Today, I searched for my recipes for rose potpourri, and in doing so, my computer reminded me of how many times I write about roses. You see, I grow roses in my garden, and I paint them: The Last Rose of Summer Jacki Kellum Traditional Watercolor Painting Painted in 2018 – Sold I make all…
Category: #14DayPBChallenge
A List of The Lessons in Jacki Kellum’s 2023 How to Write & Revise a Picture Book: the #14DayPBChallenge
Introduction to the Class Take the #14DayPBChallenge – Write, Revise, & Submit Your Picture Book for Publication I. Plan Your Picture Book #14DayPBChallenge – Day 1- February 2023 – Start Planning Your Picture Book II. How to Come Up with Ideas for Your Picture Book- includes a list of ideas with links to examples of…
Chrysanthemum – A Picture Book by Kevin Henkes – An Anthem Against Bullying
Chrysanthemum Kevin Henkes 1988 – Green Willow Books Chrysanthemum is one of my all-time favorite picture book characters. Her life was perfect until the other kids at school told her that she had a terrible name. Chrysanthemum sack puppet Designed and Created by Jacki Kellum Chrysanthemum thought her name was absolutely perfect. And then she…
How Many Pages in a Picture Book? Which Page is Page One?
While most picture books have 32 pages, that is not an absolute rule. In this post, I’ll show you several picture books, and I’l show you that page one of a picture book really isn’t page one. I’ll begin with my own picture book The Donkey’s Song. The Donkey’s Song Jacki Kellum Illustrated by Sydney…
How My Intuition Wrote My Picture Book The Donkey’s Song
When I am painting and when I am writing, I consider it a great day when something within myself takes over and essentially completes my project for me. This gentle urging is intuition. It is the spark that helped Michelangelo release his sculptures from a piece of rock. Janis Joplin – Jacki Kellum Watercolor My…
Picture Writing – How Jacki Kellum Wrote Her Debut Picture Book The Donkey’s Song
I am a painter, as well as a writer, and perhaps that is why I mentally “see” what I am writing before I begin to write. For years I have heard that children are either visual learners or verbal learners. I am both, but I am probably more visual than I am verbal. I Call…
How to Create Stronger Settings for Your Picture Books – Visualize the Details of the Story
in my debut book The Donkey’s Song, I wrote very few words about the setting. That book has 150 words, and I did not feel that the lyrical, magical tone of the book could bear a lot of “spelling things out.” But as I wrote the book, I was fully aware of where that story was…
Hula-Hoopin’ Queen – A Picture Book by Thelma Lynne Godin
Hula-Hoopin’ Queen Thelma Lynne Godin Illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton Lee & Low Books, 2014 I like Hula-Hoopin’ Queen for several reasons, but I mainly like the book because it offers the readers a glimpse of a rather contemporary African-American community. Although it is not historical yet, I am listing Hula-Hoopin’ Queen as appropriate for Black…
#14DayPBChallenge – Day 4 – February 2023 – How Metaphor and Simile Added Spice to Writing
First, let’s talk about what metaphors and similes are. A Metaphor is a comparative device that helps us better understand the writer’s meaning. A metaphor merely says that one thing IS another thing. The reader is left responsible for deciphering the metaphor. “A man is a lion” is a metaphor. Obviously, a man is not really a…
#14DayPBChallenge – Day 2 – February 2023 – A List of Ideas for Picture Books
Ideas for picture books are ephemeral in nature. Sometimes, they come to me in droves, but at other times, I can’t think of any ideas for my writing. Today, I’m starting a registry of picture book ideas. I’m starting by cataloging the picture books in my own library This is a work in progress. It…