A Day in My Life

Dear Friends,
Here is a glimpse of a recent day at home in North Carolina. I spent my morning in the kitchen. My ingredients list included: eggs, flour, butter, milk and oranges (I like to make fresh squeezed juice).


Here I am settling down to enjoy my breakfast!


Later I worked in my studio where my ingredients list included: paintbrushes, tubes of colorful paint, papers and pencils



The sun was out and the room was bright.
Sweet fruit juice, a plate of pancakes and time to work.
No complaints.

My Books and All Kinds of Learners

Many teachers who work with children who are autistic or children who have learning disabilities write to me and tell me that my books are helpful in their classrooms. I’m not an expert in the field of education but I am very pleased that I do reach all kinds of learners.

I started school in the US and had a wonderful experience. But when my family moved back to Germany it was a different story. There was a strict, mean teacher and I began to hate school and hating school prevented me from learning. Back then it wasn’t recognized whether you were learning disabled but I’m sure I was.

I try in each of my books to include learning and entertainment and I aim to let readers into my world, my life experiences. The learning part I always camouflauge. It’s just one aspect; one dimension of the book.

I feel strongly that each child is an individual; each child is different. I don’t even like to use the word children. I prefer to say, a child and a child and a child. I think I make my books for a child, and that child is me, the child in me.

My annual signing at The Carle

This past weekend I was in Amherst, MA for my annual book signing at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, now known as The Carle. It was a wonderful day and I was delighted to sign books for the visitors who came and waited so patiently in line.


People from all over including visitors from VA, CA, NY and even Iceland were at the Museum and I enjoyed meeting the teachers and children, grandparents and parents who arrived at the table where I sat with my pen.
Here I am taking a break and eating a healthy snack.


Bobbie and I are so happy to have had this time to come back to Massachusetts and visit with old friends here and the staff at the Museum who handled a busy day beautifully. There was ice cream and other treats in the apple orchard after the signing and I hope all who came enjoyed themselves as much as we did.

Photo credit: Kristin Angel

Sweets

I love honey and have since I was a child in Germany. And another treat that I love is chocolate. Maybe it goes back to my childhood as well when an aunt of mine worked in a chocolate factory. She was my favorite aunt of course because she could bring home left over pieces so whenever I visited her I would be given a bag of broken chocolate.

Old Friends

I created illustrations for these books in the 1960's before I had started making books for children. These “gift” books were done as work-for-hire and in linoleum cuts. I still appreciate these older works for their simple design.

Reading the Funny Papers

On Sunday mornings, when I was a child, my father would read the funny papers to me. It was a ritual for us. I would sit on his lap and he would read me the comics. It was fun, entertaining. But also, he would add a little learning into our Sunday mornings. He pointed out one cartoonist in particular who only did side views or front views, no perspective. My mother would call in from the kitchen to him that I was too young to understand what he was saying. But my father would just keep talking, enjoying our Sunday time together, reading the comics, building in a little education.

Summer