First, a BIG Shout Out for Home in the Cave for winning the 2012 Gold Gelett Burgess Award for the Growing Up category. Amazingly, Let My Colors Out won the same award for 2011! I'm very proud of both!!
I'm tremendously excited about my upcoming spring 2013 releases!
I have two butterfly books coming out with Charlesbridge, written by Jerry Pallotta. The first will be released in spring 2013 - Butterfly Colors and Counting. Isn't this THE perfect Spring book?!
Just in time for summer reading adventures, also being released spring 2013 from Sylvan Dell Publishing, written by Ann Downer, is Shark Baby. You can follow Shark Baby on Facebook.
I had a couple adventures of my own preparing to illustrate these books!
For my two butterfly books, I have had numerous visits to The Butterfly Place in Westford, MA; Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory & Gardens in South Deerfield, MA; and the Butterfly Garden at the Museum of Science in Boston, MA (of which I've been a member for over 20 years and highly recommend!).
Shark Baby had me packing up my suitcase! Always starting from Boston - my home base - I first visited The New England Aquarium (I'm a member there, too!) - but Shark Baby is the story of a baby swell shark whose egg case gets torn loose in a storm and finds himself on a journey through different ocean habitats; kelp forests, coral reefs, and seagrass meadows... so.... I followed in Shark Baby's fins and flew out to the kelp forest of Monterey Bay and visited the aquarium there...
Me, holding a swell shark egg case in Monterey Bay
While on the West Coast I stopped by the California Academy of Sciences and took a look at their horn shark specimens and also, while in San Francisco, stopped in at the Aquarium of the Bay where they have a terrific adult swell shark on display.
But Mother Ocean has our hero Shark Baby visiting other habitats - so I also flew to Crystal River, Florida, where I went swimming with manatees.
I wonder where my next book will lead me??
(I'm currently illustrating my 17th children's book, in case you are keeping count.)
You went swimming with manatees!!! I am so jealous :o) Not that I can even swim, but the thought of being so close to a manatee has always touched me as a special thing to do.
Your research is amazingly dedicated, and shows in the realism you carry into your artwork. Your books (and you) deserve the recognition being given at last. Congratulations Shennen.
Posted by: J G | August 11, 2012 at 07:11 PM
June, when I hit the lottery one of the top five things I WILL do with the money will be to fly you and Mike to Florida to swim with manatees! No swimming is actually required, you wear a wet suit, mask, snorkel, and simply float over them and allow them to come up to you. They are huge and very gentle (vegetarians like us!).
Thank you for the congratulations - I can't wait to send you a copy of Shark Baby!
Posted by: Shennen Bersani | August 11, 2012 at 11:53 PM