It is Melissa Sweet's birthday and as she is a favourite illustrator of mine I have written about her on this blog many times before. Recently I discovered that I had incorrectly celebrated her birthday on the 18th April so I need to write about her birthday again in order to correct my mistake.Seeing this illustration from Google images which is in fact from Melissa's blog, you can understand why she would be a favourite with any librarian. Her kind of art, some of which, makes extensive use of collage appeals immensely. I first discovered her books when Jane Yolen's Baby Bear books became so popular with the children in my library, but then I went looking for more books by her and discovered that there were a large number of other titles in the library, such as Moonlight, Love and Kisses, all the Charlotte books and the wonderful Carmine.
More recently when I began a unit of work using picture book biographies with my Year 2 Book Club I discovered more Melissa Sweet titles such as The Boy Who Drew Birds, Balloons Over Broadway, and Girls Think of Everything and more recently I purchased two new books to add to this unit Brave Girl and Mrs Harkness and the Panda.
The best way to learn more about Melissa is to read her own writing on her website and her facebook page because you will see there all the things she is involved in. I was so envious when I read that she had recently done a workshop at the Eric Carle Museum. I wish she had been there the day I visited. I would even have forgone the blue sky, long green grass and heavily fruit-laden apple trees I saw, for the snow and kite flying!
Now I need to order Spike (so I can use those wonderful bookmarks) and A Splash of Red to add to the biography unit. And I need to hound the publisher to get Baby Bear's Books back in print. It is one of the few books that has 'walked' from my library, so you know it is good. Must dash, off to go bike riding or walking by the beach with my librarian friend. see bikes and librarians are important!
I LOVE Brave Girl!! Her art really complements the text perfectly. A Splash of Red is also great.
ReplyDeleteBalloons Over Broadway is my particular favorite, but Melissa's other work is just as wonderdul and she is a really nice person as well. So - Happy Birthday, Melissa! and many happy returns.
ReplyDeleteCarmine is so special but I had no idea there were so many other books illustrated by Melissa. I have ordered some for my libray . Thanks for telling me about her work. The bicycle quote is one of my all time favourites.
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