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This is the blog for The Pencil Play Pals Shop—written by author/illustrator Norman Childes.
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The latest Museum Tour catalog is now making its way to mailboxes along with its online version at museumtour.com. This year sees the arrival of the award winning activity book "Pencil Play Pals Pencil Games." You'll find it in the Educational Books and Software section.
In this book children discover that making a game is as much fun as playing it. All they need are some pencils and some odds and ends from around the house. However, there are several pages of ready-made game pieces to get the fun off to a quick start.
What better way for children to learn than when they think they're simply having fun? And in this economy parents will be happy for their children to learn that fun games don't have to be expensive games. That in fact they can be made from recycling simple household items and a few pencils.
Awards:
The National Parenting Center Seal of Approval.
Creative Child Magazine's Preferred Choice Award.
Family Choice Award.
The National Parenting Center identifies the finest products and services being marketed to the parent/child audience. Through consumer oriented testing it solicits evaluations from parents and their children. The products with the best results are awarded The National Parenting Center Seal of Approval.
We were very pleased to be awarded their Seal of Approval for both "The Pristine Pig," and "Pencil Play Pals Pencil Games." You can read the write up for them at: Pristine Pig and Pencil Games.
I'm thrilled to announce that Pencil Play Pals have two winners in the Family Choice Magazine Awards.
"The Crocodile Who Thought She Was a Duck," and "Pencil Play Pals Pencil Games," were both honored with a Family Choice Award. Family Choice Magazine wrote:
From over 15,000 entries, local children, parents, and teachers, tested, rated and eliminated until they came up with the best of the best.
Awards are always nice to receive, but most importantly they give a good book much needed publicity, so that others can discover and enjoy it. Thanks very much to all those involved.
How many of you take part in a children's book swap? Some books, of course, are precious and you might not want to risk any damage to them, but generally book swapping (or lending) is a great way to encourage reading. In this economy it's nice to accomplish that without any extra tugs on those perhaps tighter purse strings. Unlike getting books from a library (which I wouldn't discourage), a book swap also gets shared opinions, critiques and book suggestions along with it. A children's book can become so much more than a story once it's shared with others. Through book swaps friendships for children and parents are waiting to be formed.
Book swaps are easy to start. Just give another parent a book your child enjoyed, and you're off. Better still, ask your child to lend their book to another child. I think it's a nice way to introduce children to sharing in general. I'd say anything that can get kids out of the habit of shouting "give it back it's mine," has to be a good thing.
If you don't have the space to hold a book swap, or just don't want to host one, you could alway suggest the idea to a teacher. It's not that booking swapping is a new idea, but it is perhaps one that gets forgotten.
If anyone has any thoughts on the subject I'm sure other children's book lovers would love to hear about them.
Many of you who have bought either of my two children’s storybooks “The Pristine Pig” or “The Crocodile Who Thought She Was a Duck” (by the way, thanks and I’m glad you and your kids enjoyed them), have asked me about the illustrations in them. In particular, how do I create them and which are my favorites? So I thought I’d let you in on a few of my secrets. Shhh... moms the word.
I start off with a pencil and sketch pad. When I say sketch pad, that could be anything from the back of a used envelope to a napkin. The first stage is to get my thoughts down on paper, or to doodle to try and get some thoughts to put down on paper. These are rough drawings and certainly nothing I would classify as good art—more of a template for me to refer to while I’m creating the actual thing.
I create all my final illustrations on my computer using Adobe Illustrator. To say I love this way of illustrating is to put it mildly. The first reason is that by sitting at a computer I have the web at my disposal for finding reference. Although all my illustrations are unique I’ve always thought referring to actual photographs adds a lot to them—even if it means referencing something as simple as the shape of an animal’s ear. I’m always amazed how my memory of something can be miles away from how it looks in reality. The lack of mess, and storing everything on discs rather than in cupboards, are among the other obvious benefits, of course.
Picking my favorite illustrations is a tough one as they all have something I enjoy while looking at them. But that said, I’m showing a few that are good examples of why some appeal to me over others.
I might like an illustration for its complexity or its simplicity. For instance, I had a lot of fun hiding Harry under all his hugging children. At first glance you may think the small crocodiles are the same, but I made sure to make everyone different in some way. I’ve always hated what I call lazy duplication. Whether it’s an extra tooth or a different smile, none are the same. Although, feel free to study it, if you find one I’ve missed I’ll commend you for your patience and diligence at discovering it.
The simplicity of an illustration can make it something I like a lot too—where it becomes more graphic in nature. I find looking at Percy the pig swimming with his friend the frog very relaxing. And I like to think children can dream up their own reasons for what they see in it. Why does Percy like swimming backstroke? So he can talk to his frog friend at the same time. The right answer is anything you want it to be.
I also like an illustration that has a concept behind it. Joan the crocodile drawing faces on her eggs to imagine what her children will look like always makes me smile. I like to believe this is exactly what a crocodile might do if it knew how to draw. Or hold a pencil for that matter.
If you or your children have any favorite illustrations I’d love to hear which they are and why. Just post your comments to this article.
Whehey Publishing: Why are you called a Pencil Play Pal?
Curly Tail: You didn’t notice this huge pencil I’m carrying then? Just joking, but you’ll rarely see me without one. I, like all the Pencil Play Pals, love to write and draw, and what’s better than keeping a pencil handy for when you get a hankering for it? Through our Pencil Play Pals brand my friends and I hope to inspire kids to pick up pencils and get their imaginations flowing onto paper too.
Whehey Publishing: Can you tell us more about the products under the Pencil Play Pals brand?
Curly Tail:
Well, I’ll start with a shameless plug for my book “The Pristine Pig.” It’s one of four illustrated books we displayed at the 2009 NY International Toy Fair. We also have an online shop at PencilPlayPals.com along with the Pencil Play Pals Club (PPP Club). This is a free kids’ club with things like read-along books and a newspaper, “The Pencil Play Pals Times.” All the articles in this newspaper are written by children—we're always looking for new submission by the way.
Whehey Publishing: What makes a Pencil Play Pals book any different from any other children’s book?
Curly Tail: We do. Sorry, does that sound a little big headed? But it’s a fact that we Pencil Play Pals write the books ourselves. Norman Childes, an author and illustrator himself, just helps us out a bit. Plus not only is each book beautifully written, illustrated, and designed, you’ve got to remember they’ve the full force of a strong brand and theme pushing them out from the clutter.
Whehey Publishing: Do you have any other books or products coming out?
Curly Tail:
No individual projects for me right now, but I’m always working with the other Pencil Play Pals to come up with new ideas. We have a few things in the works. I love collaborative projects. You’ll see I have a game on page 8 of “Pencil Play Pals Pencil Games” for instance. I know Slippery Sid’s working on a new book, but I’ll let him tell you about that.
Whehey Publishing: How successful are the Pencil Play Pals so far?
Curly Tail: We only launched in 2009 so our history is in the making, but parents and teachers have been giving us great reviews. We’ve also won 2 awards from “Creative Child Magazine.“ An award show is only as good as its judges, so we were very proud to be honored by over 100 moms and educators.
Encouraging kids to read, write and draw is a worthy cause, but not always an easy one. So who can parents and teachers turn to for a little help? How about a 2 inch pencil-loving pig for instance?
Role models play an important part in children’s lives because children not only adore them, but want to emulate them. We can only hope that sports and music celebrities say and do all the right things, but wouldn’t it be nice if there were some role models out there specifically designed to show our children how much fun learning can be? Well, there are—20 of them. They’re the Pencil Play Pals. Pencil-loving animal characters who encourage children to read, write and draw by their own example.
Take Curly Tail, a 2 inch pencil-loving pig who wrote “The Pristine Pig” —Norman Childes, author and illustrator just helped him out a bit. Curly Tail introduces his story at the beginning of the book for a very good reason—hey, if a pig can write a fun story like this, the kids reading it certainly can. Charley Chomp—a small green crocodile also introduces his story in “The Crocodile Who Thought She Was a Duck,” but concludes it too by suggesting kids try and think up some of their own adventures for the crocodiles they just read about.
All the Pencil Play Pals got together to produce an activity book containing 20 of their favorite pencil games in “Pencil Play Pals Pencil Games.” Here kids learn that games don’t have to be expensive or battery operated, in fact, making games from pencils and a few odds and ends from around the home can be as much fun as playing them.
Kids can learn a lot when they don’t realize they’re being taught something. Arts and crafts and playing games are sneaky and effective ways of doing that.
So, when it comes to role models who have your child’s best interests and education at heart, the Pencil Play Pals won’t let you down
