Books Around The Table

Color Me Curious

Posted on February 28, 2026 by Ann Dalton | 4 comments

Six Picture Books in Search of a Theme could just as easily be the title of today’s post. I have a motley assortment of books before me that vary wildly in pace, mood and tone. A couple of them are full of text while others are nearly wordless. Some use narrative to tell a story. Others offer an open structure that invites the listener to participate in the telling. So what was I seeing & responding to besides the stories? What was I drawn to that brought them together for this assignment? COLOR! The power of these artists to use color to amplify everything else on the page is what drew me to them. (No pun intended. Honest.)

My Aha! was not unassisted. I spotted a column online about picture books called Exploring the Element of Color written by Francesca Mellin, Head Librarian at The Pike School in Andover, MA. She reflected on the use of color in storytelling and provided many examples from her school collection. I sensed a kindred spirit in the thrill of the hunt for just the right book for any assignment. Thanks for sharing, Fran.
https://www.maschoolibraries.org/newsletter/picture-book-column-exploring-the-element-of-color

Just Because
Barnett, Mac. Illus. by Isabelle Arsenault. 2019

Be prepared for anything but a ho-hum bedtime story from the prolific & imaginative Barnett. Dad is inching out of his young daughter’s bedroom hoping that she’ll soon be asleep. The only light in the room comes from the open doorway where he stands. Darkness & curiosity collide. She calls out to him. Why is the ocean blue? This Dad’s quick on his stocking feet. Every night when you go to sleep, the fish take out their guitars. They sing sad songs and cry blue tears. The little girl considers his answer for a moment.What is the rain? Dad enters her room with arms gently crossed. The tears of flying fish. And so goes the delightful back & forth until he finally tells her it’s time to sleep. Why do we have to sleep? Dad’s response is perfect.Because there are some things we can only see with our eyes closed. Brilliant.
Arsenault’s illustrations in gouache, pencil & watercolor perfectly capture the interplay between father & daughter. Small details in their facial expressions highlight the girl’s curiosity & her Dad’s interest in crafting clever responses. Questions appear in brightly colored circles opposite the page where she, her puppy & father are facing off in the dark bedroom. Dad’s answers fill double page spreads with color & silliness as he invites his daughter to continue both questioning & imagining…in the morning.

Making Art
Ejaita, Diana. 2025

Art in all its glorious manifestations is celebrated in this NY Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book of 2025. With very few words, Ejaita introduces BIG ideas about what art is, what it takes to make it and how it feels to produce it. It can be joyful and playful. It can bring sadness and fear. Every feeling it provokes is important, though, because it makes us wise and helps us think about important things. The colors and materials of creation fill the book from endpaper to endpaper. They surround the young global artists as they construct, write, dance and make music. I love most of all the invitation Ejaita extends. We are all artists! Maybe I can be an artist, too! I have paper and scissors, tape and glue, crayons and markers. I have friends with tambourines and shakers and quiet places that inspire me to see and hear new things. It’s no surprise, then, that Berlin-based Ejaita’s illustrations are all human made…with a little help from Procreate.

Swimmy
Lionni, Leo. 1963

Many of you will be familiar with this Caldecott Honor Book from 1964 by the master graphic designer, Leo Lionni. It is the tale of an adventurous little black fish who has a big idea for saving a school of little red fish just like him from the fierce and hungry tuna. Swimmy loves exploring his ocean home and the marvelous creatures who dwell there, but he is lonesome. Only he survived the tuna that swam through his school of little red fish and gobbled them up. So when he happens upon another clan of little red fish hidden in the dark shade of rocks and weeds, he’s delighted and wants them to join him. Let’s go and swim and play and SEE things! But they’re afraid. Swimmy teaches them to swim in a fish formation with him as the eye to chase the tuna away. It is a story of kinship, ingenuity and the importance of sticking together.

With his debut picture book, Little Blue and Little Yellow, Lionni signaled a fascination with color and the use of different materials in his work that was to continue throughout his career. Swimmy’s watery world was created by stamping paint onto cloth, string and lace. It was all new to me, and the childlike appearance of the illustrations was immensely appealing. An iridescent medusa, anemones swaying like pink palm trees, a forest of seaweed growing from candy-colored rock. I still smile seeing Swimmy lead the charge as the black eye in the giant red fish formed with his new pals. And so they swam away in the cool morning water and in the midday sun and chased the big fish away.

A Face Is a Poem
Morstad, Julie. 2024

Faces are everywhere. We all have them, but how often do we take the time to really see one another? So begins this beautiful meditation on the wonder, variety and infinite possibility that faces us as we contemplate the face. There are serious and silly considerations when we start to look closely. What if the parts of our faces were rearranged? Would we still know each other? What if you could change faces with someone? Would you still be you? When is a face like a window? Open to the world or closed when you have a secret you’d rather not share?

The book itself is large, and Morstad takes full advantage with double page illustrations that are both tender and vibrant. She uses chalk pastels, pencil, watercolor, pencil crayons and collage to highlight facial features that go from the quirky to the sublime. What color freckles would you choose? Real butterflies for eyelashes? A face is a poem with all the parts put together, adding up to someone you love. I feel the very same way about this book.

This Is Orange: A Field Trip Through Color
Poliquin, Rachel. Illus. by Julie Morstad. 2025

When I saw the giant orange atop the Ionic column on This Is Orange, I felt pretty sure I could judge this book by its cover. I was not wrong. Between the marbled orange endpapers, Poliquin takes us on a rollicking journey through the people, places and history of all things ORANGE. Did you know there was no word for orange in English as recently as 600 years ago? Chaucer’s rooster in Canterbury Tales dreams of a fox whose colour was betwixe yellow and red. Ancient artists ground minerals to create a vibrant–but deadly–pigment called arsenic orange. Mark Rothko’s painting, Orange and Yellow, is very large but not the least bit deadly. You may even feel absorbed into its orange glow. International Orange is the color of American astronauts’ survival suits, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Tokyo Tower in Japan.

Illustrator Morstad once again displays her gifts for drawing just about anything with her chosen materials–watercolor and pastel chalk. Migrating monarchs, marigold garlands for Diwali and Canadian schoolchildren on Orange Shirt Day are all beautifully rendered. ORANGE you glad I reviewed this one?

It Looked Like Spilt Milk
Shaw, Charles G. 1947

Here’s another classic for you…and one that I hope still delights anyone who’s ever looked at a cloud or spilled their milk. That it’s still in print after nearly eighty years speaks to its broad appeal. It’s immensely shareable. The combination of few words, the minimalist white shapes on a blue background & the guessing game it invites keeps the book fresh. It might even encourage a walk outside to see what else looks like spilt milk.

Spilt Milk was far from being a one-off for Charles Green Shaw. I was fascinated to learn that he was a multihyphenate creator in the mid-20th century. He was a writer-poet-artist-illustrator–a contributor of essays and poetry to The New Yorker and Vanity Fair and a major figure in early American abstract art. In addition to painting, he illustrated two of Margaret Wise Brown’s picture books, Winter Noisy Book & Black and White. His creative life was no mere cloud passing by in the sky. It was rich and full of accomplishment.

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Posted in Children's Book Critique Group Blog

THE 100 DAYS PROJECT

Posted on January 30, 2026 by laurakvasnosky | 2 comments

I’m a big fan of the Peak Picks tables at the Seattle Public Library. In early January I wandered over to the non-fiction Peak Picks and Suleika Jaouad’s Book of Alchemy caught my eye. I loved her 2021 New York Times bestselling memoir Between Two Kingdoms, which recounted her struggle with leukemia, so this new book, her second, intrigued me. On the flap, I read it is a combination of her thoughts about writing and journaling, interspersed with 100 essays and writing prompts from fellow writers and thinkers. The idea is to respond to one a day.

I got started the next morning. I hated the first prompt. Luckily the second day’s prompt was wonderful: Think of the last 24 hours and choose 10 glimpses to write about, images that hold story. I urge you to try this one.

In the intro, Suleika writes how her lifelong journaling habit became a lifeline during her cancer treatment. Years later, to address Covid’s isolation, she started a newsletter inviting readers to begin journaling each day for 100 days, and, if they wanted, to share their results. The project is based on designer Michael Beirut’s 100-day assignment for his grad students at Yale. She invited fellow writers to send essays and prompts. Within a month, 80,000 people were writing alongside her. Which made me wonder: could this be even more fun with my fellow writers? I called Bonny. She was intrigued. All the BATTies agreed.

By January 15 we had each acquired a Book of Alchemy and began responding to the daily prompts. I circled back to that first prompt (still hated it) and got started again. We met a week later, by Zoom, to talk over the experience.

Julie Paschkis is using the prompts as fiction cues for the short story class she is taking at Hugo House. She tells herself, “Whatever I do is okay as long as I sit down,” adding, “Once I start, it is super fun.” She reads ahead each day so her brain is pre-charged.

Right from the beginning, Ann Dalton found this a wonderful opportunity. She loves that the prompts are short. She thought the second week of prompts were even more energizing and fun.

Julie Larios felt more inspired by the second week of prompts, as well. She was irritated by the introspective nature of (most of) the first week’s prompts. “I want to turn outward,” she said. “I think I discover things best at a glance. A window opens, a window closes; there’s a sense of observation which has to be external.”

Margaret Chodos-Irvine likes the fact that it’s a different point of view every day. Initially she thought of this as a daily experiment, just to see what came out. Two weeks in, she realized she values the dailyness of this creative task, but wants to focus on visual art rather than writing, so has switched her 100 Days commitment to reading books about artists at least 15 minutes a day.

Even when life intervenes, Bonny Becker has stuck with it because, like Margaret, she “wants to see where it goes.” She, too, preferred the second week’s prompts.

Though most of us have been in our critique group for over 25 years, we are learning new things about each other through weekly Zoom conversations, flavored by the prompts.

For instance, recalling impactful teachers, Ann told us about her HS English teacher Adele Wagner who “did her best to share some of literature’s greatest hits with a pack of self-absorbed teens.” She remembered Wagner saying “Sarcasm is the weapon of a fool.”

“Can you say that without sarcasm?” Ann added.

The food prompt brought up Julie L.’s story of a summer when they were picking raspberries at her grandparent’s farm in Snohomish at the same time Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon. Margaret recalled her mom cooking Kasha for special occasions, a nutty-flavored Jewish treat made by toasting egg-coated buckwheat groats in a hot skillet then simmering them in chicken broth.

This led to other fun stuff to talk about: like what does it mean to “hold sway,” and what exactly is a “collage essay,” and Bonny’s question: why do we each choose to write for the age readers we choose to write for?

At that first Zoom meeting Julie P. summed it up, saying this is a good undertaking because: 1. We will see each other more often, and 2. Having the group helps us stay with it.

We all agreed.

Though it is sometimes hard to fit into my day, I am energized by this 100 Days Project and look forward each morning to see how the next prompt will stir my story stew. Alchemy, indeed.

2 Comments

Posted in Art and Life, Children's Book Critique Group Blog, inspiration, Journalling, the writing process, writing, writing and life, writing craft

Tagged Ann Dalton, blogging about writing and illustrating for children, Bonny Becker, Books Around The Table, Children's Book Critique Group Blog, children's book writers, creativity, inspiration, Julie Larios, Julie Paschkis, Laura Kvasnosky, Margaret Chodos-Irvine, writing process

A Good Book and a Yellow Primrose

Posted on January 1, 2026 by Julie Larios | 4 comments

I can’t believe my sister found a primrose to give me for New Year’s Eve. She usually finds one right around mid-February, and she gives it to me to help me get through the last few weeks of the very short days of winter in the Pacific Northwest. Primroses are a secret code here in the Upper Left-Hand Corner, short for “Spring is just around the corner – more light coming, longer days!” But to have found a primrose in late December? That’s special. That feels more like “Hope springs eternal.” It’s the flower equivalent of “Don’t worry. Be happy. 🎶🎶” So for 2026, I’m going to try to take the primrose’s advice and be more hope-full. More optimistic.

After all, a little hope never hurts. The world of children’s books is filled with hope. I’m thinking now of a book I read when I was young – Blue Willow by Doris Gates. It’s the story of a migrant family without a permanent home, following the harvest of crops in California during the Great Depression. A blue willow plate represents the main character’s hope that someday her family will have a real home, and she’ll be able to go to school. That book meant a lot to me, growing up as I did in the Santa Clara Valley when it was still orchard country, and when the children of migrant fieldworkers attended – briefly and sporadically – my elementary school. Now when I think of immigrant children, I think of the hope they and their families cling to.

What’s hard to conjure up is optimism about their prospects, given the current political climate. 2025 was a rough year for immigrants. In fact, it was a rough year for a lot of people. I am going to hope, with all the power of an early yellow primrose, that 2026 will be a better year for them, with family, friends, good health, happiness, laughter. Some good stories to read. Some beauty. Some songs. Some flowers. And some hope.

4 Comments

Posted in Children's Book Critique Group Blog

Tagged Blue Willow by Doris Gates, Optimism

It’s All Love!

Posted on December 19, 2025 by Ann Dalton | 2 comments

Piglet: How do you spell love?

Pooh: You don’t spell it, Piglet. You feel it.

One week after the birth of my first grandchild, I tend to agree with Winnie the Pooh. (I’ve always found it best to agree with the bear.) My granddaughter’s name can be spelled like this: E-L-I-Z-A-B-E-T-H. Or like this: E-L-L-A. This is how I spell it: O-O-O-O-H!!

Picture books that celebrate a new arrival fill the shelves of libraries & bookstores everywhere. It’s a wonderful thing that much of the world appreciates the importance of sharing words & images in story & song with babies from the get-go. I was delighted to find these beauties that highlight the special place grandparents hold in the life of a family. I can’t wait to share them with Ella.

When You Were Born
Aston, Dianna Hutts. Illus. by E. B. Lewis. 2004

I don’t know how this beautiful praise poem to the birth of a child escaped my notice back in the day. It has all the features of a classic paean to the ways in which family, friends, & community welcome a newborn. Parents, grandparents, an uncle, the dog…heck! the entire neighborhood comes out to gaze, touch, sniff, giggle & sing with delight at the birth of you, the one & only you.

Wonder & gratitude abound. So does breathtaking art by Caldecott Medalist & Coretta Scott King Award winning illustrator E. B. Lewis. Using watercolor & marker he has created full page illustrations that shimmer within gold frames. He writes that he approached the work with **childlike abandon & a desire to pay homage to a few of my favorite artists: Chagall, Giotto, Redon & Matisse**. I might have guessed Klimt, too, as there are golden highlights in each image that draw the eye to small details in Aston’s text.

All That Is You
Capucilli, Alyssa Satin. Illus. by Devon Holzwarth. 2022

I was captivated from the first rhyme to the very last one in this appealing salute to the fanciful ways family members love each other. Capucilli, best known for her early reader series, **Biscuit** & **Katy Duck**, turns to the picture book to make perfect & sometimes perfectly silly turns of phrase into love language.

**You’re the hop in my happy, the splash in my puddle, the sing in my song, the close in my cuddle.**

Swirling illustrations in brightly colored gouache, watercolor, & colored pencil propel us through the seasons with families at all ages & stages. They fly in twos & dance in threes. They wish with an elder & sail as a family. Their expressions of wonder at wonderful you are on full display.

**You’re the give in my love, the boundless in it, too, And forever tucked inside of me, is all that is you.**

Here Comes Grandma!
Lord, Janet. Illus. by Julie Paschkis. 2005

Grandma will stop at nothing to see her grandchild! Sisters Janet Lord & Julie Paschkis have created a story small in dimension but big in love, determination, & modes of transportation. This is especially for young ones who live far from their grandparents & may not see them as often as both would like. Grandma will walk, ride a bike, & hop on a horse to see her grandchild. She’ll drive a car, ski down a mountain, & swim faster than a submarine, too. Plane? She’ll fly it. Train? She’ll climb on it. And when she arrives she’ll whirl & twirl & wrap you up in a great big hug! This one comes with me to California next week. I’ll be the one singing, Here comes Grann!

First Laugh–Welcome, Baby!
Tahe, Rose Ann. Illus. by Jonathan Nelson. 2018

Everyone wants to be the first to make Baby laugh. Brother tickles tiny feet. Grandmother tucks Baby under a Pendleton blanket. Sister cooks yummy, fragrant cornmeal. Raven teases with a loud caawh caawh! Grandfather who lives on the mesa splashes water that sparkles in sunlight. A smile, a frown, a yawn, but no laugh. Oh, Baby! Who will be the one to make you laugh? Oh, Navajo Baby!

Nelson’s illustrations in pencils, ballpoint pen, & Photoshop provide the rich cultural backdrop for the minimal text here. His palette of muted browns & pastels communicates detail about contemporary Navajo life that includes both urban & rural settings. Both the late author, Tahe, & illustrator, Nelson, belong to Navajo (Dine) clans. This is authentic storytelling at its best.

To learn more about the First Laugh Celebration, the ceremony that signals a Navajo child’s readiness to join family & clan in the physical world, be sure to read the back matter. It highlights the importance of joy & a tradition of generosity within Navajo (Dine) communities. You will also find information about ceremonies & rituals celebrating a child’s arrival in other cultures & religious traditions.

We’re Happy You’re Here
Wilkins, Julie. Illus. by Brady Sato. 2024

Dear Small Human, Many special people did many special things for you to be here today. Thus begins a new kind of welcome baby book. There isn’t much of a story & yet it tells the story of all of us. There aren’t many words & yet the ones you read are full to overflowing with love & anticipation. There’s science & patience, too, both of which we wouldn’t be here without. Wilkins provides just enough to let Brady Sato take it away with his fully digital illustrations.

If this picture book had a middle name it would be Inclusion. Couples, singles, unions of every stripe & every configuration are depicted with wonderful detail. There are tattoos, head scarves, & interracial pairings. There are wheelchairs, calendars, & ultrasounds. They all come together on these pages in a wonderful stew of love & shared purpose. I’ve made a gift of this book to a few labor & delivery nurses. They keep it in their clinic waiting rooms for all to enjoy as they wait patiently to say, We’re Happy You’re Here! to their new little ones.

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Posted in Children's Book Critique Group Blog

Introducing Billy Moon’s A.A. Milne in Song

Posted on November 26, 2025 by laurakvasnosky | 6 comments

Here’s a Thanksgiving treat for families: Billy Moon, a Charlottesville VA indie-folk band, has just released an album of A.A. Milne poems set to music.

My niece Adria Vaughan is the composer. She explains the new work this way:

“Watching my first child fully immerse herself in the rain gave me new appreciation for (and joy in) A. A. Milne’s poem “Happiness,” and, being a musician, I soon found myself humming it rather than simply reciting it. When I shared the song version of the poem (on ukulele) with two musician friends, they were delighted and found ways to shape the song with their instruments (guitar and fiddle) and voices.

“Soon we put more Milne poems to song and performed them in house shows. We called our band Billy Moon, after Christopher Robin’s name for himself. Our music is in a gentle, acoustic style that opens up to more upbeat folk melodies and rhythms. Combined with Milne’s imagery, this album gives an aural artifact of intricacy meeting innocence, a peaceful, artistic sound space.”

Billy Moon’s new album, titled “When We Were Very Young,” takes its name from a poetry collection by Milne.

I love it when things come full circle. My mom used to recite A.A. Milne poems to us 70 years ago. Some of them she, too, sang. At least five generations of our family have been enchanted by these poems. “Happiness,” Adria’s initial inspiration, is one of my favorites. As she sings it: I wish you hap-hap-hap, hap-hap-hap, happiness this Thanksgiving!

Also available on Spotify and Apple Music.

6 Comments

Posted in Art and Life, Blogging about Life, Children's Book Critique Group Blog, Children's Music,

Tagged A.A. Milne, Adria Vaughan, Billy Moon, creativity, Indie-Folk Music for Children, Poems set to music

ARE YOU SURE?

Posted on November 20, 2025 by laurakvasnosky | Leave a comment

I helped arrange flowers for a family wedding last month. One of the other helpers was my five-year old great-grand niece, N. No matter what her mom said, N. would counter “Are you sure?” Soon we were all laughing.

“Are you sure?” became my amused mental refrain throughout the next day, right up to the vows – at which point there was no doubt both parties were sure.

But what, really, can we be sure of? Frankly, I am not yet sure what I am writing for this space today.

It doesn’t help that the weather is indecisive. The seasons have changed and we are locked into rainy gray skies, but then we get a few bright sunbreaks. Of course, as soon as I head out to garden, it changes again. “Are you sure?” I ask the sky.

And our puppy Charley is sometimes unconvinced when we call her. Is she thinking, “Are you sure?”

Ben Franklin famously said all we can be sure of is death and taxes. So what is left to be sure of when we sit down to write a story? Not much more than the promise to ourselves to show up.

My friend Liz Sandvig, who was an amazing artist right up to the end of her 87 years, used to say what interested her in making art was to find out what any particular piece was meant to be, what it was waiting to become. “You have get in there and stick with it,” she added.

Finding what a piece inherently is is what interests me, too, as I worm my way inside whatever story I am sussing out. Why does a particular story call out to be written in the first place? What am I trying to understand by puzzling out the voice, characters, plot, setting, theme, word choice, etc.? Yes, writing can be pretty compelling once a project gets underway, but can you ever be sure as you work through drafts and edits that you have created what was meant to be?

I’m not so sure – but I am pretty sure I will follow Liz’s lead and stick with it, anyway.

This Seamus Heaney poem asked to be included. Happy digging!

DIGGING
By Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

Halloween’s Hot Diggity Dog ‼️

Posted on November 7, 2025 by Julie Larios | Leave a comment

We had such terrible weather just before Halloween that I thought no kids would show up, not unless they loved candy more than they loved to get soaking wet and blown to bits by the wind. I pouted about it, felt miserable, then — miracle! As the sun went down on Halloween night, it stopped raining! So we had the usual 300+ kids come to our door trick-or-treating. Tiny knocks, booming knocks, toddlers to teenagers – our neighborhood is one of the busiest in Bellingham for trick-or-treating. And though everyone is now looking ahead to Thanksgiving (and stores are already looking ahead to Christmas), I always let Halloween linger for awhile. So many smiles at the front door, so many thank-you’s and Happy Halloweens! So many proud parents beaming. And kids can be so creative – we saw robots made from cardboard boxes, princesses bedecked in jewels, baseball players, dragons, butterflies…and we saw this little guy – my favorite of 2025.

I think it’s the squiggle of mustard that won my heart. Sadly, no sauerkraut, but still…

Kids can be vulnerable, their burdens can be heavy. Hard times in America lately, putting food on the table. Hard times, strange times. I worry more than I ever have worried before about the world our kids are inheriting. So it’s important to feel inspired by the moments of joy they give us. This little Hot Dog has inspired me to go to a few more school board meetings (Bellingham voters passed their school levies in the Nov. 4 election, hooray! ) and to be a strong advocate for funding school libraries, protecting school libraries from the recent glut of book bans. Who knew a hot dog could do that?

DUET

Posted on October 30, 2025 by Julie Paschkis | 11 comments

In November my husband Joe Max Emminger and I will be having a show at the SAM Gallery in Seattle on the bottom floor of the Seattle Art Museum. The show opens on Thursday November 6 and will be up for the month of November. It is called DUET.

Our work is quite different. In our own ways we address the idea of duality.

We have been working for over a year so this is just a small sampling of the work we will be showing. In addition to our individual pieces we collaborated on 15 paintings together.

*We Meet by Joe Max Emminger and Julie Paschkis*

Joe painted with ink on paper, using a paintbrush to add the ink. Then I added ink and gouache, using a dip pen for the ink. Each painting is a conversation between the two of us. We painted duets about people, animals, buildings, even bugs.

*Orbit by Joe Max Emminger and Julie Paschkis*

*Fruitful by Joe Max Emminger and Julie Paschkis*

*Dwellings by the Sea by Joe Max Emminger and Julie Paschkis*

*Bugs by Joe Max Emminger and Julie Paschkis*

This post also has a dual function: to tell you about our upcoming show and also about the reopening of my online store.

…I love painting flowers, frills and frivolity.

But the current political climate feels dangerous and oppressive, not frivolous. To address my concerns about this country I have reopened my Julie Paprika shop, with the help of my friend Julan Chu. We are selling many political posters there including a 2026 calendar called “Resistance is Fruitful”. Each item sells for $15, $12 of which goes to the ACLU and $3 covers the expenses of the shop. We are raising lots of money for the ACLU and raising our spirits. Please check it out by clicking HERE. With your help we make change. THANK YOU!!!

11 Comments

Posted in Children's Book Critique Group Blog

Tagged calendar, Joe Max Emminger, Julie Paprika, Julie Paschkis, SAM Gallery

CONFIGURATIONS: Explorations in Offcut Biomorphology

Posted on October 24, 2025 by Margaret Chodos-Irvine | 8 comments

Photo: Heather Dwyer

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on this blog. I have moved on from children’s books for the time being, on to working on textile art.

For most of this year, I have been sewing scraps together to make soft sculptures. I began this work at the Vashon Artist Residency on Vashon Island, Washington in February. It’s now October.

I got there with bags and bags of scraps (garment-making offcuts) and my sewing equipment.

I left with a carload of strange, squishy creatures. Their population has continued increasing since then.

Photos: Lola Miller

I don’t really know what to call them, yet. They’ve taken on personalities of their own.

The scraps I am using came from a local Seattle clothing company, Prairie Underground. Prairie Underground recognizes the amount of waste created by garment making, so they are happy to have me take bags of their offcuts away with me. I’ve gone back several times since for more offcut scraps. Since then I’ve collected offcuts of four types of fabric: black denim, striped denim, pinwale corduroy, and velveteen.

A bit about garment manufacturing: Lengths of fabric are laid out on a large table in layers. A paper pattern layout or “marker” is laid on top. The cutter then cuts the layers with a fabric saw following the guidelines on the marker. The leftover bits in between the pieces to that will be made into clothing are what I have been working with. These scraps are called “offcuts.”

Originally I thought I was going to do some sort of improv piecing to make flat patchwork pieces, similar to pieces I have made before. But when I got to the residency, I playing with the shapes of these scraps, connecting them together to build a three-dimensional construct instead. It looked strangely like a garment for an alien humanoid.

It got to be really big. I tried stuffing it but it was so heavy I could barely lift it. I thought of it as the behemoth.

So I began making smaller pieces. My decisions on how to put these pieces together was informed by the shapes of the offcuts themselves. I let the shapes dictate the structures, rather than cutting the shapes to suit a desired outcome. I found myself enthralled by the results – these geometric yet biomorphic forms surprised me.

Sometimes they came together easily. Sometimes I would try one way and then rip it out and try something different, like this piece that started out like this

but I ended up taking it apart and redoing it, and it became this.

I made parameters for myself, like a personal game or puzzle: I would work with the shapes of the scraps as found, but I could trim them to make them more consistent.

Overall, I sewed 13 black denim, 18 striped, 29 white corduroy, and 21 white velveteen constructs. A total of 81 individual sculptures. Some larger, some smaller.

The sewn white corduroy and velveteen pieces were sent to Prairie Underground’s dyers in California. I thought I had reinforced my seams enough to survive the process of agitation in the dye bath and tumbling in the dryers on high heat. Most of the corduroy pieces came out with minor damage, but of the 21 velveteen pieces, only 5 survived enough to be salvaged. The seams blew out in the rest. Carnage.

In keeping with the idea of using reclaimed materials, I didn’t want to buy new material to stuff these pieces with. Instead, I’ve used a combination of secondhand-sourced polyester fiberfill and more fabric scraps from Prairie Underground.

Thank you to Jennifer Porter at Satsuma Designs for chopping those scraps into shoddy for me with her fabric shredder so that I didn’t have to keep cutting it up by hand.

Above is a stash of the shoddy material along with some of the tools I use for stuffing, all thrifted (if anyone knows what the two right wooden pieces are really supposed to be used for, please let me know!)

Thank you also to Jacquiline Snider, Leslie Brown, Ann Niklason, and Jesse Proebstel for their help with sourcing secondhand stuffed materials. Also thanks to Goodwill Industries, Granny’s Attic on Vashon Island, Seattle Recreative and Freecycle Seattle.

Some of the finished pieces are stuffed with the bodies of their kin – those that died in the dying process.

Stuffing was harder than I thought it would be. Some of the pieces took longer to stuff than they did to sew together.

I have been working on these pieces for the past 8 months. What has kept me interested? I like puzzles. I like making something out of nothing. I like problem solving. These are small, manageable tasks that require attention and skill. When it seems like the world is falling apart I crave something concrete to focus on putting together.

And who doesn’t like cuddly art forms?

Two pieces were in the Vashon Artist Residency show, “Ignited By Vashon,” at the Vashon Center for the Arts last month.

Next month, Prairie Underground is hosting a show of a selection of these offcut configurations in their factory-showroom gallery in Georgetown for the month of November. The opening reception is Saturday, November 8th, 2:00 to 6:00pm, 940 S. Harney St. Seattle, WA 98108.

If you are interested in seeing more of my textile work, you can visit my website here.

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Posted in creative process, creativity, textile arts

Tagged Margaret Chodos-Irvine, textile art

Surprise the world has changed and stayed the same the last seven years…

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Bonny Becker | 2 comments

It’s been almost seven years since my last book came out. I was stunned to realize it’d been that long, but between Covid and my working on an adult thriller novel, I lost track of the kids publishing world. So it’s been fun and bit disorienting to rediscover that world with the release of my latest book–A Fall Day for Bear in September.

Lots of nice things have happened, including great reviews for the book, including a starred review from Booklist, the selection of the Fall Day as a Best Book for September by the Amazon editors and, for me personally, some really wonderful fan letters. Really, more initial attention than many of the earlier books in the seven-book series have received.

One odd new thing has cropped up in recent years: supposed book clubs contacting me with an effusive email asking if they can share my book with their members. Not only will their members get to know, discuss and appreciate my book, but they will likely share it online and want to review it. Well, of course, it all sounds great, but, why are they even asking? Their book group can read and discuss and spread the word on any book they like. I assumed that this was leading up to them asking if I could speak to their group, but why not just ask that right away? Why were they first simply asking permission to read my book?

But, when I responded with an “of course”, then came the catch. One requested an author donation to help cover the costs of the club’s monthly get-together (which I’m guessing might warrant an ask of a couple hundred bucks, if that, and so was probably more about getting financial information). Another was a pay-per-review deal. Although, the club president insisted, “It’s not payment for reviews, but simply a way to say thank you for their time and reflection.” Usually $20 to $25 per review. Would I like to start with 20 or 30 reviews?

This has probably been common for years, but it’s a new one for me.

On a happier note was signing at the Big Foot Book Festival in Redmond where about 45 kid’s book authors signed books. I remember signings–where you sit alone in a book store or maybe a festival and hope to sign a few books, if you’re lucky you might sell a few.

So I was really pleasantly surprised by how many people showed—at times the place was packed—and at how many people actually bought books. It was a lot of fun. Lots of wonderful things were said–the kind of things you dream of as an author.

“Your books were a part of our family.” “We read that sooooo many times.” “Does Mouse have a British accent? I always read him with a British accent.” “Every year I read that book to my school and it never gets old.” “I teach two days of lessons around it.” “My kids love the big words.” “A classic.”

And, for once, I just let myself drink it in and feel grateful honor of being a part of their family reading.

I have another signing coming up. The Holiday Book Fest at Phinney Center on Nov. 22. It features of couple dozen local authors of all genres signing their books and looks like it gets quite a nice turnout, too.