Dear Friends,
Please welcome back, Jackie Azua Kramer, who has a wonderful new picture book just released this May. Enchanting illustrations coupled with Jackie’s lyrical text will make this book a treasured bedtime read aloud with your little ones.
AND, there’s a comment contest giveaway. This time the book will be sent direct from the publisher, Clavis Books. Jackie will send a personalized bookplate to the winner on request. Simply leave a comment below and your name will be entered for a chance to win.
Writing from the Inside Out. . . with Jackie Azua Kramer
In sharing parenthood with friends, inevitably we end up laughing and/or crying about the nights spent trying to get our kids to bed.
Just when you want to snuggle in with a good book and a cup of tea your little darling has a hundred and one excuses for why they can’t sleep.
1: I’m not sleepy
2: I’m thirsty or hungry or both.
3: I’m scared.
4: There’s a bug in my room.
5: There’s a bug in my water.
You get the picture...
If this is true for you and your pesky night owl, in If You Want to Fall Asleep you might discover you’re not alone.
The sweet bedtime battle between Little Mouse’s endless reasons for why he can’t sleep and his mother’s loving and imaginative suggestions was inspired from personal experience. I spent more nights then I care to remember, opening dresser drawers, toy chests and closets, shooing monsters from my daughter’s room.
I treasure the bedtimes I once had snuggled together reading books with my children. I hope you and your little one will smile seeing yourselves in Mama Mouse and Little Mouse. A night filled with daring pirates, mountains of pancakes, floating among the stars…and wait for yawning. And stretching. And sleepy thoughts. And drowsy eyes. Fingers crossed.
Meet the author:
Jackie Azúa Kramer was born in Manhattan, NY. She has worked as an actor, singer, and school counselor. Jackie’s work with children presented her with an opportunity to address their concerns, secrets and hopes through storytelling. Her award-winning picture book, The Green Umbrella (North South Books) won the Parents’ Choice Silver Medal and chosen 2017 Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year. It’s been translated into German, Slovenian, Chinese and Russian.
Out soon--The Boy and the Eight Hundred Pound Gorilla (Candlewick Press, 2020); That’s for Babies and Miles Won’t Smile (Clavis Books, TBD). Jackie lives with her family and writes under a canopy of trees in Long Island, NY.
"Especially notable." -- Booklist, Spring Preview
"Lulling language, key bedtime trigger words, and gentle repetition are sure to help tiny eyes close. Children will enjoy witnessing Little Mouse's mischief and that of his many toys….A common nighttime predicament with a few not-so-common solutions.” ― Kirkus Reviews
You may recall Jackie’s debut picture book,
The Green Umbrella, featured here a year ago!
Illustrated in spreads that alternate the rainy-day narrative in vignettes with full-bleed spreads that allow the flight-of-fancy retellings to render a deeper mood, the animals' stories are delightfully descriptive...The lesson about sharing and generosity is elegantly wrapped around lovely language. (Kirkus Reviews)
THANK YOU, Dear Friends, for joining the BOOK BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION with Jackie Azua Kramer and for leaving a comment below. The winner of If You Want to Fall Asleep will be announced on May 23rd.
