Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty

"March" means "Reading Month." 

"Reading Month" means "Author Visits." 

"Author Visits" means a busy schedule for Z-Dad. 

12 school visits and 4 library visits this season (all on top of trying to illustrate 3 books) means I'm a bit behind.  And, alas, this week Bookie Woogie has to take a back seat...

BUT rather than skip a week, I thought we'd raid the kid's other blog for a children's book related post...

Did you know the kids have another blog?  Since 2006, "Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty" has been a place to capture some of the art that naturally pours out of the Z-Kids.  Last year, to celebrate that site's 3 year Anniversary and 250th post, I wanted to do something special.  The kids had been creating fan art here on Bookie Woogie, and I thought it might be fun to turn the tables.  So I posted an open invitation over there for folks to browse the CNLT archives, find a favorite kid drawing, and do their own grown-up fan art.

The response was overwhelmingly gracious.  I thought maybe we'd get three or four takers.  Instead 73 pieces of beautiful artwork rolled in over the course of a month.  Quite a few pieces were submitted by professional children's book illustrators -- here are a few examples showing the kid's original art and the illustrator's interpretation:


by Isaac (at age 9)

by Nathan Hale:



by Gracie (at age 8)

by Adam Rex:



by Lily (at age 5)

by Renata Liwska:



by Isaac (at age 10)

by Kristi Valiant:



by Lily (at age 4)

by Julie Phillipps:



by Isaac (at age 9)

by Bob Boyle:


On and on it went....  It was incredibly kind of everyone and very encouraging to the kids.  I invite you to check out all 73 illustrations HERE!

(And we'll return to our regular programing next week!)