Eric Van Raepenbusch's Blog Posts Tagged 'February' (11)

Last September 2012, we took our first real vacation as a family of six -- of course, it had to involve books. We rented a bigger van, enlisted the help of Grandma, and traveled from Ohio to Washington D.C. for theNational Book Festival. We enjoyed seeing the sites, spending time with people who love reading, and listening to authors read their latest books. My daughter's favorite thing was getting autographs. Upon returning home, we had a stack of…

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I can't take complete credit for this birthday post.  My daughter turned my simple idea for an activity into something really special for her great-grandparents.  In fact, this wasn't the only time this week that I was impressed by the ideas of children.  I was lucky enough to have a few children check out one of my current book projects.  Their ideas helped me make a few key changes to my illustrations which really improved those pages.  I find the creativity and thoughtfulness of children…

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Happy Valentine's Day! My children are beyond excited to have a party at school and to pass out their Valentine's Day cards to their friends.  We added a some extra fun to Valentine's Day this year by celebrating Phyllis Root's birthday with many great books and some creative cookie baking.



Phyllis Root is the author of over thirty books for children including many …

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Imagine a stack of one million books.  Now imagine that they are all the same book. (For my friends in the 12 x 12 Writing Challenge, just for fun, imagine the book as a published form of one of your own manuscripts. Ahhhh.......OK! Back to reality!)  Actually, the enormous stack of books you are imagining isImogene's Antlers by David Small. It has sold over 1,000,000 copies since 1985…

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There are various levels of planning that go into each of my birthday celebrations -- traveling to multiple libraries, reading numerous books to my children to find the book that "pops", thinking of an activity to bring the book to life, and so on.  My approach to developing a blog post is in stark contrast to how Stephen Gammell creates a book. A friend once told him that his illustrations"looked like they just happened before you turned the page."  He responded by saying,



"That…

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"I remember when we celebrated Walter Wick's birthday last year," my daughter said when I was pulling his Can You See What I See?books from the library shelf.  Last year, we learned about the important photograph that Walter Wick took of odds and ends that lead to his collaboration with Jean Marzollo on theiSpy Series. The… Continue

If you were to ask my children to list their favorite things to do it would probably go a little like this:



1. Go to Grandma's House.

2. Have Grandma come to our house.

3. Go to a restaurant with Grandma.

4. Play with Grandma.

5. Mario Kart for Wii! (I am a big fan too!)



My children are lucky to have two Grandmas (plus a Great-Grandma, can't forget her) that are active in their lives.  One Grandma lives real close and the other two live somewhat close, so we… Continue

There are over 300 books by Jane Yolen to choose from to read with your family this week!  I easily filled a whole bag on my trip to the library. There are picture books, easy readers , graphic… Continue

"It takes a long time for a character to become who they are," said Mo Willems, the creator the Pigeon, Trixie and Knuffle Bunny, and Leonardo the Terrible Monster. "While I am working on a book with one set of characters. I am thinking about and doodling another set." With these wonderful characters Mo Willems has been awarded three Caldecott Honors (Don't Let Pigeon Drive the Bus 2004, Knuffle Bunny 2005, Knuffle Bunny Too 2008). More recently, he has received three … Continue

How do I read a "wordless" storybook to my children?  Then, if I figure that out, will they even like a storybook without words?  Historically, I have avoided these questions by quickly placing this type of book back on the library shelf.  Even as a teacher, I wasn't willing to buy into the hype that wordless books are great for reluctant readers and writers. It was time to "experiment," as I told my children, with wordless books as we celebrated David Wiesner's birthday this… Continue

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