Audrey, a school librarian, asked me for coloring pages from Goldie Socks and the Three Libearians. The best I can come up with are these sketches for the front and back cover art. I illustrated this story a few years ago, before it was my regular practice to scan all my sketches and send them […]
. . . . . . . One of my favorite books as a kid was P.D. Eastman’s Go Dog. Go! I still think it’s one of the best—a pared-down, simple idea with bold, direct illustrations to match. The story: dogs of a dizzying variety all travel by whatever means they have to get themselves […]
Update! If you live in Chicago, me shipmate Carolyn Crimi will be at Magic Tree Bookstore in Oak Park, 1:00 for a Talk Like A Pirate Day book signing! You can walk the plank and get a free tattoo! Henry & the Crazed Chicken Pirates is available in paperback—just in time for Talk Like A […]
Three miles—roughly the distance a person can walk in an hour. As the sea-shanty Spanish Ladies tells it: We’ll rant and we’ll roar, like true British sailors We’ll rant and we’ll roar across the salt seas Until we reach soundings in the Channel of Old England From Ushant to Scilly ’tis thirty-five leagues. The islands […]
A pirate. The earliest pirates of the Caribbean were newly-arrived French woodsmen who preserved meat by curing it slowly over a smoky fire so it would last a long time (this was before refrigerators). In the native Carib dialect, boucan was a grill (in Haitian: barbacoa). The French settlers named the process of smoking and […]
Rum diluted with water. On long voyages, sailors might contract scurvy, a disease caused by a lack of Vitamin C. Ship’s doctors eventually realized there is lots of Vitamin C in lemons, so they’d make sure everybody drank their lemon juice by adding it to the grog. Blackbeard Teach liked his with a little gunpowder […]
The black pirate flag with skull & crossed bones. The earliest pirates—French filibustiers—simply hoisted a red flag to announce their piratical intentions. It’s not hard to imagine one of the crew darkly describing the flag as “un joli rouge”—a pretty red. Mark your calendar—September 19th is Talk Like A Pirate Day! Update: My friend Melanie […]
Alphabet Trail and Tales in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park was a blast yesterday—the Salty Carrot was dragged out of drydock and assembled at the big Blue Slide pavilion. We had glorious weather, too. We read Henry & the Crazed Chicken Pirates (now in paperback!), then painted a few crazed chicken pirates. Thanks to Le and Nancy […]
This evening is the grand opening of Graffiti Gallery—that’s in the beautiful Transit Building, Oil City, where I have a studio—from 6:00 – 9:00. Come join us! Tomorrow morning I’ll be performing at Alphabet Trail & Tales in Frick Park, Pittsburgh, from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm. I’ll read Henry & the Crazed Chicken Pirates […]
