author/illustrator interviews

Indie Artist Spotlight: Robyn Hood Black of artsyletters (+ a giveaway!)

~ jama ~ 57 Comments

Today I’m especially delighted to welcome back author, poet, artist and dear online friend Robyn Hood Black. You may remember her last visit as a Poetry Potluck guest several years ago, when she shared a spooky poem and one of her gorgeous relief prints.

That was an especially noteworthy visit, because she also brought along a batch of her favorite Jam Bars, which she aptly renamed “Oatmeal Jama Bars.” 🙂 Naturally Mr. Cornelius and I decided on the spot that they should become the “Official Alphabet Soup Cookie.”

In the years since, we’ve not only continued to marvel at Robyn’s literary achievements (her work has been published in several more anthologies, prominent haiku journals, and most recently in Lee Bennett Hopkins’s Lullaby and Kisses Sweet), but also her artistic ones.

Scrabble Tile Magnets

Vintage Illuminated Letter T Under Glass Cabochon Pendant Necklace

If you like letters, words, books, and reading (all of us, yes?), then you’ll love Robyn’s Etsy shop artsyletters. There, she sells wonderful prints, cards, typewriter key jewelry, mixed media collages and other gift items with a cool vintage vibe.

A girl after my own heart, she has a keen eye for found objects (scrabble tiles, skeleton keys, metal letters, watch parts, text from antique books), and beautifully accentuates them with her pen-and-ink drawings, calligraphy, and relief prints.

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[Review and Author Chat] Samantha R. Vamos on Alphabet Trains

~ jama ~ 44 Comments

#52 in an ongoing series of posts celebrating the alphabet.

 

Tear the ticket.
Load the freight.
Sound the whistle.
Raise the gate.

Clank! Chug-chug! Whoosh!

Alphabet trains.

 

Art © 2015 Ryan O’Rourke

All Aboard, Letter-lovin’ Railroad Buffs!

Author Samantha R. Vamos is here to tell us all about her clickety-clack-cool new rhyming picture book Alphabet Trains (Charlesbridge, 2015)!

Not too long ago, we had so much fun cruising and vrooming through Alphabet Trucks (Charlesbridge, 2013), that we were pretty excited when this shiny new book hit the rails.

Since I’m especially fond of trains (blame it on the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” and the fact that I met my husband in London while he was designing a railroad in Algeria), I was anxious to ask Samantha a few questions about writing and researching this 26-track gem.

 

A is for Auto Train,
Load your car on the rack.

B is for bullet train —
high speed on welded track.

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[Author and Illustrator Chat + Giveaway] Eat Your U.S. History Homework by Ann McCallum and Leeza Hernandez

~ jama ~ 47 Comments

Huzzah, Fine Friends, Huzzah!

Put on your deerskin skirts and mantles, your finest waistcoats and breeches, your linen aprons, your three-cornered cocked hats and buckle shoes.

‘Tis a banner day for those of us who like to eat our homework. 🙂 Yes, the third book in the popular Eat Your Homework series by Ann McCallum and Leeza Hernandez officially hits shelves today!!

You may remember how these clever, ravenous ladies tessellated our taste buds (Eat Your Math Homework: Recipes for Hungry Minds (2011)) and cooked up culinary magic in the kitchen lab (Eat Your Science Homework: Recipes for Inquiring Minds (2014)). With their lip smacking recipes, easy-to-digest info and fetching illustrations, these books quelled math phobia and demonstrated scientific principles at work in our everyday lives.

And now, with Eat Your U.S. History Homework: Recipes for Revolutionary Minds (Charlesbridge, 2015), Ann and Leeza serve up six chewy slices of America’s early history by highlighting events and food from 1620 – 1789. That would be from the time the Pilgrims landed in America till George Washington became our first President. 🙂

Wrap your lips around some Thanksgiving Succotash while reading about the arrival of the Pilgrims and how the Wampanoag people taught them to hunt and grow food in the New World. Sweeten your understanding of the thirteen original colonies while getting down with some Colonial Cherry-Berry Grunt. Nosh on Lost Bread while considering what was behind the French and Indian War.

No lesson on slavery and Southern plantation culture would be complete without a tall stack of Hoe Cakes, and when there are rumblings of discontent about unfair British taxation and 45 tons of tea get dumped into Boston Harbor, you’ll want to fortify yourself by joining the patriots for coffee and Honey-Jumble Cookies in the taverns where they’re making big plans. Finally, when it’s time for full-out war and signing the Declaration of Independence, nothing better to get you riled up than an Independence Ice Cream food fight!

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[Review, Author Chat + Giveaway] Pat Zietlow Miller on Sharing the Bread: An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving Story

~ jama ~ 74 Comments

What’s your favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner?

Is it that steamy mound of creamy mashed potatoes, begging for a generous splash of savory gravy? Grandma’s candied sweet potatoes or Aunt Beverley’s green bean casserole? Maybe for you it’s all about the turkey itself with its golden brown crispy skin — moist when you slice into it, even better with cornbread stuffing and fresh cranberry sauce. Can’t forget the pies — homemade pumpkin or apple? Yes, please!

Safe to say, this traditional holiday meal wouldn’t be quite as delicious without all the sharing — the sharing of cooking, baking, and serving tasks, and of course, having family and friends sitting around the table to devour every last bite.

Pat Zietlow Miller’s delectable new picture book, Sharing the Bread: An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving Story (Schwartz & Wade, 2015), invites us to step back into the 19th century to feast with a lively family of 10:

Mama, fetch the cooking pot.
Fetch our turkey-cooking pot.
Big and old and black and squat.
Mama, fetch the pot.

An enthusiastic young boy coaches each member of his family on a specific task: Mama prepares the turkey, Daddy tends the fire, Sister kneads the dough, Brother bastes the turkey, Grandpa boils the cranberries, Grandma bakes pumpkin pie, Auntie mashes potatoes, Uncle pours cider, and even Baby’s got a job — to “be a sleeping mouse.” With his brother and sister, the boy also makes paper pilgrim hat placemats, and when all is finally done, he calls everyone to the table. Yum!

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[Review and Author Chat] Jorge Argueta on Olita y Manyula: The Big Birthday/El gran cumpleaños

~ jama ~ 16 Comments

Look who’s here! 🙂

By now, most of you know I’m a big Jorge Argueta fan. I’ve previously featured four titles from his fabulous bilingual Cooking Poem Series here at Alphabet Soup: Rice Pudding/Arroz con leche (2010), Guacamole (2012), Tamalitos (2013), and most recently, Salsa (March 2015), all published by Groundwood Books.

Today, Jorge is here to talk about Olita y Manyula: The Big Birthday/El gran compleaños (Luna’s Press Books, 2015), a new bilingual picture book that represents yet another milestone in his esteemed literary career as author, poet, publisher and bookstore owner — a semi-autobiographical story that’s especially close to his heart.

Since founding Luna’s Press about 20 years ago, Jorge has published a number of chapbooks by San Francisco poets, but Olita y Manyula is the press’s first children’s book. This charming story features a young girl named Holly (Olita) who travels from the U.S. to visit friends and family in El Salvador. Once there, her aunt, cousin, and two friends excitedly escort her to a special birthday party for Manyula, whose house is within walking distance.

On the way, they stroll through the San Jacinto neighborhood with its colorful painted houses under the “tik-tik, tok-tok” of warm, intermittent rain, laughing and jumping in mud puddles. Rather than divulge any details about Manyula’s identity, the boys instead focus on pointing out several notable landmarks en route (the San Salvador volcano, beautiful Alcehuate River, a cement statue resembling a big handkerchief).

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