Book Beat and the Oak Park Public Library present three new books by Michigan authors and illustrators at the Oak Park Public Library on 14200 Oak Park Blvd on Saturday December 5 from 11:00 am – 12:30 pm.
This event brings together author James Tobin and illustrator David Coverly for Sue MacDonald Had a Book, author John Perry with his book The Book That Eats People, and Philip Christian Stead, author and illustrator of Creamed Tuna Fish and Peas on Toast.
REVIEW: “When asked about the inspiration for his first children’s book, Ann Arbor author Jim Tobin tells a story parents everywhere will recognize immediately: Settling his kids into bed with those consistent rituals all the experts recommend, he would sing them a song to send them off to the land of Nod. And in an excellent example of consistency having an effect, his youngest latched onto one in particular as her preferred soundtrack, requesting a seemingly endless loop.
“I got so sick of ‘Old MacDonald,’” Tobin laughed. “It was like, ‘How many verses are we gonna do?’ But eventually, some part of my brain said, ‘You know, it’s amazing nobody ever put the vowels in place of the e-i-e-i-o….’”
Well, we can’t say that anymore. -Source: the Ann Arbor News; Kid’s Songs Driving you Nuts?
Illustrator Dave Coverly is also a nationally syndicate cartoonist well known for his panel cartoon “Speed Bump.” He has won several Reuben Award’s for his artwork. This is his first children’s book.
INTERVIEW: What a pleasure to leave the solitude of the studio and connect with real, live, human beings via the Internet. My name is Philip Stead. I live in Ann Arbor, MI, though much of the work from my first book, Creamed Tuna Fish and Peas on Toast (Roaring Brook Press, Fall 2009), was created while living in Brooklyn, NY. Like many artists, I’ve fled the city to make room for those better equipped to manage the ballooning rent prices.
I feel very fortunate to work with Roaring Brook Press. My experience with Roaring Brook has been one that most artists only dream of these days. My early book dummy was approved by a single editor. I was then left almost completely alone for the eighteen months it took to create Creamed Tuna Fish and Peas on Toast. In my opinion, the chance that a piece of artwork has of retaining its integrity diminishes with each set of hands that touch it.
Creamed Tuna Fish and Peas on Toast is based on a strange but true Stead-family story. In the mid-1950s, in a fit of rage, my Grandpa Jack buried his least favorite meal (creamed tuna fish and peas on toast) in the yard, even carving a headstone for the vile dish. All of the characters in the book are my real family members—my Grandpa Jack and Grandma Jane and their five children. Source: Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
“This is a cautionary tale about a voracious book that may eat an unfortunate equally voracious and naive reader. The Book That Eats People by John Perry chronicles the horrific history of a book that, as the title says, eats people. This is that book. The book warns you not to read, as it’s a particularly nasty-tempted book. If you do, you’ll learn the fate of poor Sammy Ruskin, who was devoured by the pages, and the book’s other two (so far) victims.
Who wouldn’t want to read this book with that cover? Despite the multiple warnings, read this book. Kids will love the silly tale of a vicious book that eats people, including a library night guard, and the subsequent attempts to reform it of its cannibal ways. Adults will appreciate the cleverness, like when the book devours Sammy Ruskin, it’s then entitled “Whatever Happened to Sammy Ruskin?” It’ll have you both laughing aloud as you read the book how tries to hide its true identity as people-eating book, with a nice safe cover. You can guess how that turns out. Gulp.” Source: Bri Meets Books