Shennen Bersani's Weblog

KSLA Award Ceremony and Conference 2023

I got home late last night from the Keystone State Literacy Association’s 2023 Conference in Hershey, PA. I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll toss down highlights:

It started with The Eyeball Alphabet Book winning the KSLA 2022-2023 Keystone to Reading Elementary Book Award for the Intermediate Level. 

Jerry and I were invited to a book signing Sunday (and the award ceremony luncheon on Monday in Hershey). Here’s the poster for Sunday night’s book signing:

We had some fun with Miss Kiss and the Reese’s character:

Miss Kiss was rocking one of my lucky 🍀 art pins! 



The conference was at the Hershey Lodge - Kisses. Chocolate. Enough said, that place is to-die-for phenomenal. Chocolate butter, fresh hot cocoa bar with eye popping toppings and stir-in’s. Even the hotel soap was chocolate infused. Chocolate is EVERYWHERE.  I need to return! 😋

So in addition to creating many new lucky 🍀 art pins to give away, Lou suggested I also make 100 of these Eyeball pins to hand out:

The Eyeball pins are pivotal to my story. For I simply posted the above photo on my Facebook account and mentioned I was heading to Hershey a few days before heading out. 

My mother came from a large family, 8 kids. She grew up with her siblings in Pottsville. She married my dad and they moved to Boston, but most of her family - and their kids - all remained in the general area. (I think my sister and I have 32 first cousins.) Being born and raised in Massachusetts, I didn’t have the opportunity to get to know my relatives, or even meet most of them. (My mom passed in ‘89, it’s been a long time since I’ve visited Pottsville.) One of my first cousins, Ruthann, saw my Eyeball pin Facebook Post. She mentioned she lived about an hour from Hershey. (She later told me she recalled meeting me once, when she was 5 and I was 6 - I believe when our grandfather died.) Without my knowledge she reaches out to our cousin Bob…. Bobby had lived with us in MA the year I was in fourth grade. He attended BU for his freshman year and commuted from my house to school. I hadn’t connected with him since that school year. Our cousin Maryann also saw my “heading to Hershey” post, and she reached out to her sister….. 

Monday’s award ceremony luncheon comes around, and as I’m about to go onstage - I receive a text I had cousins in the back of the room…

I get up onstage to give a little speech, see my cousin “surprise” and I’m now overwhelmed with emotion, all choked up and teary-eyed. 

After the luncheon, we all got together for a couple hours to chat and catch up. I had the phone number to our cousin, John, in Texas - so I called him and put him on speakerphone so he could ‘join’ us. 



Here are my cousins who went out of their way to surprise and celebrate my award with me: Ruthann, Bobby, me, Maryann, Dotsy. 

After my cousins left there were many books to sign:

And a LOT more chocolate to eat:

Oh and the jacket I wore on Monday - I had it custom made in London by www.bagsofloveuk.com I uploaded 15 eyeballs from pages of The Eyeball Alphabet Book, and they created the fabric and sewed the kimono for me. Check them out, Bags of Love. Fantastic job! (The back has the cover snake eyeball centered with the others surrounding it.)

Together with Jerry Pallotta. I’ve illustrated many more of his books, check out Jerry’s site: www.JerryPallotta.com 

Onto my next book…. Updates will come later. 😉

 

A Sampling of my Books

Here’s a sample of the books I’ve written and/or illustrated. Most are available on Amazon. 
Check out Arbordale Publishing’s site for my Arbordale books, and head over to Charlesbridge for my books with them.

To those who landed here due to the gift of a pin….

To those who landed here due to the gift of a pin….

I’m the award-winning children’s author of Achoo! Why Pollen Counts, and more notably the illustrator of 39 other children’s picture books. I’ve illustrated for Scholastic, Arbordale Publishing, Charlesbridge, American Cancer Society, to only name a few. My books have sold millions of copies worldwide. Not all, but most can be found on Amazon.

After art school, I started out hand lettering signs for a chain of retail stores, moved onto colored pencil portraits, surgical tools for Johnson & Johnson, illustrations for gardening magazines, and ultimately illustrating and designing children’s books. I have a great love of nature that typically shows up in my work.

A few years ago I realized I had a knack for finding lucky 4- and 5-leaf clovers. I turn the ones that I collect, plus flowers from my yard, into art pins. It gives me great joy to share these with others!

In 2023 I’ve traveled near and far, for work and family commitments. Along the way I’ve handed my pins to people I interact with. My goal is to spread cheer, love, hope, joy… and some good luck to others!

I hope you enjoy your pin as much as I enjoyed creating it. Much love. ❤️

 

….If you haven’t received one, and would like one mailed to you, DM me on Twitter @ShennenBersani

New lucky clover pins for 2023

I’ve been lucky to find more 4, 5 (and even a 6-leaf) clover in my yard this spring! 

I'm sharing my luck with others. They are limited to however many I can find. I’d be delighted to mail one out to you, DM me over at Twitter @ShennenBersani If I’ve run out, I’ll add you to a waiting list. 

Mini watercolor paintings with clover and flowers from my yard.

My friend Sneshka told me last summer I needed to find a 6-leaf one, last month I did! Sneshka then told me, “Now find a 7-leaf one! My aunt did once.” 😳

🍀

And for those who stumbled onto this page and don’t know who I am, I’m the author of Achoo! Why Pollen Counts, and the illustrator of 38 other children’s picture books. 

400 Art Pins

I’m currently illustrating a couple books, and in my down time I’m creating new Art Pins. 

How it started: a way for me to share 50 4-leaf clovers I had found.

My yard is full of normal run-of-the-mill 3-leaf clover, but a small patch of property under an old oak tree has the 4 and 5 leaf mutation. It’s just an over abundance of 4-leavers in that location. Over the years I would pick a few, put them in a thick book, and forget about them. Last year I realized the book was getting full of collected clover, so the question arose in my mind - how can I preserve these for people and pass along the good luck. The idea of Art Pins hatched in my mind.

After making 400 Art Pins, how it’s going.

I eventually made 75 clover pins, there were so many tucked away in that book! I gifted all of those away - save the ones above, which are spoken for. After they were gone, my list of recipients had grown beyond 75… so I created Art Pins with flowers I pressed. Each a unique watercolor painting and pen & ink drawing, each a unique piece of my art.

Just as the clover ones were special in that I had found each of the clovers in my yard, my latest batch of Art Pins are special, limited edition, in the fact that I’ve collected those flowers from my yard. You can dm me on Twitter if you are interested in one: @ShennenBersani 

#art #artist #illustrator #clover #butterflies #flowers #paintings 🎨🍀🦋🌸 #payingitforward #joy #goodluck 💗

Perfect pollen books for children (of all ages!)

Pollen, softly blowing in the breeze. The smallest seed of life. Here are some perfect pollen and pollinator books for children (of all ages!). I say, ‘of all ages’, because adult art collectors have told me they have copies in their personal book collections. These books are all available on Amazon. Achoo! Why Pollen Counts, Home in the Cave, and Night Creepers are also available at Arbordale. Butterfly Colors and Counting, Butterfly Counting, and Not a Butterfly Alphabet Book are also available at Charlesbridge. 

 

 

Banned Books

An absolutely wonderful friend sent me a link to this photo “I Love Book” on Facebook.

Never in my wildest imagination would I have thought I would be the illustrator of a ‘banned’ book. But I am illustrating my 37th children’s picture book, and they have sold an overall world-wide total combined 3+ million copies…. so I can’t even begin to comprehend where the books have gone off to….

Apparently A Case Of Sense ended up being banned in Duval County, Florida. Along with 175 other children’s titles. Read all about it here. 

A Case of Sense, written by Songju Ma Daemicke is a children’s book about ‘senses’, yup that’s what I said - smelling and hearing. And how is learning about your senses controversial? You got me, you’d have to ask the administrators down in Duval County, Florida, that question. The great state of Kansas loved the book! It is on the 2017 Kansas NEA Reading Circle Catalogue Selection. I’m proud of that. My friends, such as the one who sent me that quote from Isaac Asimov, tell me I should be proud the book was banned - that it makes it a ‘book of honor’, a ‘book worth reading’. What it does is make me sad, sad that there are students in Duval County, Florida, who don’t have access to the book. 

A Case of Sense is available from Arbordale Publishing in English, Spanish, and Chinese. Here is the book’s description from it’s webpage:

While Ming plays outside one summer day, the smell of delicious food fills the air. It is coming from greedy Fu Wang’s house. "What is he up to?" wonders Ming. To his alarm, Fu Wang demands that all the neighbors pay him for the pleasant smells. When the neighbors refuse, the case goes to court. How will the judge rule in this unusual case and will justice be served? Can Fu Wang make money from the neighbors’ sense of smell? A wise judge makes use of another sense to close the case with clever and convincing logic.

This fictional story includes a 4-page For Creative Minds section in the back of the book and a 23-page cross-curricular Teaching Activity Guide online. A Case of Sense is vetted by experts and designed to encourage parental engagement. Its extensive back matter helps teachers with time-saving lesson ideas, provides extensions for science, math, and social studies units, and uses inquiry-based learning to help build critical thinking skills in young readers. The Spanish translation supports ELL and dual-language programs. The interactive ebook reads aloud in both English and Spanish with word highlighting and audio speed control to promote oral language skills, fluency, pronunciation, text engagement, and reading comprehension. Tap animals and other things that make noise to hear their sounds.

Written by Songju Ma Daemicke, Illustrated by Shennen Bersani
32 pg, 8.5x10, Ages 4-8, Grades K-3, Lexile: AD 550L, AR: 3.3, F&P: M

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First of all you really should check out Arbordale’s ebook collection! They are interactive and they do make sounds! I personally love them! 
Second, I’m serious about ‘sounds’ and ‘smells’, spoiler alert - two pages from the book:

I hope you take a moment to visit the book’s homepage where you can purchase it directly from Arbordale Publishing. On the top right corner of that page you will find fantastic free Teaching Activities for your classroom or homeschool use, including coloring pages.  

Third, please check out author Songju Ma Daemicke’s website. Songju is an amazing multi award-winning author of numerous books. Plus, she is such a lovely, lovely person! I am honored and proud to have illustrated A Case of Sense! 

Pages from my Books

The other day I dropped off these five pieces and a portfolio of my children’s book work at The Brush Art Gallery & Studios in Lowell, MA, for their upcoming exhibit: Cartoons, Illustrations & Sketches.

All of the framed pieces are prints of my illustrations.

Top image, is a spread from Animal Partners, by Scotti Cohn, Arbordale Publishing. The lower image is a spread from Achoo! Why Pollen Counts, written and illustrated by Shennen Bersani, Arbordale Publishing.

This is the cover of Once Upon an Elephant, by Linda Stanek, Arbordale Publishing.

This is a spread from Sea Slime: It’s Eeuwy, Gooey, and Under the Sea, by Ellen Prager, Arbordale Publishing.

This is a spread from Once Upon an Elephant, by Linda Stanek, Arbordale Publishing.

Samples shown from my portfolio on display. 

Later I will share photos of how these are hung. 

Cartoons, Illustrations & Sketches 

The Brush Art Gallery & Studios

256 Market Street

Lowell, MA 01852

Exhibition: February 25 to April 8, 2023

Reception: Saturday, March 18, 2:00 PM

* This exhibit is made possible in part by the Lowell National Historical Park.

By the way, fun fact! Arbordale’s books are available in English and Spanish, as well as in many other languages! Perfect learning tools for people of any age to learn a new language. Check them out here, Arbordale Publishing.

Lucky, the mouse

A little peek into my work process, here’s Lucky 🍀 the mouse, from sketch to finish:

Lucky art pins

Over the past few months I’ve created and gifted over 100 of these art pins. 

Shown here resting on an unfinished acrylic portrait I’m working on.

I first used 4-leaf clovers I had come across. 




For years I saved lucky clovers that I’d found and pressed them into a thick book for safe keeping. Once I reached 50 clovers I knew I wanted to share them with others, just wasn’t sure how to do that.  


One day I had the idea of making art pins out of them. After the clovers had been given away I got the idea of using flowers. So far I’ve made 70 with flowers, and have given 60 of those away as gifts. 

Then came a series of frogs.

I’ve got some great, unique ideas for my next series… something for Valentine’s Day. ❤️ 

#art #sharing #goodluck #gifts #illustrator #author

Any books I know? Read here to learn more about my books.