Itsy-Bitsy Book Cover

By Lynne Chapman

Remember the issues we had with Waterstones not liking the yellow cover which I originally designed for Baby Goes Baaaaa!? Well, I thought we had sorted everything with the new duck-egg blue cover, but I suddenly remembered something...

On the inside, there is this illustration of Nana Croc reading to Baby Croc. Now, whenever possible, I include my own books in my illustrations. Cheeky, but why not?

I thought for Baby Goes Baaaaa! is would be sweet if, instead of one of my other books, Nana Croc was reading the actual book she was in! Clever eh? Except trouble is, that book no longer has a yellow cover... Uh-oh.

Remember the patch I made for Baby Croc's bare bum on the cover of Baby Can Bounce!? Yep, you guessed it: 

It was so very tiny, it was a bit of a nightmare to do, but quite cute, I think you'll agree. When it was finished, I scanned it in and pasted it over the professional scan of Nana Croc from repro. Then, in Photoshop, I tinkered with it until it fitted like a glove. What do you think?

The Bic Picture Competition: What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

By Mike Brownlow

Last month I had the pleasure of being invited to be a judge in the annual competition run by BIC -- the BIC PICTURE -- to find talented young artists amongst Britain's primary school children. My fellow judges were children's TV presenter Kirsten O'Brien, and colour expert Cecile Parenton, who heads the children's division of BIC. The winners have just been announced.
The theme was 'What I want to be when I grow up,' and the ambitions of the nation's children ranged from becoming a mad scientist to a roller coaster designer. If this small sample is representative, there'll be lots of footballers, astronauts, dress designers and chefs around in the future! 

It's not as easy as you might imagine, picking winning pictures from a room full of shortlisted entrants, and there were several good-humored arguments along the way. We had some really delightful designs to sort through though, and choosing an overall winner was especially difficult. Well done to all who took part. Congratulations to all the age group winners, and especially to Laura Burton who won the main prize. Laura wants to be a children's book writer and illustrator, and with her winning picture she's made an impressive start.

I've pictured a few of my favorites here, but this is a link to the BIC Kids website, which gives more information: http://www.bickids.com/index.php?p_sa=actualite&p_actu=1 and to the Flickr site which shows more of the winning entrants: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebicpicture.

The Halloween Forest

By John Shelley

Although this won't be released until next year, here's a sneak preview of my upcoming Halloween themed book for Holiday House in the US. The Halloween Forest, written by Marion Dane Bauer, is a fantastical romp in a spooky bone forest. Fingers crossed it will find a publisher in the UK too. Woooooo!!!!!