How Characters Are Created - From Idea to Full Illustration

Most children's book editors will tell you that when they read a manuscript for the first time, they are always thinking about the potential illustrations. Which lines will go in the spread? What action will be illustrated? How can the illustrations and the text work together? What will the characters look like? What style of illustrations do we want?

All of these questions, and more, run through our minds when we are working on a new picture book, but the last two are especially important early on. Many people might not realize that characters can go through many phases before they become what ultimately ends up in the book. And that is exactly what happened with one of our new picture books, Monster Needs a Costume by Paul Czajak, which will be the first in a new series called Monster + Me and is being published this fall by Scarletta Kids. It's an adorable rhyming story about a monster who keeps changing his mind about what to dress up as for Halloween. Ultimately he learns that a little creativity and boldness makes for the best costume of the night. Obviously, that fun and creativity needed to come across in the illustrations as well, and over the last month, we have been working with our wonderful illustrator, Wendy Grieb, to come up with the perfect look for Monster and the little boy who takes care of him.

We can't talk enough about how great of an illustrator Wendy is. Right away she had a ton of ideas for Monster, and sent us countless sketches. Here are a few of them:

We always knew from the text that Monster is big. He has an innocence about him, but he's definitely huge and has a significant presence in the room. So the one highlighted above seemed closest to what we were after: burly and big, but friendly. Working off of that description, we got to these (aren't they cute?):

A Preview of What's to Come: 2013 Books

New years are a time for new resolutions, new beginnings, new relationships, new... everything. For us, 2013 is going to be an exciting year. After all, this past year was full of exciting changes for us, including a new website, new logos, new staff members, and new imprints. This year, as we may have mentioned before, we are expanding our list and publishing more titles than we ever have. And instead of keeping it all to ourselves, we thought we'd share a bit about what's coming out soon and what we're working on for later in the year. Take a look and let us know which one you're most excited about!

SPRING 2013

Nalah and the Pink Tiger (March 12)
By Anne Sawyer-Aitch



Nalah and the Pink Tiger is about a rambunctious little girl who lives so intensely in her imagination that grown-ups view her as a troublemaker. Things come to a head when, in addition to all the exotic animals that Nalah has “placed” in the house, a pink tiger “follows” her home from the zoo and creates havoc. 

Nalah and the Pink Tiger also takes the form of a puppet show put on by the author/illustrator in both English and Spanish versions.

Find out more from the book's website, download the app, or keep up to date by liking the Facebook page. 







A Day at the Lake (March 20)
by Stephanie Wallingford and Dawn Rynders, illustrated by Erica Pelton Villnave 



Flippity flop and splash your way through this colorful trip to the lake. Jump in with your senses and play with rhymes as you experience the waves, the boats, and the many animals. This cheery book follows three children as they enjoy the simple pleasures and rare glimpses that nature offers us around the lake.

A Day at the Lake is told using all five senses, and teaches children vowels and sound effects. Contemporary, large, and brightly colored illustrations bring this story to life. Simple, short text leaves much to the reader's imagination as they experience their own day at the lake.

Like the book's Facebook page for all sorts of lake facts and fun!











Betsy's Day at the Game (April 9)
by Greg Bancroft, illustrated by Katherine Blackmore



Betsy loves hanging out with her grandfather, especially at the ballpark. Today is another game day, and Betsy is ready to show her grandpa all she's learned about keeping score. Best of all, some exciting things are about to happen at today's game. As the anticipation builds, Betsy keeps track of it all—foul balls, home runs, and favorite players.

This heartwarming story about a family tradition and America's favorite pastime includes a fully illustrated scorecard. With great illustrations, Betsy's Day at the Game teaches kids how to fill out a scorecard, and encourages them to share their memories with their families.

And if you love baseball, the Betsy's Day at the Game Facebook page is for you.

Nalah and the Pink Tiger, It's an App!

A couple of weeks ago, we discussed storybook apps and how they are made. As you may remember, we used the app version of Nalah and the Pink Tiger by local puppeteer Anne Sawyer-Aitch as an example. At the time, the app was still going through conversion and approval, but today we are excited to announce that the Nalah and the Pink Tiger app is available in the App Store for only $4.99!
With interactive illustrations, music, and the ability to read and listen in English and Spanish, this app is just the thing to make story time both exciting and educational!
Check out the trailer, and you'll see why everyone is talking about the Nalah and the Pink Tiger app!


For more information on the book, a schedule of Nalah and the Pink Tiger puppet shows and events, and free downloadable activities from Anne, visit the Nalah and the Pink Tiger website!

A Christmas Recipe: Very Berry Clafoutis

Christmas is fast approaching (that is, if we survive the apocalypse tomorrow), and we're in the mood for sharing. So in that theme, today seemed like a perfect day to share a delicious recipe from our upcoming kids' cookbook, Cool World Cooking by Lisa Wagner.

This sweet and creamy French dessert will surely delight your guests, and since it is part of our kids cookbook, it's simple enough for even the novice baker. And so we present to you, the Very Berry Clafoutis! Bon Appetit!

VERY BERRY CLAFOUTIS

How Are Book Apps Made?

People are always looking for the next thing--the next trend, the next technology, the next market--and for a lot of people, the next thing is apps. Apps for everything. And picture book apps are getting more popular. They move, they play, they read aloud...the possibilities are endless. Okay, they're not endless, but you get the point. There are some seriously amazing things you can do with apps.

Children's books are the perfect print medium to take the plunge into app conversion. They're image based, playful by nature, and full of imagination. Not to mention, the interactivity is great for exploration and discovery. With all of that going on, it's no wonder children's book apps are the new thing we keep hearing about.

And as you may have heard, Scarletta is publishing our first picture book this spring. And not only that, but the book is also in the process of becoming an app. That's right, Nalah and the Pink Tiger will be available as a bilingual app, in English and Spanish, for the iPad! But as exciting as that is--and it's pretty darn exciting--I found myself wondering just what goes into making an app. And since we're lucky enough to have the people who do this sort of thing in our same office, I only had to walk about twenty steps to find the Nalah app designer, Kelly, and ask her some questions.


First things first, there are multiple programs that you can use to develop apps. We happen to use a version of Adobe called DPS (or digital publishing suite) that allows you to create the layouts and animations right in Adobe. So we take the inDesign files originally created for printing, and within DPS we can add all the animations and sounds right to the original pages. We just have to make sure that the spreads are proportionate to the iPad screen, and off we go.

Buy Books this Holiday Season! (And Get 15% Off)

Pendred Noyce's The Ice Castle Wins a Mom's Choice Award

Scarletta is excited to announce that Pendred Noyce's second book in the Lexicon Adventure series, The Ice Castle: An Adventure in Music, has won a Gold Award from Mom's Choice Awards® in the category of Juvenile Level 2 (ages 9-12)!
The Mom's Choice Awards® honor the best in products and services for children and families. Evaluating in over 150 categories, the Mom’s Choice Awards® use an esteemed panel of judges including educators, media and other experts, parents, children, librarians, performing artists, producers, medical and business professionals, authors, scientists, and others. "The program is globally recognized for establishing the benchmark of excellence in family-friendly media, products and services," and the result is a list of materials that parents and educators can feel confident using. (-Mom's Choice Awards®)
Noyce's first book in the series, Lost in Lexicon: An Adventure in Words and Numbers, was also a Mom's Choice Award® Gold winner, and the second book continues that tradition. The Lexicon Adventure series provides young readers with entertaining and exciting stories that are rich in language play, description, complex themes, and multiple points of view. Not to mention its embedded explanations of science, math, language, and music make the series a great educator's tool for use in cross-curricular learning.
We're proud to have The Ice Castle: An Adventure in Music recognized as one of the best in family-friendly media!