It took about eight months to track down the lullaby rhymes for this picture book. Some I got from books, others from my husband’s graduate students and international colleagues. I wanted the rhymes in
How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?
Bonnie Verberg, who had been my editor at Harcourt and then again when she moved to Scholastic, had a baby boy. When he was a year old she called and said, “My little boy hates going to bed
Color Me a Rhyme
I was helping Jason sort and file his slides at his house in Colorado one visit, and realized what astonishing shots he had of single colors in nature–yellow flowers, brown wrinkled sand, punky pink thistles, etc.
Where Have the Unicorns Gone?
I love unicorns. But the overly saccharine, My-Little-Pony unicorns that seem to be everywhere don’t appeal to me at all. I like my unicorns with muscle and tone. Ruth Sanderson unicorns! I began this book with
Harvest Home
There is an old English hymn called “Harvest Home” which I love, and autumn–with its gathering-in–is my favorite time of year. So when I heard the line repeating in my head, “Bringing the harvest home…” I knew there was a poem to be written.
Off We Go!
A bouncy rhyme for the littlest book lovers, with onomatopoeic words, that take a little mouse, duck, frog, mole, snake, spider, and duck off to their grandmothers’ houses. I began this book when
Moonball
Both my boys played Little League and were fine players. But my heart always went out to the whiffers, the kids who just couldn’t play very well. Everyone–even their own parents–seemed to be down on them. So this
Merlin and the Dragons (book)
This book began first as a script for a short animated film. Only five years later did it finally become a book. Part of my Arthurian obsession (I have written a number of books about King Arthur, though this is the only
Snow, Snow
Jason lives in Colorado where it snows a lot. So he has taken a lot of stunning pictures of snow over the years. I culled these, chose about fifteen for writing poems about, and then other photos that I loved but couldn’t
House, House
We live in a small New England town in western Massachusetts. When we moved in, the Town Clerk gave us an old black and white photo of our house from the 1910s. It was by the Howes Brothers, turn of the century