children's book illustration

Alison Friend’s Adorable Animal Portraits

~ jama ~ 6 Comments

Awwww . . . will you just look at that face? Who could resist a dog who loves sausages? If he came to my house, I’d served him bangers and mash for breakfast, toad in the hole for lunch, and a mixed platter of bratwurst, chorizo, and Cumberland for supper. I hope he likes me just as much as I like him. 🙂

British artist and illustrator Alison Friend.

Our sausage loving friend was created by UK artist Alison Friend (perfect name). You may know her as the illustrator of over 20 children’s books (Bramble and Maggie series, Making a Friend (Tammi Sauer), Bear’s Book (Claire Freedman), Mr. Brown’s Bad Day (Lou Peacock)).

I first saw her art on greeting cards she designed for the publisher Two Bad Mice, which preceded her picture book work. Painting animal portraits was a natural progression from creating anthropomorphic characters for children’s stories. She’s a lifelong animal lover and began drawing in childhood.

First greeting card I saw featuring Alison’s art.

Born in l973, Alison graduated with a degree in Fine Art and Printmaking from Nottingham Trent University in England. She was also the first female stonemason for the City of Nottingham. She currently lives in the Lake District.

Her animal paintings blend realism with humor. She’s brilliant at capturing facial expressions and conveying the emotions of her subjects. Check out the cheeky grins, side eyes, mischievousness, surprise, innocence, and earnestness. The longing gazes and overall adorableness melt the heart. So much personality! It’s amazing how endearing these animals are; people connect with them right away.

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[chat + giveaway] Emma Bland Smith on The Fabulous Fannie Farmer

~ jama ~ 32 Comments

Today we’re happy to welcome San Francisco author Emma Bland Smith to discuss her latest picture book, The Fabulous Fannie Farmer: Kitchen Scientist and America’s Cook (Calkins Creek, 2024). Charmingly illustrated by Susan Reagan, this engaging, well researched account of Fannie’s professional life as an author, culinary expert and teacher officially hits shelves today and will inspire you to whip up one of Fannie’s recipes. 🙂

Even if you’re unfamiliar with the Fannie Farmer Cookbook (initially published as The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book in 1896), Fannie’s lasting contribution of standardized level measurements is likely part and parcel of your cooking and baking regime. Yes, we have Fannie to thank every time we level off a cup of flour or sugar with a butter knife before adding it to the mixing bowl.

Fannie’s precise, comprehensive recipe instructions included scientific explanations of the chemical processes that occurred in food during cooking, taking away the guesswork and ensuring consistent results.

So who was this woman who revolutionized home cooking, making it accessible to everyone? How did her can-do spirit enable her to pursue her passion for the culinary arts — even opening her own cooking school — after being sidelined from a college education due to polio-related partial paralysis?

And how many can say that their cookbook remains in print 100+ years after it was first published, having sold more than 7 million copies to date?

I know you’ll enjoy hearing lots more from Emma. We thank her for sharing her insights and so many wonderful photos!

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[festive review + recipe] Paddington’s Christmas Post by Michael Bond and R.W. Alley (+ a holiday blog break)

~ jama ~ 18 Comments

Remember how exciting it was to receive snail mail when you were little? Well, the 70-something resident Paddingtons are over the moon because recently somebear sent them a very special holiday book. Let the merrymaking begin! 🙂

Paddington’s Christmas Post, based on the original stories by Michael Bond and illustrated by R.W. Alley (HarperCollins UK, 2022), is a fun and festive interactive novelty picture book and a companion to Paddington’s Post (2019). It contains five envelopes for eager munchkins to open, as they read about Paddington doing his beary best to help the Browns get ready for Christmas.

As the story opens, Paddington hurries over to Portobello Market to see all the wonderful Christmas decorations and visit Mr Gruber. Over a steaming mug of cocoa, Paddington sadly tells him that he doesn’t have enough money to buy special Christmas gifts, even though he’d been saving up.

Wise Mr Gruber reminds him that there’s a lot of truth in the old saying, “It’s the thought that counts.” This gives Paddington a great idea.

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a delicious bite of Cookie Queen by Kathleen King, Lowey Bundy Sichol, and Ramona Kaulitzki

~ jama ~ 15 Comments

How do you like your chocolate chip cookies? Soft and chewy or thin and crispy? In all my years of cookie baking, I’ve strived for thin and crispy with only moderate success. Granted, all homemade chocolate chip cookies are good when they’re warm from the oven (hello, gooey melty chocolate and buttery crumb). The true test, however, is after they’ve cooled.

All I can say is thank goodness for Tate’s Bake Shop®️. We always have a bag or two or three of their Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies in the house. In fact, we prefer them over their original Chocolate Chip. Thin and buttery with just the right crunch, they taste homemade.

I first “discovered” them after googling “Best Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies” about ten years ago. Tate’s was the hands down favorite, or else was included in the top five on most lists. So we tried a bag and have never looked back.

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[one review] One Perfect Plan by Nancy Tupper Ling and Alina Chau

~ jama ~ 13 Comments

When I was eleven my parents gave me a Bible for Christmas. It had a white faux leather cover with “Holy Bible: Concordance” printed in gold on the front.

Although I was too young to fully comprehend its significance to the civilized world, I knew I held in my hands a precious, sacred book, one that contained marvelous stories of mankind and miracles, fish and forbidden fruit, Jesus’s birth and resurrection. I also noted that the Bible seemed to be a book people often quoted from but didn’t necessarily read cover to cover.

If only there had been a picture book like One Perfect Plan: The Bible’s Big Story in Tiny Poems by Nancy Tupper Ling and Alina Chau (WaterBrook, 2023) to help me figure out how to approach such an intimidating tome! I would have had a beautifully illustrated lyrical roadmap of sorts — an appealing introduction to some of the best stories told within the context of the Bible’s larger message.

In One Perfect Plan, Nancy Tupper Ling accomplishes the daunting task of distilling the essence of beloved Bible stories from the Old and New Testaments in luminous rhyming couplets, all beginning with the word “One.” “One garden” for the garden of Eden, “One drop” for the great flood, “One stone” for the story of David and Goliath, and so on. A scriptural reference follows each poem.

The book opens with the Creation story from Genesis I, setting a dramatic tone:

One word --
then light breaks into darkness;
the sky, the seas, and life -- how wondrous!
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