Joan Calder’s “Airplanes in the Garden” has launched and it’s already for sale in bookstores nationwide. And the first reviews are coming in:
“I can’t think of a more rewarding, long-lasting summer strategy for entertaining (and stealthily educating) youngsters than reading this fancifully illustrated, engagingly written, instructional book.” — Billy Goodnick, Fine Gardening.
Children are loving this book for its illustrations and engaging story about monarch butterflies. Parents are very grateful, for the children are learning by playing and reading along with the main characters of the book, the monarchs Sergio and Stanley. The book even has a few pages with monarch butterfly facts and Fly Away, a song by Rebecca Troon that you can download for free.
I was very fortunate to work with Joan and with illustrator Cathy Quiel to make their dream a reality. The magnificent illustrations by Quiel didn’t always fit the spreads, and I had to add some content. I was very nervous to tinker with somebody else’s beautiful art, since I’m also an artist, after all. I tried to be as respectful as possible so that at the end you wouldn’t even see any changes.
Here are a couple of spreads I am particularly proud of:
Illustrations: ©2011 Cathy Quiel/cathyquiel.com
Story: ©2011 Joan Calder/airplanesinthegarden.com
PS. I love when I can contribute by sharing many of my talents in one project: Design (inside pages, cover and dust jacket), Illustration (invisibly enhancing some pages with Photoshop), Writing (helping with the author bios), Photography (creating the author portraits for Joan and Cathy), and public relations skills. Thank you Joan, Cathy and John for making this possible, and great luck with the book. For everybody else, purchase the book.
Wow they were lucky to get to work with someone who has so many great skills! Wonderful job! Looks like a perfect book for my little nephew, yay.
Thank you very much, Dorrie. I was lucky to work on this beautiful project. Let us know how your nephew likes it.
Thank you Isaac for all you created on my Airplanes book project. You were there when I was looking for just the right words, the photos, the book design, and a whole lot of handholding and expertise. Airplanes is the success it is because of all the extra steps you went through on my project and I highly recommend you to anyone working on a book, play, the list is endless. Look forward to working with you on my next project.
Thank you, Joan, for all your kind words, and for the opportunity to work/play on such a beautiful book. I look forward to our next project!