Searching for three drawings from Poppy

I’m trying to track down a few original drawings from Poppy, by Avi, so that they can be rescanned for a possible foreign edition of the book. The drawings, above, were auctioned off in the late ‘90s at fundraising auctions for Horizon Institute for Homeless Children in Boston (now Horizons for Homeless Children). It's a long-shot to look for them, I know, but in the age of the internet I don’t dismiss the long shot. If you happen to own or know the owner of any of the pieces pictured here, I’d be grateful if you’d be in touch. I’d like to borrow the drawings only long enough for the scanning, and would be glad to cover costs associated with shipping and, if necessary, reframing. Thank you!

Poppy on a list

It’s great to see Poppy, by Avi, in good company on a list of “100 Must-Reads For Kids 9-14,” from NPR’s Backseat Book Club. The full list is here. Thanks to the Backseat Book Club!

Buy this drawing

826NYC is a nonprofit organization here in Brooklyn, “dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.” More here. This month 826NYC is holding a fundraising auction, “The Tell Tale Art Auction.” The request was for spooky or Halloween-themed art. I went the owl route, digging into the archives (archives = piles) for a drawing of Mr. Ocax from Avi’s Poppy. Why not buy it? Or just check out the offerings from Dav Pilkey, Mo Willems, Lane Smith, Adam Rex, Fiona Robinson, Scott C., Sara Varon, Paul O. Zelinsky, Steven Weinberg, Peter Brown, Frank Viva, Brett Helquist, Tony DiTerlizzi, Daniel Salmieri, Dave Shannon, and everyone’s favorite, Many More. All on the auction site, here. (And a direct link to the piece above is here.)

A mouse for your summer reading

When I think of government agencies and rodents, I think first of NIMH. Now, happily, I can also think of the NEH: Poppy, by Avi (with my pencil illustrations), is on a Children’s Booklist for Summertime Reading compiled and just published by the National Endowment for the Humanities (with an assist from the American Library Association). 

From the NEH press release: “Organized by grade level, the NEH Summer Booklist offers suggestions of 238 books recommended for young readers.  The titles range from such classics as Madeline and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel to Fahrenheit 451 and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, but also include newer works such as Coraline, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and The Book Thief.”

It’s a great list and I’m proud to see Poppy on it. Thank you to the NEH and the ALA!

The press release and complete list is here.

Turkish Delight

Yesterday this arrived in the mail: a paper bag, stapled shut, stamped, postmarked Turkey. The bag arrived in great shape, and got more roughed up by my walking around with it for an hour in the rain than it did in getting here from the shores of Eurasia. Inside were brand new Turkish editions of Ragweed and Poppy, by Avi. The publisher, Hayykitap, took their design cues from the American editions, and so these books are strikingly similar to their domestic kin. Inside, the paper is nice and the printing is good; the drawings have a nice pop to them. Thanks for the great job, Hayykitap!

Cover me

Over at the Fuse #8 blog today Betsy Bird covers the HarperCollins librarians’ preview. One of the books on show is Eric Luper’s Jeremy Bender Vs. the Cupcake Cadets. The cover design is by talented designer (and friend and picture book author) Polly Kanevsky, and I did the spot drawings. This was a small but fun project.

Typing about that work reminds me that I never blogged about another cover I enjoyed working on this year, for the paperback edition of Avi’s The Traitors’ Gate, a story full of twists and turns that I enjoyed taking a crack at illustrating. (Illustrating the cover for, I should say. The interior illustrations are by Karina Raude.) The designer for the Traitors’ Gate cover was the adept Michael McCartney at Simon & Schuster, with whom I also had the pleasure of working on Lightship and Moonshot. (And to whom I owe some sketches for the next book we’ll work on together.)