Monthly Archives: May 2015

A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt-Guests Randi Sonenshine and her 11-year-old son, Ethan

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Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)

Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)

Hello, Great Readers of our series! Just in case you haven’t visited before, let me tell you a little about A Great Nephew and A Great Aunt. My great nephew, Landon (a fifth-grader) and I (his great aunt) collaborate. I write a poem which he illustrates. We started this collaboration last fall and have had so much fun with it that we decided to invite others along. Landon and I will continue to have a new episode on the second Friday of each month. The other Fridays are filling up quickly with guests. I have created a page on my website to view all the episodes of A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt. Click HERE to visit the page and enjoy past episodes.

Today it is my pleasure to welcome the collaborative team . . .

Randi Sonenshine and 11-year-old son, Ethan

First of all, Randi shared some background: This poem started as an assignment for Renee La Tulippe’s Lyrical Language Lab (which I highly recommend). Originally, it was only the first stanza, but I started thinking about all of the possibilities for backyard brunchers, and it took off from there. I asked Ethan to pick his favorite stanza to illustrate, and he chose the first because he liked the idea of camouflaged caterpillars.

Randi’s Poem

Slide1

Ethan’s Art

Ethan's art

Art by Ethan 2015

I never knew backyard brunches could be so much fun 🙂 Many thanks to Randi and Ethan for sharing their creative collaboration with us today!
By the way, don’t miss Ethan’s fabulous self-portrait below.

ethan's self portrait

Self Portrait by Ethan 2012

 

Meet Ethan: Ethan is a ukulele-playing magician who loves to read and write stories, poems, and songs. Ethan is also involved in musical theater. He has appeared in Seussical the Musical, The Little Mermaid, and several other stage productions. He will be entering middle school as a sixth-grader this fall and can’t wait to join his mom’s Book Club and Young Writer’s Society.

Randi and Ethan

 

 Meet Randi: Randi is a middle school literacy coach by day and a stealthy kid-lit writer and rhyme schemer by night. She lives in northwest Georgia with her husband, Marty, sons Jacob and Ethan, a very sneaky schnauzer and an immortal goldfish. Her short story, The Inside Name, will be published in Cricket magazine later this year. You can find her at her blog, The Prosey Tree or on Twitter as @rsonenshine.

 

Margaret at Reflections on the Teche has the Poetry Friday Roundup today. What exactly is Poetry Friday? Click HERE for a full explanation by the awesome Renée LaTulippe.poetry friday button

A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt-Guests Julie Rowan-Zoch and son, Aaron Zoch

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Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)

Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)

Hello, Great Readers of our series! Just in case you haven’t visited before, let me tell you a little about A Great Nephew and A Great Aunt. My great nephew, Landon (a fifth-grader) and I (his great aunt) collaborate. I write a poem which he illustrates. We started this collaboration last fall and have had so much fun with it that we decided to invite others along. Landon and I will continue to have a new episode on the second Friday of each month. The other Fridays are filling up quickly with guests. I have created a page on my website to view all the episodes of A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt. Click HERE to visit the page and enjoy past episodes.

Today it is my pleasure to welcome the collaborative team of . . .

Julie Rowan-Zoch and her son, Aaron Zoch

About their collaboration: Julie said-Oh, there was nagging was involved! He is still a teen – which is why I was surprised he agreed in the first place, and was surprised by the final art, as he is more of a stick figure kinda guy! He even tried to call me the procrastinator! Ha!
I believe Julie is referring to the fact that Aaron worked on his art right up to the last minute…and maybe at the last minute-I’m not sure 😉

The PoemSlide1

 Aaron’s Art

Aaron's art

Art by Aaron Zoch 2015

The attached photo is one of Julie and both of her kids goofing at the Denver Botanical Gardens. Aaron is on the left, Julie is on the right.

photo of Julie and Aaron

Personally, I’m thrilled that there was nagging involved because the collaboration was totally worth it! Many thanks to Julie and Aaron for being our guests today.

julie photo

Meet Julie: Julie Rowan-Zoch grew up collecting freckles and chasing hermit crabs on Long Island, NY, and spent years slicing rich, dark breads in northern Germany before she found that waking up 300 days out of the year to blue Colorado skies is rather nice! If she doesn’t answer the door, she’s in the garden fighting off aphids, squirrels, and her arch-nemesis: Campanula ranunculus (do not be fooled by sweet purple bells!). She studied Ad/Graphic Design at FIT in NYC and the HBK in Braunschweig.  Her illustration work has been featured in three board books for Bailiwick Press, YOU’RE HERE!, YOU’RE ONE!, and YOU’RE TWO.
Learn more about Julie on her website.

Matt Forrest Esenwine has the Poetry Friday Roundup over at Radio, Rhyme, and Rhythm. What exactly is Poetry Friday? Click HERE for a full explanation by the awesome Renée LaTulippe.poetry friday button

 

A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt-Guests Michelle Heidenrich Barnes and her 12-year-old daughter, Miranda

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Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)

Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)

Hello, Great Readers of our series! Just in case you haven’t visited before, let me tell you a little about A Great Nephew and A Great Aunt. My great nephew, Landon (a fifth-grader) and I (his great aunt) collaborate. I write a poem which he illustrates. We started this collaboration last fall and have had so much fun with it that we decided to invite others along. Landon and I will continue to have a new episode on the second Friday of each month. The other Fridays are filling up quickly with guests. I have created a page on my website to view all the episodes of A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt. Click HERE to visit the page and enjoy past episodes.

Today it is my pleasure to welcome the collaborative team of . . .

Michelle Heidenrich Barnes and 12-year-old daughter, Miranda

Sharing a love of the arts, poetry, cats, and Twizzlers, they also both eat whimsy for breakfast… and sometimes for lunch and dinner too.

Multigenerational Portrait_MirandaBarnes

Multigenerational Portrait, mixed media by Miranda Barnes, 2014

Michelle says, “Besides the heart-melting portrait above, one of my favorite Miranda masterpieces is this watercolor that she painted at summer art camp when she was ten.”

Miranda says, “It’s in the style of James Rizzi, but the bird and smiling stars watching over the city were my idea. I wanted to add something whimsical and beautiful to it.”

The Art

Untitled_MirandaBarnes

Untitled, watercolor by Miranda Barnes, 2013

The PoemSlide1

Many thanks to Michelle and Miranda for sharing their creative collaboration with us today! Clearly they’re an incredibly talented and creative pair.

Miranda


Meet Miranda: Miranda is a totally awesome 7th grader at the P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School at the University of Florida, where her favorite subjects are art and performing arts, and she is on the literary magazine staff. In her free time, she is a member of the Girl Scout leadership team that plans camping trips and other events for scouts in the region. She also enjoys listening to music, reading, making jewelry, and, of course, drawing– especially people, animals, and comic strips. She writes poems occasionally, but prefers to illustrate them.

Michelle
Meet Michelle: Michelle enjoyed several years as a successful writer of greeting card copy before following her bliss as a writer of children’s poetry and picture books. Her work appears in The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations (ed. Vardell/Wong) and Dear Tomato: An International Crop of Food and Agriculture Poems (ed. Hoyte), and will also appear in the forthcoming anthology One Minute Till Bedtime (Little, Brown, 2016), edited by U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate Kenn Nesbitt. Visit Michelle at her blog, Today’s Little Ditty, where she showcases contemporary children’s authors and offers monthly poetry challenges for anyone with a penchant for wordplay. Learn more about Michelle at her website, MichelleHBarnes.com.

Diane Mayr at Random Noodling has gather the link for the Poetry Friday Roundup today. If you’d like to know more about Poetry Friday, click HERE.poetry friday button

 

A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt: Landon and Penny in Episode 13

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Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)

Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)

Hello, Great Readers of our series! Just In case you haven’t visited before, let me tell you a little about A Great Nephew and A Great Aunt. My great nephew, Landon (a fifth-grader) and I (his great aunt) collaborate. I write a poem which he illustrates. We started this collaboration last fall and have had so much fun with it that we decided to invite others along. Landon and I will continue to have a new episode on the second Friday of each month. The other Fridays are filling up quickly with guests. Since today is the second Friday of May, Landon and I have a new episode!

For this episode, I wrote a story in haiku, which Landon illustrated brilliantly. Although haiku is rarely titled, I couldn’t help myself 🙂

Episode 13:
Haiku AchooSlide1

The Poem
Landon’s Art

Art by Landon

I laughed so hard when I saw Landon’s illustration. What a sneeze!

By the way, have you noticed that Landon has a recurring object in his illustrations? The object isn’t in the first episode or Crumbled, but it is in all the others. Keep your eyes peeled!

I have created a page on my website to view all the episodes of A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt. Click HERE to visit the page and enjoy our guests episodes as well as our past episodes.

Thanks so much for visiting today. We look forward to having you for future episodes!

Michelle Heidenrich Barnes has the Poetry Friday Roundup today at Today’s Little Ditty.
poetry friday button

 

A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt-Guests Laura Purdie Salas and Niece, Lily

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Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)

Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)

Happy National Poetry Month!

Hello, Great Readers of our series! Just in case you haven’t visited before, let me tell you a little about A Great Nephew and A Great Aunt. My great nephew, Landon (a fifth-grader) and I (his great aunt) collaborate. I write a poem which he illustrates. We started this collaboration last fall and have had so much fun with it that we decided to invite others along. Landon and I will continue to have a new episode on the second Friday of each month. The other Fridays are filling up quickly with guests. I have created a page on my website to view all the episodes of A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt. Click HERE to visit the page and enjoy past episodes.

Today it is my pleasure to welcome  . . .

Laura Purdie Salas and her 10-year old niece, Lily

Laura said: I gave Lily four or five poems to choose from, and she chose “Things To Do If You Are a Tree.” This was fun for me because I got to see her notes on my poem (she picked up on the seasonal progression, which I was hoping readers would do), a rough pencil sketch, a colored first draft, and then her final art! I loved seeing someone else’s artistic process.

The Poem

Slide1

Lily’s Art

Art by Lily

Art by Lily

Here is photo of the talented collaborators.

laura and lily

It was such a treat to have Laura and Lily on the blog today. I have been a fan of Laura, her blog, and her books for quite a while.

photo by Katherine Warde

photo by Katherine Warde

Meet Laura: Laura Purdie Salas is the author of more than 120 books for kids and teens, including A ROCK CAN BE…, WATER CAN BE…, A LEAF CAN BE… (Bank Street Best Books, IRA Teachers’ Choice, Riverby Award, and more), and BOOKSPEAK! POEMS ABOUT BOOKS (NCTE Notable, Bank Street Best Book, Eureka! Gold Medal, and more). She loves to get kids excited about poetry, help teachers use poetry and mentor texts in the classroom, and help writers build writing careers.And sign up for her E-letter for writers HERE. To learn more about Laura and her work visit her in these places.
Website, Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Also, if you need advice about writing and publishing, be sure to check out Laura’s Mentors for Rent.  Mentors for Rent

rock

A ROCK CAN BE . . .  is Laura’s most recent book. Be sure to visit her website to learn more about all of her books.
Now it’s time to head on over to Ellen Leventhal’s blog, Elementary Dear Reader, for the Poetry Friday Roundup.poetry friday button