The Storymaker's Art exhibit in Fort Lauderdale

The Storymaker’s Art is an exhibit of artwork from eight Florida children’s book illustrators. If you’ll be anywhere near the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale on Friday, December 3, 2010, you’re welcome to attend the panel discussion, reception, and book signing at the Mark K. Wheeler Gallery on campus. Click to enlarge the flyer below:

Seven of the eight illustrators will be answering questions at the panel discussion from 2–4, then we’ll be on hand for the reception and book signing from 5–8. I’ll have six illustrations in the exhibit, including one from my fall book, My Teacher is a Dinosaur.

For more details, please visit The Storymaker’s Art web site. Hope to see you there! If you can’t attend the opening, the exhibit will be up until January 5th.

Poetry Friday: Prehistoric Poems

This book begins with a brand-new, molten Earth 4.5 billion years ago then takes readers on a whirlwind tour of the history of life...much of it conveyed in the form of poems, cinquains, and limericks. Exclusively for today’s Poetry Friday, here a few samples from My Teacher Is a Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Poems, Jokes, Riddles, & Amazing Facts:

©2010 by Loreen Leedy

I had fun writing riddles in the form of limericks such as this one on page 11:

©2010 by Loreen Leedy

The answer to the riddle is...Insects! They were the first creatures on earth that could fly. 

Most spreads have a longer verse, such as this one on page 16:

©2010 by Loreen Leedy

©2010 by Loreen Leedy

Perhaps as a side effect of writing and illustrating quite a few math picture books, I felt compelled to compile some poetic statistics for this book:
Cinquains: 6
Limerick riddles: 14
Verses: 20

Some titles of the longer poems include:
The Bad Old Days
Plant Pioneers
The Fish That Wanted Legs
How to Stay Alive
Did Hadrosaurs Quack?
A Warning from the Mammals


Oh, I almost forgot to mention how many jokes are in the book...zillions! For example:
Q. Why did T. Rex eat the teacher? 
A. He was hungry for knowledge!

To see a full spread from the book plus reviews, please click here.
To see its page on Amazon, click this link: My Teacher Is a Dinosaur: And Other Prehistoric Poems, Jokes, Riddles & Amazing Facts 

Loreen
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