We didn’t sink!

What a wonderful day it was at the Queens Museum Children’s Book Celebration this past Saturday. We bookmakers were set up in the main atrium—a gorgeous open space, filled with natural light—where kids and parents filed through, pausing for conversation, art-making, reading, you name it...and a general good time.

If you’re unfamiliar with this area of Queens, there’s great history behind the space too. The museum is located in the New York City Building, which once housed the New York City Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair. It’s the building next to the iconic Unisphere, a 12-story globe surrounded by a fountain, or what I like to call the best sprinkler in the world.

I was paired up with the Discovery Team from the Queens Children’s Library who created a great program for kids to test their theories of sinking and floating, using some of the experiments from Things That Float and Things That Don’t.

Not only were some of my pals in the New York City kids’ book community there, but I got to meet several authors and illustrators whose work I’ve been admiring from afar. Fingers crossed for this to become an annual event.

The Queens Museum Children’s Book Celebration

Join me and a great group of local award-winning children’s book authors and illustrators this Saturday, July 11th, from 12 to 4 PM for the Queens Museum Children’s Book Celebration! Best of all—it’s free!

illustration by Tim Miller

There will be live readings, art-making, and other fun activities from this list of characters: Mike Curato, Melissa Guion, Frank Dormer, Roxie Munro, Kelly Light, Kat Yeh, Joyce Wan, Sergio Ruzzier, David Ezra Stein, Anna Raff, Adam Auerbach, Kirsten Hall, Dasha Tolstikova, Mike Herrod, Sam Ita, Jen Hill, Ame Dyckman, Zachariah OHora, Carla Torres, Adam Lehrhaupt, Isabel Roxas, and Rowboat Watkins!

The day’s events were organized by the incredibly talented Tim Miller in partnership with the Queens Library Summer Reading Program. And wow!—the first 200 attendees get a free poster! (See Tim’s great illustration above.)

As for me, I’ll be pairing up with the Queens Library Discovery Team to present Things That Float and Things That Don’t, the first in a series of books by David A. Adler that I’ve had the pleasure of illustrating. We’ll be testing out all kinds of experiments to see what sinks, what floats, and how salt water effects buoyancy—so bring your future scientists!

When not stooped over a tub of water sinking stuff, I’ll be at my table located on the first floor sharing my book-making process, a few sneak peeks at some future projects, and tips on how to draw rats and other important things.  I mean everyone needs to know how to draw a proper rat, don’t they?

I’ll also be selling copies of my books, prints and other wares with plenty of free stuff to give away.

And if this line-up of children’s book luminaries wasn’t enough, and you’ve never visited The Queens Museum before, did you know that it houses a gigantic panorama of the city of New York? I saw it for the first time a few weeks ago, and it is truly amazing.

For more information, visit the Museum website. I hope to see you there!

Picture This! at the Danforth Museum of Art

“Picture This!” is an annual juried exhibition at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, Massachusetts showcasing new work by picture book illustrators. 

I’m thrilled that three images from World Rat Day have been included—flamingoes, and rats, and sloths—oh my! A big thank you goes out to judge Joann Hill of Disney/Hyperion for selecting my work.

The show runs from June 8—August 4, 2013. For more information and directions, visit the museum website.

Rizzoli, Rats and Raffs

On the heels of the big World Rat Day event at Rizzoli, I did a little traveling, so this post is over a week late. Still, I wanted to share a few photos—it was a fantastic turnout! Thanks to everyone who was there, bought books, and helped celebrate Poetry Month. And special thanks to the great people at Rizzoli—especially publicist Meg Parsont—and Candlewick for providing the bubbly and the big poster for the store window! Boy was my hand tired by the end, but in a really good way.

MoCCA Arts Festival 2013 - April 6th & 7th

April is the busiest month ~ This weekend (April 6th and 7th) is the annual MoCCA Arts Fest at the 69th Regiment Armory at Lexington Avenue and 25th Street—open both days from 11am to 6pm.

Stop by table D97 where I’ll be selling a new, limited edition, hand-bound book featuring art from my bird image blog Ornithoblogical, called What the Duck? (You may remember earlier this year, I devoted an entire week on to ducks.)

My other MoCCA offerings will include a new set of hand-painted children’s t-shirts;  Ornithoblogical magnets, buttons, and prints; and a new line of notebooks featuring hand-painted tip-on images of robots and martians. And of course, I’ll be selling and signing copies of World Rat Day and Sylvia’s Spinach.

Once again, the lovely Sophia Wiedeman and I will be sharing a table. What table, was that again? Table D97. And just to make it easier on you, here a map. See you there!...

At the Bank St. Bookstore - April 4th

On the afternoon of Thursday, April 4th (World Rat Day proper) I’ll be presenting World Rat Day to the after-school set at the Bank Street Bookstore on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Click here for details. If you can’t make it to that event, you can still celebrate World Rat Day with me at Rizzoli Bookstore on Saturday, April 13th. More information from my earlier post can be found here. In addition to reading some of J. Patrick Lewis’ wonderful poems, we’ll be drawing rats, and inventing our own holidays. Hope to see you there!

Signing at Rizzoli Bookstore, NYC - April 13th, 3pm

Happy [belated] National Pig Day! I hope you found a proper way to honor the swine this past Friday.

The release of World Rat Day is a little over a week away, and it has been getting some nice attention in print and cyberspace. But first things first...

On Saturday, April 13th from 3:00–4:30 PM, the Rizzoli Bookstore in midtown Manhattan is hosting a book signing for me. Here’s the announcement from their website:

To help celebrate National Poetry Month, award-winning illustrator Anna Raff joins us for this kid-friendly event in which she unveils a whimsical collection of poems and her illustrations commemorating such quirky holidays as Dragon Appreciation Day and International Cephalopod Awareness Day.

I know you’ll want to fill me in on how you celebrated the actual World Rat Day which is a few days earlier, so I look forward to seeing you there! For directions, click here.

In other World Rat Day news, the rats got a nice, visual shout out in the “Spring Children’s Books” issue of Publisher’s Weekly last week. To read the complete PW review, click here. And the book trailer has been featured on several illustration sites. If you still haven’t watched it, take a short 1-minute, 36-second break. I hope it puts a smile on your face.