Author of over 400 Books for Children and Adults
The second of four music books I did for Boyds Mills. Adam was wonderful to work with, shipping me off the simple arrangements which I then played on the piano. We figured if I could sight read them, ANYONE could! I picked the songs, wrote the historical notes. Adam did all the musical arrangements.
Pat Gauch at Philomel wanted me to write a follow-up book for John Schoenherr after our success with OWL MOON. I wrote this book in the first person hoping it had the same tone. Perspicacious readers will note that the book is not illustrated by Schoenherr (he was already at work on a goose book)
I am a cat person. My husband is a dog person. We’ve owned both and so these poems are from experience! And no–there is no mistake. Half the book is upside down so you can start from either end, depending upon whether you prefer cats or dogs. Janet Street’s uproarious pictures are right on beat!
More than fifty weather related poems from poets as various as Carl Sandberg, Robert Frost, Eve Merriam, Lilian Moore, Ralph Fletcher, Emily Dickinson and four new poems by me, too. My poems are “Weather Report” (which has been quoted by local weather men on tv), “An Awkward Arrangement”
This is a book of poems all about the moon. Ruth’s warm and loving illustrations are a real highlight of the book. (See “Old Dame Counterpane” for more about her work.) A few of the poems were reprints, but most are original to this book.
The editor at Owens, a small educational publisher, asked me if I’d like to write a picture book autobiography for a newly created line of photo books. I said only if my son Jason, a professional photographer, could do the photos. She agreed readily, loved his work, and so Jason’s first book was published.
This is the story of Columbus’ landing in the Americas, as told by a boy of the Taino people who already lived there. The 500th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage was coming up, and my Harcourt editor of the time–Bonnie Ingber–suggested such a book was needed. I thought a Taino should write it.
Eeny and her sisters are moles, but the older two are conservative and nervous. Eeny is a young adventurer. Someone once described this book as “Beatrix Potter with a kink!” I’d tried writing this story in rhyme: “Once at the bottom of a deep, dark hole lived Eeny and Meeny and little Miney Mole.”
It took about eight months to track down the jump rope and ball bouncing and counting out rhymes for this picture book. Some I found in books and some I got from my husband’s international students and colleagues. I wanted the rhymes in both English and in their original or transliterated voices.
The first of four music books I did for Boyds Mills. Adam was wonderful to work with, shipping me off the simple arrangements which I then played on the piano. We figured if I could sight read them, ANYONE could! Many were Mother Goose songs I’d taught him when he was a child. I picked the songs, wrote the historical notes.