For Kids


Right now I'm working on a book of poetry called Garbage Delight by Dennis Lee. It will be published in September.

The poems were written with kids in mind but I wanted to do something different with the book. The answer came to me early in the spring when I was beginning the book. Every morning I'd wake up at five and sit in my garden drinking coffee and watching the sun rise. And then I'd see them. They cause a terrible mess but are they ever cute!

This is what I saw.

This is one of the poems.

I started to draw.

Then I drew some more.

Then I polished it.

Soon I'll add the color!

For Rivka's First Thanksgiving by Elsa Okon Rael, (published by McElderry) I went to the Lower East Side in New York and visited the Tenement Musem. This is what I saw.

Here is the street.

Here is my street.

This is where real people lived.

This is where I imagined my characters to live.

I imagined Rivka's grandmother washing her hair in the sink like a woman I saw in an old photograph.

Here's the old photograph.

My vision became this.

Have some fun with old family pictures and see what you come up with.