A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by the Mount Horeb Mail newspaper and they ran a detailed article today on Learn As You Grow and the process of writing and publishing God Loves You So Much.

We covered substantial ground during the interview and that shows in the article. It is interesting to see the information they thought would interest their readers and the content from the interview left out of the article.

Very exciting times at Learn As You Grow.

Thanks Gary!

As some of you may know, today was Dr. Seuss’ birthday. As one of the great children’s book authors of all time, he really transformed the language and stories presented to children. 

My son’s first grade class had a read-a-thon today partially in celebration of Dr. Seuss’ big day. There were guest readers, kids reading to kids, and quiet reading time as well. They only stopped for lunch, recesses, and art!

What a great way to celebrate a wonderful children’s book author and further promote literacy in the schools and community.

Very cool!

We have been mapping out concepts to include in our next book and would love to have your input.

The initial list of learning concepts we are considering includes:

1.) Celestial body identification – Earth, Moon, Sun, Stars
2.) Animal names
3.) Foods for animals
4.) Letters of the alphabet
5.) Friends and Family
6.) Opposites
7.) Counting
8.) Colors
9.) Places to go

What do you think? Are there additional concepts you would like to see included?

Feel free to comment to this post or visit the discussion on our Facebook page here.

A few more interesting apps based on popular children’s books were released this week.

“The Berenstain Bears Do Their Best” released on January 13th and costs $2.99. The app includes a rhyming story of Papa Bear helping Brother and Sister Bear make a kite, which is based on the book by Stan and Jan Berenstain, which Zonderkidz published last year. There are some nice early literacy features including words being highlighted as the story is read and the ability to zoom words by touching them.

 In addition, “Little Critter’s The New Baby” released the same day.

I had no idea that Eric Carle founded a museum of picture book art in Amherst, Massachusetts. Did you?

It sounds like there are several exhibits – some displaying Eric Carle’s art and others highlight the work of other artists and authors.

The museum sounds extremely interesting and more information is available at  http://www.carlemuseum.org. 

There is even a virtual tour available at http://www.carlemuseum.org/Visit/Virtual_Tour. 

Publishers Weekly  recently posted about a new app starring characters from the Clifford children’s book series.

The app is titled ”Go, Clifford, Go!” and retails for $4.99. As you may suspect, it is based on the book series by Norman Bridwell. It is amazing that there are more than 126 million books in print from the Clifford series.

One of my favorite books is coming to the stage. Unfortunately, it is in Louisiana.

Jefferson Performing Arts Society’s Theatre For Young Audiences is presenting a “Goodnight Moon” musical. If you are in the area, the shows are Jan. 14 through 30 on Friday nights and Saturday & Sunday afternoons.

The Friday night performances should be especially fun. Attendees are invited to come dressed in their favorite pajamas and get free milk and cookies at intermission.

Road trip anyone?

A recent article in the NY Times titled Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children has caused quite a stir in the children’s book community. The article basically discussed the slow sales of picture, but there seems to be some disagreement on the meaning of the article.

However, I think Laura from the Children’s Writing Web Journal summed it up quite well in a recent post. She highlights three reasons for the decrease in picture book sales:

1.  The economy – Picture books are expensive to produce, and expensive to buy.
2.  The booming young adult market – Publishers and booksellers go where the money is: YA. That’s just a fact of the business when you have finite dollars and shelf space.
3. Parents – To me, this is the most alarming reason. Parents are pushing their children to read at an earlier age, moving kids as young as four years old from picture books to chapter books.

I agree with her that the third item is alarming and may require some education for the parents. As she states, “Picture book plots are far more complex than easy readers, and their vocabulary and sentence structure is close to that of chapter books. Kids are learning from these books, and not getting stressed out in the process.” Plus, picture books are just fun to read.

I hope you don’t give up on them…I know I won’t.

Publishers Weekly just posted the auction results for the original artwork from Charlotte’s Web.

The cover art went for $155,350, which was triple the pre-sale estimate. The “Terrific” picture of Wilbur brought in over $95,000. In total, the collection sold for $780,245.

Now that’s what I call ‘bringing home the bacon’…sorry, I couldn’t resist.

 Oceanhouse Media  recently announced a partnership with Zondervan resulting in three Berenstain Bears interactive e-books for the iPad.

Previously, Oceanhouse released Dr. Seuss e-book apps and the Berenstain Bears apps follow the same format.

The first titles released through the agreement are The Berenstain Bears Say Their Prayers, The Berenstain Bears Go To Sunday School and The Berenstain Bears And The Golden Rule.

They are available in the app store now for $2.99.