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While I had been a volunteer reader via the Screen Actors Guild’s now defunct Book Pals Program, I had been reading much of the work of the late American comparative mythologist, Joseph Campbell. I’d learned he’d collaborated with a visual artist named Gerald McDermott on several art video projects utilizing mythology. McDermott had gone on to create a series of beautiful picture books featuring folk tales from cultures around the world. McDermott’s books quickly became my go-to choices for reading to students. The bright, colorful and masterfully rendered illustrations easily drew in the students’ attention. The blend of cultural, magical and humorous elements within the stories, including the sometimes distinctly entertaining personalities of the main protagonists, made McDermott’s books popular in many classrooms. Having grown up on both Jamaican folk tales such Anansi the Spider, as well the Uncle Remus tales of Brer Rabbit, I remember the power of these stories, how there always seemed a lesson to be learned in them and how the main characters were drawn so vividly. Furthermore, Campbell had talked about how symbols in stories were so powerful because the image of the symbol goes past the thinking brain to the subconscious where it has served as an agent of alchemy in changing the person somehow, whether via point of view, etc. Thus, the character of a young man transforming into a flaming arrow or a raven being reborn as a half-human boy seeking the sun (characters from McDermott’s books), are meant to arouse and captivate the imagination. I enjoyed McDermott’s books so much, I bought copies of many and would sometimes even commit the book to memory so I could play my djembe drum while telling the story, with two students holding the book up for the class and turning the pages. Though I readily champion McDermott’s work, there are other authors who’ve also contributed to the genre of mythology in picture books. However, the vast majority of these authors (if not all) were published in the 1990’s. Since then, mythology has by and large moved into the world of middle grade (Percy Jackson, The Red Pyramid, Ash Mysteries, etc.) Occasionally, one may see mythology related via a picture book, as with ­­­­­­­­­The Princess and the Warrior: A Tale of Two Volcanoes by Duncan Tonatiuh, released in 2016. But for the most part new releases of folk tales in picture books seems rare. In addition, I’ve come across several articles where industry insiders also referred to the lack of interest in mythology for picture book manuscript submissions. Though I have no idea why mythology in picture books became unmarketable, I would love to see a rebirth in this genre; children will always love learning about other cultures and will always love following the adventure of an endearing animal protagonist. They may get to see a concept or theme explored or illustrated in the story and perhaps gain a different/new perspective that expands and enhances their growing world view. As a writer, I hope to contribute to this magical genre in the way McDermott did and play my part in helping to bring the magic of the folklore back to picture books.

Like many young children bitten by the reading bug at an early age, I had read quite a lot of picture books. Some I remember more than others, as the magic of those stories has stayed with me over the years. The following are my top five favorite picture books from my childhood: 1. Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson I remember really loving this story as a young child. I was enchanted by the magic of Harold’s crayon, how anything he drew came to life. One minute he was walking on a road and the next he was in a forest, then at sea in a boat after that. I also loved when Harold drew pies to eat and then drew hungry animals to help him finish the pies. Even as a child, I could see Harold had a really big heart. When Harold finds his home by drawing his window around the moon, it felt so satisfying to see him experience that full-circle moment. Whereas home at the beginning is merely the starting point, by the end, it stands for security and safety. 2. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak Who didn’t love this one? Max is an unruly kid whose bedroom magically morphs into a forest. He then sails in a boat to the land of the wild things. I remember being so impressed by Max’s bravery in taming these giant creatures with huge, sharp teeth who could eat him up in an instant. That they made him King of all the Wild Things proved to me Max had some serious mojo working for him! But at the same time I had always felt that Max had barely gotten away with his life at towards the end when the creatures had protested, “Oh please don’t go! We’ll eat you up, we love you so!” I remember thinking, “See, that’s what you get for trusting creatures with long, sharp teeth!” But like “Harold” “Wild Things” has a happy ending; can’t beat hot food waiting for you when you return home. 3. Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss If I had to pick one Dr. Seuss book, this would be it. To me, this was the coolest cat in the world, complete with iconic tall, red and white striped hat. He could do all these fun, cool things to keep you entertained along with his little friends. And if he trashed your house? No worries! He also had a hi-tech cleaning machine to clean up the mess just in the nick of time. 4. John Henry: An American Legend by Jack Ezra Keats I remember reading this picture book when I was a kid (the one written and illustrated by legendary author Jack Ezra Keats) and I could see how the main character was a legend in his time. Was he really born with a hammer in his hand? Maybe not, but like Superman, Henry was able to perform almost superhuman feats. When John challenges the steam drill, I remember rooting for him all the way, man vs. machine. I remember smiling to see he’d won the contest, but immediately saddened to see him die from the incredible exertion. That had a huge impact on me, that someone could give their life for something they believed in, and in Henry’s case, he proved the drive and passion of the human heart is unstoppable and unconquerable. The Five Chinese Brothers I remember loving this book so much! My brother and I were big fans of the old school martial arts films that would play on Saturday afternoons, many of them taking place in Imperial China many centuries ago, and this story takes place in the same era, with the characters wearing the style of clothing that was fashionable in that time. The story begins with the tragic, accidental drowning of a child, which leads the king to demand the life of the man he believes was responsible. The story becomes wonderous when it’s discovered that the man, has five brothers who are all biologically identical (quintuplets!), each with a specific super power. When the man is called to his execution, one of his brothers takes his place and uses his super power to survive the ordeal. This happens each day until all the brothers have gone. The king believes the man’s incredible repeated survival proves his innocence and lets him go. Looking back, I think my love for this story was a precursor to my love for comic book super heroes, more specifically, the X-Men, who were human mutants born with special powers. Thanks for taking a trip down memory lane with me!

Who remembers going to the library as a kid? For me, going to the library was one of the most fun times of my week that I genuinely looked forward to. Every Saturday afternoon, after my brother and I had finished doing all our chores, our mother would take us to the local library. Walking among the countless rows of shelves, the choices of books seemed delightfully endless. My brother and I would each leave with a tall stack which we’d finish reading in several days. As I got older, I moved from picture books to novels and thus, checked out fewer books so I’d have more time to dive into longer-format stories. With my favorite genre being epic action and adventure, I fell in love with The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory book trilogy and so many more, many times, revisiting and re-reading an entire series. As a child of the 1980’s, I even read novelizations of some of my favorite films, such as the Star Wars trilogy and The Goonies. Thanks to the Indiana Jones films, I discovered a passion for learning about ancient civilizations and their mythologies. In the library, I would find books about Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and Ancient India. The library was also a place where I sometimes did research for a school project or paper. Back then, we used what was called a micro-film projector. Once you found the listing of an old newspaper article pertaining to your subject, you'd place on order for that article with the librarian, who'd bring you a small container with a spool of film you had to first unwind, then carefully upload into a projector to view and read. Kids today growing up doing Google searches on their home computers or cell phones don’t know how easy they have it! Visiting libraries in my college years, I discovered more favorite writers like author Anne Rice (Interview With a Vampire series, Witching Hour Chronicles), poet and short story writer Charles Bukowski and novelist Toni Morrison, to name a few. Though I have read some e-books and have listened to audio books, there is nothing like the feeling of actually holding a physical book, then turning the pages as the words bring the story to life in my mind. For this reason, I suspect I will always visit libraries (and book stores) to enjoy this visceral experience. I’m grateful to my amazing mom for fostering within me a love for reading books. I will forever cherish my childhood memories of exploring the local library where I first began discovering stories that magically transported me to other worlds.

I attended the Highlights Foundation Super Picture Book Boot Camp Work Shop and I had such a blast. It's held at a facility called "The Barn" at Boyd Mills (home of Boyd Mills Press) just outside of Honesdale, PA, where the Highlights Foundation and Boyd Mills Press publication and editing teams are located. It's located in a rural area, with a forest of trees surrounding the property. Truly a lovely place. I and the other nineteen attendees who's manuscripts had been accepted were put up in lovely little rustic-styled cabins. All of the yummy meals prepared on site by a wonderfully talented and hospitable chefs and kitchen staff were five-star quality delicious and since they had well water, I was able to drink from a water faucet for the first time since forever. The faculty assembled for the workshop (Pat Cummings, Denise Fleming, Floyd Cooper and Steve Light, were wonderful, equally invaluable insightful in their critique and encouraging, each an established and successful author/illustrator, each with his/her own distinctive style. The other attendees were very nice people and equally talented. The special guests, agent Marcia Wernick, Art Director, Patti Ann Harris and Book Publisher, Neal Porter, were also gracious in volunteering their time and energy to allowing me and the other authors to present our work to them as well as sharing with us their wealth of knowledge and invaluable experience within the industry. To be sure, we all did a lot of work. There were critique sessions with fellow authors as well as with faculty and lots of editing/writing/revising in between. I can say that the workshop helped me clarify the heart of my story as well as further develop the emotional arc of my main character. In addition, I was able to chop out three hundred and twenty words. Overall, I definitely left the workshop with a much improved picture book manuscript, right now, tentatively titled, Itzel and the Cacao Tree. We had a lot of fun too. We shared great conversations, had many laughs while making new friends and we celebrated our non-writing talents at the Saturday night talent show. We even took a picture using Pringles potato chips as duck lips! I recommend a Highlights Foundation Work Shop to any serious, passionate children's book writer who wants to surround themselves with talented, like-minded people who can truly help you improve your writing, all while enjoying their company, the great food and the peaceful and gorgeously natural setting. Check out my pictures below!

I enjoyed this book! Inspired by films like Ocean's 11, author Varian Johnson weaves a clever plot and creates a likable and dynamic ensemble of characters who are out to pull a con, lead by main protagonist, Jackson Greene, that involves switching paper voting ballots for the school's presidential election. It's all to stop pompous rich kid, Keith from rigging the election to unfairly beat Gaby, Jackson's crush, and destroying any after school club with members he had a grudge against.The story has a quick, steady pace with humor throughout. Although some of the characters are less complex and fleshed out than Jackson, the climax and resolution were enjoyable, if not exactly surprising. What I really admired about this book is a character trait rarely seen in middle grade and YA. The character, Gabriela, aka, Gaby, actually chooses an apple and yogurt for breakfast, and without being forced. Jackson drinks Earl Grey tea instead of Coke (that alone is awesome!) His dad makes toast and bran cereal for his breakfast and a healthier version of soul food. Students care about the environment and the importance of recycling. These are elements I have never seen portrayed in a way where they weren't criticized or ridiculed. Given the fact that author Johnson is African-American, it makes sense that he, being one of a relative few black writers within the children's book world, would be the one to bypass the cliched traits (i.e. a kid who loves junk food and hates healthy food) and introduce a fresh take on character traits. I can tell Johnson is a huge Star Trek fan (the original television series) due to the number of references to the show. When a character referenced the Uncanny X-Men, I smiled because that was pretty much the only comic book series I read as a kid and it seems Johnson, around the same age as me, must have been a fan too. It shows through excellence in writing, which makes this an even more fun read.

This was a well-written debut novel by Crystal Allen. Believe it or not, within the last several years, this is one of the few children's books I found written by a black/African-American and portraying a black kid as the main character. More of that please! Allen's personal passion for bowling is present hear in the detailed, reverent way she describes the blissful, zen-like bowling experience of her main protagonist, Lamar Washington. To discover she had been around bowling alleys most of her life was no shock. The backdrop, Coffin, Indiana is realistically portrayed as a town where high school basketball is the only point of pride in an otherwise economically blighted small town. Lamar feels he can't outshine his basketball playing older brother, Xavier, so he allows himself to be manipulated by local bad boy, BIlly Jenks, to cheat at hustling games from strangers. Of course, it was all so he could buy a Pro Thunder bowling ball designed by his all time favorite bowler, Bubba Sanders, who plans to visit Lamar's home town. Oh, and there's a girl Lamar wants to impress too, against the wishes of his best friend, Sergio. Unfortunately, I was hyper aware of all the urban slang, including: off the chain, dissed, jacked-up, that's what's up, hndle your business, that's tight. Its not that I had a problem with Lamar speaking this way. Its just that whenever I see this type of language in a book, its an immediate code that tells me its a black character speaking, even before the author writes a physical description. Having grown up in New York City, I have witnessed Caucasian guys who grew up in more urban areas and were also raised in hip-hop culture who use similar language, and quite authentically. I would love to see a non-black character speak this way just to shake up stereotypes. I was also a bit disappointed with how the author resolved a minor plot point. At the book's climax, Lamar's older brother, Xavier, tells his dad the reason he didn't take his depression and anger medication was because it made him sleepy and gave him nausea.Yet,later, Xavier says he takes his medication on a full stomach and takes it at night, before he goes to bed, implicating he is no longer drowsy while in school. As an artist, social activist and educator, I believe many parents are scared and manipulated by doctors to put their kids on drugs rather than investigate other alternatives to healing their child via going to the source of the problem, such as a change of diet that eliminates food dyes, known to cause hyper-activity in children, from the child's diet. The use of art as therapy is another alternative to helping a child heal from psychological or emotional trauma that manifests as anger. PIlls only mask the problem without resolving it and damage the child's brain. Most children who are on drugs such as Ritalin are usually on it during the school day, since its the teachers who may have initially reported the child's supposed hyper-activity. Also parents place blind trust in doctors who are more than anything reps for Big Pharma, who shamelessly push more pills than most dealers on an average city corner, all while laughing all the way to the bank with your money. One last side note: After catching specific name brands like M&M's and Coke mentioned several times in this book, I wondered if in fact a form of product placement happens in books published by major publishers, just like they do in major films. It certainly seems to be the case. Many schools take money from Coke and McDonald's to place their junk food in those schools because said schools are hurting for money and companies like Coke and McDonald's have millions, as opposed to the much less financially solvent health food industry. The book publishing industry doesn't have money like Hollywood, so its understandable if it happens.

I enjoyed Book One, Middle World, of the Jaguar Stones Series by Jon and Pamela Voelkel. Max Murphy is a spoiled kid who searches for his archaeologist parents in the clutches of evil Lord Tzelek in the Amazon jungle with the aid of a Mayan girl named Lola and the spirit of Mayan Ruler, Lord Six-Rabbit and his mother, who have taken over the bodies of two baboons. The book is fast paced with a forward moving plot. Its also got plenty of humor and the characters are interesting and dynamic. As a life long Indiana Jones fan, I was delighted at the element of adventure in this book, with the main protagonist experiencing much hair-raising action. As a student of comparative mythology, I also loved how the Maya culture and mythology was featured strongly in the story. In the way Percy Jackson features Greek Mythology, Sarwat Chada's Ash Mysteries feature Hindu Mythology and Rick Riordan's new Red Pyramid series features Egyptian Mythology, the Jaguar Stones wil lintroduce children to yet another real world mythology, though I would encourage all readers to seek out sources of more factual material if they are interested in learning about the Mayans. Having said that, and this may be minor to some people, but I felt it was a big miss how the authors included the acquisition of the concept of zero, which can only result from the processes of higher order thinking, within the context of things created from lower order thinking, such as rubber balls, hot chocolate and chewing gum. To do that is to not fully understand and appreciate the concept of zero which was used as well as the mathematical term, pi (3.14) in building many Mayan temples and monuments. In fact, it is plausible that the Mayans were correct in stating via their mythology that they inherited all of their mathematic, scientific data and calculations from the Star Beings who visited them many millennia ago, hence they know they are both "of the Earth and of the stars" (read Graham Hancock's book, Fingerprint of the Gods.) I know the authors state their book is fiction, but I just don't they should have mentioned the concept of zero in such a common context. I admire how much the authors risked making their lead character, Max, very unlikable at the beginning. He comes across as so spoiled and immature at the beginning, several times I almost put the book down because of it. That's how put off I was by Max's rudeness and selfishness. Eventually, Max grows and learns more about himself and those around him. The fact that he had a pretty wide character arc as far as emotional progression was very effective and actually helped me to like him more, though I was initially turned off to him. Erica S. Pearl does this with her main character in Vintage Veronica, pushing the envelope of unlikability to the point of alienating me, the reader. Ballsy writing that pays off. I am also going to express a particular frustration concerning kid's books; not one protagonist, including Max Murhpy in this book, likes or eats anything remotely healthy. But then why do practically all children's book authors, from middle grade to YA, seem to champion kids eating junk food and garbage? Is it some rule that protagonists must think all healthy food is disgusting as, well, rabbit food? In the Harry Potter series, Harry and his friends relished devouring meals consisting of practically nothing but cakes, cookies and also, curiously, lots of meat; apparently there are no vegetarians in children's literature. Even in this book, there was a paragraph after the climax that made me cringe: "... Raul appeared with a huge serving dish of crispy bacon and juicy sausages and a platter piled high with barbecued ribs and steaks. He went away and soon returned with scrambled eggs, fried eggs, fluffy hash browns, racks of thickly sliced buttered toast, baskets of banana bread, bagels, doughnuts and pastries, and a massive bowl of fruit salad." Something tells me the adding of the "massive bowl of fruit salad" may have been a guilty after-thought. I could almost feel a heart attack coming on when I first read this. Seriously, what is the deal with all that animal meat? How can adults expect kids to eat healthy if eating junk food or a strictly carnivorous diet is reinforced in popular culture, i.e., books? At one point should an adult, and even more importantly, an adult who writes children's books, stop saying they are merely reflecting society ("Kids hate healthy food!) and start taking social responsibility through their art to help change children's perceptions about healthy food?

I enjoyed this book about a special bond between a girl and her cat. However, the girls says "me and my cat" throughout the book and its also in the title. Are we encouraging children to use bag grammar now? Is this why I hear so many adults who use so many double negatives in their everyday speech, no wonder its accepted when children do it or when an author uses it in a book. Or is it a "catch-22" situation? Are some authors who have characters use bad grammar in their books merely reflecting reality, or are they helping to shape it? Or both? An interesting topic...

Loved this concept! If crayons could speak, I guess they really would express their grievances in letters written to their owner, Duncan. Each had a distinct personality and complaint regarding their use, abuse or in the case of some, unuse. In the end, Duncan colors a picture using all the colors in a non-traditional way (pink dinosaurs, blue alligator, orange whale.) This book is a great way to inspire children to think outside the box when being creative, to not be held down to rigid notions of what is "right" and "wrong" when it comes to creativity.

As someone who once loved imagining being his favorite comic book and film heroes, I loved the concept of this book! This little boy imagines he's everything from a Jedi Knight to Indiana Jones to a costumed super hero. Sometimes, his imagination gets him into trouble (he makes a mess,) though he means well. Love how the illustrations show what he's imagining verses what is actually happening. When soap suds overflow from the washing machine, the boy imagines he's battling a green monster and calls for his parents . They act as superheroes when rescuing him as a way of supporting his active imagination. A fun book I would definitely recommend.

This is a great book that can teach a child the value of a making a new and genuine friend. Plot is as follows:Tim is a boy who feels invisible. He meets a lost whale named Sam and the two become friends. Tim tries to get Sam back to the sea, finally opting to pull the whale on his bicycle. But when Tim falls into the sea, Sam returns the favor and saves Tim, since "friends don't let friends down." The colors in the illustrations are big and bold and help tell the story of this special friendship.

This is a great book that can teach a child the value of a making a new and genuine friend. Plot is as follows:Tim is a boy who feels invisible. He meets a lost whale named Sam and the two become friends. Tim tries to get Sam back to the sea, finally opting to pull the whale on his bicycle. But when Tim falls into the sea, Sam returns the favor and saves Tim, since "friends don't let friends down." The colors in the illustrations are big and bold and help tell the story of this special friendship.