping to fund Eric's therapy room.

Here is the link to Eric's story and where we are today with our fund raiser. It would give me great pleasure to give the gift of reading to other children and, in turn, be able to help my son.

http://classroomideas.wix.com/parentappeal

Thank you in advance.

Brian Abela

Happy New Year (okay a little belated) and our winner for this month!

Hello everyone and Happy (belated) New Year!

I sure hope you are reading and buying picture books for your kids or for kids that might not get a chance to read picture books!

Here is our winner for this month!

These two picture books are really great as they are bi-lingual and give kids a chance to learn Spanish or English (depending on who is reading the books).  I think it also gives young kids a chance to learn another language even if it's not their main language.

A lady I work with informed me her young daughter (age 4) was watching a movie in Italian even though her main language is English and her daughter was just entranced by the movie.  

I personally love watching foreign movies with sub-titles but then my friends who do speak that language always inform me that sometimes the translations are a little incorrect or that the language is so different that the Americanized language of terms can't be translated into another language.  I know for example in my book "Journey to Jazzland" there is a lot of terminology that can't be translated.

Congrats goes to Maritza Martinez Mejia this month!  Well done!

Two more winners before the year ends - Thank you all for the support!

I ran the cover contest on the fan page and we have two winners!

I can't thank you all enough for the tremendous support that you have shown me and I can only hope we grow more in the future!  I hope you all had a lovely holiday and we'll see what next year has in store for us!

Happy ho ho ho and more winners!

Congratulations goes to two authors this month!  (Oops, almost wrote moth but both books have insects in them so I guess that would be alright :)).  We didn't have too many entries this month as unfortunately, our fan page went down for a few days, but no need to fret folks, it is back up and running!

I am so honored to help support these authors and also help promote early children literacy!

Keep reading and Merry Happy HO HO HO to what ever you all celebrate (my family celebrates both Hanukkah and Christmas).

Maybe as a gift, give your kiddos the gift of a picture book!  

Congratulations goes to Cathey Graham Nickell and her book "Arthur Zarr's Amazing Art Car"

I decided to start an cover art contest a few months ago on the fan page, and this month this was the clear winner at 15 likes.

I personally love this idea and want to say thank you to everyone that voted!  I'm sure the author and illustrator appreciate all the support!

I hope you can check it out!  Her website is here!  https://www.catheynickell.com/

Welcome!

My name is Gia and I wrote a picture book called "Journey to Jazzland" back in 2013, which was published.  I have learned that the author must also be responsible for promoting the book.

I realized that with all the promoting I do for our events (Renaissance Festivals here in MA and I also help run other such pages to help promote other performers and merchants http://www.renperfmerch.blogspot.com) that I decided to also create a Facebook page to help promote other picture book authors and illustrators get the word out about the books.

The Facebook page only started last year sometime and already the support has been fabulous!

I've run a contest now and then for cover art work and the response has been really fabulous! promotingpicturebooks fan page is the fan page

Are just some of the winners!!!  And we're running a contest right now!!  The deadline to enter is 10/30/15 so enter it today!!!

This is my website for now, I'll update you all on our winner when it's chosen!