It's Bath Time- Highlights Hello

I received these tiny books! They are the smallest format I have ever illustrated and so darn cute! Pages are really sturdy and since they are so small these books will fit wonderfully in toddlers' hands.

This is my favorite spread. I thought at brushing time, bunny should be brushing ducky too. :o)

Sometimes with board books there is not so much room to tell a parallel story with the illustrations as there is with Picture Books for example. Board books are very straight forward, usually with a few simple and easy to read images that little ones can really recognize. But I find there is always a way to make things interesting for little ones reading the book. I decided to give baby bunny a favorite toy, rubber ducky. So kids can look for ducky on every page, find him and look forward to the next page where they will look for him again.

Another great thing about illustrating books is that sometimes the power of an image can make the text change. For example, on this page, the text initially was "dry everywhere".

I decided instead of have dad dry bunny with a towel like on the left, it would be fun to have bunny shaking his little tail. I mean, what a better way to dry all over and fast right? Hehe.. Plus I just knew kids would really like that page. Luckily Highlights agreed with me, they really loved that illustration and decided to work the text around it.

So, never doubt sending your initial ideas of how you think a book should go. Send them your best possible interpretation of the book. These are sketches and they will go through a lot of eyes in the publishing house and a lot of revisions. People can't really guess what you have in mind. The best way to tell them is to show them your vision.

There is something so especial about creating books for babies. It's a book in it's simplest form. The thought of catching babies' attention and just thinking of baby snuggling with mom/dad looking with wonder at the book... It's a privilege to do this.

It's Bath Time is a delightful little book part of a set of books published by Highlights and goes along beautifully with their new magazine Highlights Hello. :o)

It's Bath Time- Just released!

I worked on this cute little board book a while back and it's out and available now!

It features a very young bunny and his family and it's the perfect book to read with your baby or toddler. :o)

This book is part of a set published by Highlights for Children and it's along the lines of their new Hello Magazine for little ones. You can learn more about these books and order some if you like by clicking here.

Funny Faces: Jannie Ho

Look what the postal carrier delivered today! Special thanks to Jannie Ho who sent along some Welsh copies of her Funny Face pop-up board books. These are too cute for my little ones - and so well designed.
The structure is perfect - big handles and eye holes for kids and grown-ups, fun pop-ups to keep everyone moving, and lovely illustrations - they have the effect of really making you look like the animals, superhero, pirate, etc. Well done, Jannie! You can read more about them on Jannie's blog.

"What I'm working on" week

© copyright Alicia Padrón 2011

Hi there! Continuing with our theme this week I will share a bit of what I'm doing at the moment. I can't name the books or the publishers at this time but I can talk a little about what kind of books they are.

I'm working on 3 books right now. Two of them belong to a new series of baby board books I will be illustrating! I am very excited with those and I'm really having a blast working on them. They are so cute and so much fun to do. I love doing board books for the very little ones. What you see above is a section from an illustration I created but we ended not using this character because the publisher decided to go with a younger baby, so I figured is ok to post it.

The third book I'm working on is a big book, that requires many illustrations and has to do with animals. It's great to get to do animals I usually don't do, like chameleons, cranes and magpies to name a few.

When I find a little free time (which is almost never, hee..) I've been experimenting with a new style. I love the idea of working in more than one style. I think is nice to change from working one way to another and want to be able to offer another style for projects that might call for it. So I'm just experimenting right now. I want this style to feel playful, have a bright color palette and a big bold line defining it as opposed to my usual style that doesn't really have a line showing.

© copyright Alicia Padrón 2011

So, that's it for now. I guess this explains why I sometimes do such short posts, LOL!

Thanks to all for visiting! :o)

And keep visiting this week to hear what our Gina and Deb are up to!

Back to Bed, Ed!

Back to Bed, Ed!

by Sebastien Braun

I have to admit that I was nervous about reviewing a book since this is a first for me. But when I received Back to bed, Ed! I just smiled from ear to ear and all my worries went away. :o)

If you know me, you know I love cute, funny and simple. And this book has got all three!

The illustrator is Sebastien Braun who happens to be one of my favorite illustrators. I have always admired his work. His illustrations are full of sentiment and warmth. The style in which he approached this book however is a style I’ve never seen before. It’s as adorable as his usual work only very graphic and with a bolder line work that I think works perfectly with this book and with the younger audience.

Now Braun is not only the illustrator but the author as well. The story is about a cute little mouse named Ed who loves going to bed but hates staying in bed.

This is a very popular subject among many parents out there. We’ve all gone through this at one time or another with our kids. The way Sebastien approaches this topic is very sweet and funny and more importantly entertaining for kids. Children will relate not only to the storyline of being afraid to stay in their rooms alone at night, but also to all the small details in the illustrations. They will love the different sound-describing-words repeated throughout the book too. Reading this book out loud is fun!

You can see an example of the humor I was referring to in this illustration:

How does Ed solve his problem and manages to happily sleep in bed at night all by himself? Well, you are going to have to read the book. I can’t say that or I’ll spoil all the fun.

Back to Bed, Ed! is a simple, funny and sweet book. The perfect book to read to your kid before bed specially if your kid is the type that knocks on your door... a lot. :o)

Remember to leave a comment, as many times as you like, during this week in order to participate in the giveaway.

You can visit Peachtree blog for more information www.peachtreepub.blogspot.com

Big Book, Little Book, Itty Bitty Teeny Tiny Book.

I may not be putting pencil to paper for my own book these days, but I'm thinking about the final size of it as a much bigger component than I had before. How much do you consider size when working on a dummy? How often do you think about the size of books?

Last year I noticed a few oversize board books at our Barnes & Noble. A gigantic version of Freight Train had me tweeting 'Why?' My son has the 'normal' size book and it seemed just right. Since then, we've acquired a few books bigger and smaller than what I assumed was the average sized board book.

Now that my son is mobile, the giant Moo Baa La La La seem to stop him from a distance, just catching his attention as he toddles along. He'll play while standing at the couch, but so far he doesn't seem interested in flipping the pages in these behemoths. It's just too heavy. So I'm starting to see the value a bit, but I still find myself asking, Why? Is this size appealing for daycare centers, so workers can read to a group of toddlers without worrying about tearing of delicate pages? Will it be interesting to him when he's actually big enough to carry it, or will he prefer picture books? Is this targeted at reluctant readers, who want to feel BIG but can't sit for a more complex story? Or is it just another way to try and make money for the publishers? Not that I'm against it, but I feel like books should be the right size, for the right age and child.

The average sized board book has been our mainstay. Whether square or horizontal, it serves us well for laptime, wandering, stacking, flipping, grabbing, and loving. We prefer the native board books, not those picture books that have been shrunk down, although a few of those seem to work just as well (I Kissed the Baby comes to mind). Hanukkah Lights is no longer seasonal, but that hasn't stopped us from reading it often. It's a perfect first Melissa Sweet book, don't you think?

And last, but not least... the tiny book. Oh, how we loved this little apple-shaped book when we checked it out of the library! That's why its my pick for this month (see sidebar). I'm still thinking about tracking it down to buy, that's how much we miss it. It just fits in his little hands. It's light enough to carry everywhere - and really it got carried everywhere. And the illustrations inside charmed us over and over. Richard Scarry is timeless, even if some of the vehicles are a bit dated (a metal toothpaste car, and actual jar of yogurt as the yogurt car, etc.). I definitely understand the value in such a dear little object, especially with the scale and detail in the illustrations on white. I checked out a big picture book of Richard Scarry's and it just didn't have the same appeal - for either of us actually.

So what do you think, dear readers? Big, Little, Teeny - or all of the above?