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by Charles Ghigna, aka Father Goose
We are excited to have Tara Lazar host our cover reveal today. Thank you!
A POEM IS A FIREFLY was truly a joy to create! I wanted to introduce the magic and wonder of poetry to young readers in a new and exciting way. My mission was to show children that poetry lives all around them, especially in nature. All they have to do is stop and look around. What better way to introduce children to the marvels of poetry than to have a friendly bunch of woodland animals gather in a forest clearing to answer the question, “What is a poem?” Of course, I wanted each character to show their answer in a metaphor, along with a catchy rhyme. What an exciting challenge that was! I only hope children and their parents have nearly as much fun reading A POEM IS A FIREFLY as I did in writing it.
It was also a pleasure for me to see our story and characters come to life in Michelle Hazelwood Hyde’s lovable illustrations. She captures such joy and whimsy in every scene, in the personality of each character. Children will have fun discovering their favorites, from the the cuddly bear on the cover to the big friendly moose who playfully wanders in and out of each scene from the early morning sunrise to the early evening when the firefly comes out to play.
And now, let’s hear from the talented illustrator, Michelle Hazelwood Hyde!
My absolute favorite moment of summer is when the fireflies begin to come out. I remember as a little girl catching them with my brother, sister, and cousins. It was so pure and magical. It still is to me. So when I was invited to illustrate the manuscript A POEM IS A FIREFLY, it was a dream come true. I am so grateful to get the opportunity to recreate those innocent moments of my childhood through the eyes of a series of playful animals. I hope the cover takes you to a peaceful summer evening, with all the wonderful shades of blues and greens, and that magic moment you spot your first firefly. At that moment if feels like anything is possible. It truly is.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful cover and story behind the story, Charles and Michelle!
A POEM IS A FIREFLY releases on May 28, 2021 from Schiffer Kids and is available for pre-order now.
As a thank you for visiting the cover reveal today, Charles is giving away a paperback copy of his book ILLUSIONS: Poetry and Art for the Young at Heart.
Leave one comment to enter.
A winner will be randomly selected soon.
Good luck!
Today we’re revealing the cover for ONCE UPON ANOTHER TIME, illustrated in bright, bold colors and soft edges by Andrés F. Landazábal. It immediately takes me back to another time in picture books! The tale, co-written by Charles Ghigna (a.k.a. Father Goose) and Matt Forrest Esenwine, came to be via a blog post and a subsequent comment. Let’s have the authors share the story behind the story…
CHARLES: The genesis for this book began when I posted the first 9 pages of the manuscript on my Father Goose blog, along with a summary of the entire picture book. Here’s a link to my original blog post. Matt responded with 4 stanzas and some great ideas for the narrative. I was surprised how compatible our styles were and how easily our ideas fit together. I began submitting the finished manuscript about the same time Matt did. I submitted it to Beaming Books via Submittable and he submitted it via #PBPitch, a Twitter event that connects picture book authors with editors and agents. And it worked! Beaming Books picked it up! Matt and I were thrilled with our editor’s choice of illustrator, Andrés F. Landazábal, whose colorful style perfectly captures the lyricism of the text.
MATT: Bouncing manuscripts back and forth was actually very educational for both of us, seeing what each other thought of the other’s writing, as well as discovering new perspectives and ways of describing things. And by the way, tenacity was the name of the game with this book: the manuscript went through nearly 15 revisions and more than 25 different publishing houses before our editor at Beaming Books told us she loved it and wanted to buy it! Even with Father Goose’s name attached to the project, it took an awful lot of persistence and positive energy to get our book to this point! I’m not only thrilled about the illustrations, I’m also thrilled that I got to write a book with my friend, Father Goose himself, the inimitable Charles Ghigna! Seeing our names together on the cover is a real treat.
The illustrations are a real treat, too! Thanks, Charles, Matt and Andrés!
ONCE UPON ANOTHER TIME will be released by Beaming Books on August 18, 2020.
Charles Ghigna – Father Goose® lives in a tree house in the middle of Alabama. He is the author of more than 100 award-winning books from Random House, Disney, Hyperion, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, Abrams, Charlesbridge, Capstone and Orca. His poems appear in magazines from The New Yorker and Harper’s to Cricket and Highlights for Children. For more information, please visit: FatherGoose.com.
Matt Forrest Esenwine has published nearly 30 children’s poems in anthologies like The National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry (N.G. Children’s Books, 2015) and Construction People (Wordsong, 2020), as well as Highlights for Children magazine. His nationally-acclaimed picture book, Flashlight Night (Boyds Mills Press, 2017) was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the Best Picture Books of 2017. More information is at MattForrest.com.
Andrés F. Landazábal is an illustrator and art director based in Colombia. His work has appeared in animation films, tv shows and print companies. Andrés’ love for drawing and painting was instilled at a young age reading classic illustrated children’s books. He is represented by The Bright Agency.
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 