The Lady Hermes

My blog about books for children and anything else.
Tags >> picture books
Mar 01
2009

Earning Myself a Nice Cuppa

Posted by Anne Rockwell

Yesterday I said good-bye to February with a celebration.  Just Books in Old Greenwich, Connecticut held a signing for my new book, "Big George: How a Shy Boy Became President Washington," Harcourt 2009, beautifully and evocatively illustrated by Matt Phelan.
 
In these tough times we all know people aren’t buying anything they don’t have to.  But I was pleased that our local bookstore wanted to honor me, and I wanted to give them any support I could, because they are under new ownership, and it takes plenty of courage to try and make a go of an independent bookstore these days. I knew I might be sitting all day in an empty store.
 
But the turnout was good and we sold books!  It was touching to see how many parents of young children wanted them to have a book about our first president, a book about how America became the world’s first democracy.
 
Among my favorite customers was the little girl of about five who murmured that she, too, was shy, and had even played the part of George Washington’s horse, Nelson, in her school’s recent celebration of Presidents’ Day!
 
All told, a lovely, but tiring day, filled with news and visits from old friends and new.  So when I got home, I kicked off my shoes, put my feet up on my tuffet, and enjoyed a nice cup of pu-erh tea brewed in my tiny xi-xing pot shown above.
 
As I looked at the fragrant brick of dark tea, a gift from a friend in China, I couldn’t help musing of how the world was changed because some unruly colonials dumped all those priceless bricks of China tea into Boston Harbor.
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Filed under picture books , events , Big George , appearances

Dec 01
2008

Going Green

Posted by Anne Rockwell

Picture books for children take a long time to go from idea to object. When I wrote "Why Are the Ice Caps Melting? The Dangers of Global Warming" five or six years ago being “Green” was not the big subject it is today. But by the time the book came out former Vice-President Al Gore had written "An Inconvenient Truth," and won an Oscar for the documentary film of the subject. Leonardo di Caprio had (I believe) 6 Prius cars in his garage. Hollywood had spoken. Green was good.

this is the award

I was surprised that this modest little book, published by HarperCollins as part of its LET’S READ AND FIND OUT science series, and cheerfully illustrated by Paul Meisel, gathered the attention it did, although I guess I shouldn’t have been. A reporter from The Washington Post interviewed me and asked if I didn’t feel concerned about how I was frightening children by writing a book about global warming. The Wall Street Journal (which rarely reviews children’s books) wrote a long and vitriolic review of the book, with a similar caveat.

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Filed under writing , saving the planet , picture books , nature , global warming , collaboration , awards

Nov 17
2008

Welcome to My Blog

Posted by Anne Rockwell

I’m calling my blog THE LADY HERMES. No, it’s not one that will link to eBay where you can buy Hermes (the high status one pronounced air-mez) knockoffs cheap. If you read my book "The Robber Baby and Other Greek Myths," you’ll find that the robber baby is the god Hermes, messenger of Zeus, but also the god of secrets, lies and dreams—in other words, the god of storytelling. But he’s also the god who watches over travelers (and I am one of those), and the one who invented the alphabet, therefore the god of reading and writing (another passion of mine). So as an author and illustrator of books for children, he seemed a good mentor.

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Filed under writing , reading , picture books , illustration , Hermes , Greek myths