Bill Thomson's Blog, page 2

FOSSIL Book Trailer

Please watch an adorable video trailer below for FOSSIL that Two Lions created in conjunction with the book's release. The video was created by Timoney Korbar, and she did an absolutely amazing job. According to Timoney, she gave each of the children a copy of FOSSIL and asked them to read it while she filmed- the children were not coached in any way. This video is one of the cutest things that I have ever seen! Having the opportunity to create books for children is one of my life's greatest blessings, and seeing this for the first time… well, I have to admit, I got a bit choked up. Thank you to Timoney and these wonderful children!



or click this link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haxLTceOynQ

B IS FOR BOOKS appearance: Saturday, November 30

I will be appearing at the  B IS FOR BOOKS bookstore in Orchard Park, NY on Saturday, November 30 from noon to 4pm to sign books and visit with customers.  This appearance is part of the Indies First movement supporting local independent bookstores. I am very excited to participate in this Small Business Saturday event!

Local independent bookstores play a very important role in our communities, and B IS FOR BOOKS perfectly demonstrates their value. B IS FOR BOOKS serves the greater Buffalo NY community by selling a wide assortment of books, educational toys, and gifts. This wonderful store also hosts birthday parties and provides seasonal camps centered around writing, art and books.  B IS FOR BOOKS also conducts weekly storytime and music events, and even provides fund-raising events for schools, sports teams, troops, and other organizations. The folks in Orchard Park are very fortunate to have such an active and engaged independent bookstore within their community!

To find this local treasure, please visit:

B IS FOR BOOKS
6562 E. Quaker Street
Orchard park, NY 14127
(716) 667-2383
http://www.bis4books.com

Store hours are:
Monday: 10am-3pm
Tuesday through Friday: 10am-5:30pm
Saturday: 10am-4pm

I am very excited to visit B IS BOOKS on Saturday, November 30! I hope to see your there, and if you can't attend, PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE!

FOSSIL Blog Tour

Two Lions and Blueslipmedia.com have organized a book tour for my latest book, FOSSIL. The tour features some GREAT blog sites dedicated to children's literature. Each site was provided with a copy of the book by the publisher and directed to provide a true and honest review or conduct an interview. Many of the sites are offering a giveaway of the review copy to their readers.

FOSSIL BLOG TOUR

Sat, Nov 9
Booking Mama
http://www.bookingmama.net/

Mon, Nov 11
NC Teacher Stuff
http://ncteacherstuff.blogspot.com/

Tues, Nov 12
Just a Little Creativity
http://www.justalittlecreativity.com/

Wed, Nov 13
There's a Book
http://www.theresabook.com/

Thurs, Nov 14
Sharpread
http://sharpread.wordpress.com/

Fri, Nov 15
Kid Lit Frenzy
http://www.kidlitfrenzy.com/

Mon, Nov 18
Once Upon a Story
http://www.novalibrarymom.com/

Tues, Nov 19
The Children's Book Review
http://www.thechildrensbookreview.com/

Wed, Nov 20
5 Minutes for Books
http://www.5minutesformom.com/category/feature-columns/5-minutes-for-books/

Thurs, Nov 21
Geo Librarian
http://geolibrarian.blogspot.com/

Fri, Nov 22
Growing with Science
http://blog.growingwithscience.com/

New Britain Museum of Art FAMILY DAY EVENT- Monday, November 11th

On Monday November 11 at noon, I will be making a slide presentation and doing a book signing at the New Britain Museum of Art in conjunction with their Maurice Sendak exhibition FAMILY DAY event. Children will also have the opportunity to to decorate the museum sidewalk with chalk drawings!

http://www.nbmaa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=148&Itemid=176

Publisher's Weekly Review of FOSSIL

http://publishersweekly.com/978-1-4778-4700-8

Princeton Children's Book Festival- Saturday, September 21

I am excited to be joining a wonderful group of children's authors and illustrators that will be appearing at the Eighth Annual Princeton Children's Book Festival on Saturday, September 21 from 11-4. You can read about the event here:
http://www.princetonlibrary.org/find/kids/book-festival

Rocks In My Head... (And Other Childhood Memories)

Whether making art or writing stories, I believe a person's best work comes when they have a personal connection with their subjects. With that in mind, I always revisit my childhood for inspiration.

In 1970, I was seven years old when my family moved to Roanoke, Virginia. It was there that my brothers and I began to experience and appreciate the wonders of nature. We moved into a new neighborhood with a beautiful sprawling countryside behind our house. The gentle downward slope of our backyard met a creek before turning upward into a great hill. Cows would graze on the weeds along the hill and often continue their daily feasting right up to our back patio.

My brothers and I loved to explore our new environment. We caught Monarch caterpillars feasting on milkweed plants that grew along the creek. They were absolutely beautiful creatures that had silky-smooth skin with bands of green, black, and white wrapping around their chubby bodies. We kept the caterpillars in a bucket and used a tennis racquet for a lid. We fed them fresh milkweed plants until the day that we found chrysalis suspended from the strings of the tennis racquet. The chrysalis resembled jewels with little yellow beads lining their green polished exteriors. Weeks later, we returned from school to find Monarch butterflies erupting from their transparent encasements. Their miraculous transformation was complete. We watched in wonder as they aired out their wings and eventually lofted into the afternoon sky. I would later pay tribute to these butterflies in my book, CHALK. They were the only magical creation left at the end of the story.

The creek was always the source of our greatest adventures. In addition to the caterpillars on the milkweed plants, we pulled newts, frogs, tadpoles, turtles, and crayfish from the small creek's rippling clear waters. Each day was a new opportunity to investigate our aquatic backyard neighbors.

One day, my younger brother, Joe, and I were looking for newts when I spotted a small board at the water's edge. It should be noted that when exploring a creek, a discarded board almost always has an amazing treasure hidden beneath. On this occasion, turning the board over revealed something we had never seen before... a small reddish-brownish shape was uncoiling and stretching for the water. Before Joe could finish screaming the word, "snake!", I had scooped it up in my blue metal Maxwell House Coffee can and slapped the clear plastic lid on it. Joe and I looked at each other, and then I slowly lifted the lid so we could have a peek inside. The snake lunged towards our wide eyes, and I slapped the lid back down. In unison, my brother and I sprinted back up the incline towards our house, all the way shouting, "Mom, look at what we caught!"

We burst into the house and ran up the stairs to find Mom by the stove making supper. She was talking on the phone and we contorted our bodies under the outstretched phone cord to get closer and show her our catch. She continued her phone conversation and leaned down to see what we had. Again, I peeled open the lid of the can, and again the snake exploded towards the opening. It was only then that my mother interrupted her  conversation to say, "get that filthy thing out of this house". Apparently, Mom wasn't as impressed with our catch as we were.

Then we had one of those guardian angel moments. Our excitement undeterred, Joe and I walked out the front door and were met by a car pulling into the driveway. An old family friend named Fred was in town on business from Connecticut. We quickly ran over to him, hoping our snake might generate a more enthusiastic response. I repeated my can-opening ritual for a third time. However,  this time our audience recognized exactly what the can contained.  Fred said that the snake was a Copperhead and it was deadly! He told us to stay in the front yard while he took care of it. Joe and I watched as Fred took a shovel from the car port and disappeared around the back of the house with the can. A few minutes he returned with the shovel and an empty can. Fred told us that he buried the snake in the field and not to look for it because the snake's fangs were still poisonous. We always approached snakes with much more caution on our future adventures.

Dramatic moments aside, one of my favorite memories of the creek was when new construction extended the bottom of our street to the top of the hill in our backyard. My brothers and I were mesmerized by the parade of various construction equipment that slowly cut their way up the hill. The new road went over the creek and a pipe was installed to allow the water to flow underneath. This created something new for us to investigate.

Surrounding the pipe was a field of rocks that had been unearthed by the bulldozers. We didn't give the rocks much notice. They only warranted our attention when we tried to climb down the slope of the creek and the sliding rocks created an minor avalanche. Splashing rocks scare frogs, so we always tried to be VERY careful navigating over them.

One day, I tripped and slid down the bank with a cascade of rocks and dust. As I scrambled to get up, I saw an usual shape on one of the rocks. The rock contained the fossil of a fern! These insignificant annoyances suddenly became a great source of fascination. We found that the rocks split easily, and many more of them revealed the impressions of ferns and other strange shapes inside. Who would have imagined that a dirty old rock could contain such amazing ancient treasures? Inspecting each impression was like taking a peek at a secret past hidden by time. The thrill of that experience never left me and I have had rocks in my head ever since. Forty-two years later, this memory would serve as the inspiration for my latest book, FOSSIL.

Childhood Memories... And Rocks In My Head

Whether making art or writing stories, I believe a person's best work comes when they have a personal connection with their subjects. With that in mind, I always revisit my childhood for inspiration.

In 1970, I was seven years old when my family moved to Roanoke, Virginia. It was there that my brothers and I began to experience and appreciate the wonders of nature. We moved into a new neighborhood with a beautiful sprawling countryside behind our house. The gentle downward slope of our backyard met a creek before turning upward into a great hill. Cows would graze on the weeds along the hill and often continue their daily feasting right up to our back patio.

My brothers and I loved to explore our new environment. We caught Monarch caterpillars feasting on milkweed plants that grew along the creek. They were absolutely beautiful creatures that had silky-smooth skin with bands of green, black, and white wrapping around their chubby bodies. We kept the caterpillars in a bucket and used a tennis racquet for a lid. We fed them fresh milkweed plants until the day that we found chrysalis suspended from the strings of the tennis racquet. The chrysalis resembled jewels with little yellow beads lining their green polished exteriors. Weeks later, we returned from school to find Monarch butterflies erupting from their transparent encasements. Their miraculous transformation was complete. We watched in wonder as they aired out their wings and eventually lofted into the afternoon sky. I would later pay tribute to these butterflies in my book, CHALK. They were the only magical creation left at the end of the story.

The creek was always the source of our greatest adventures. In addition to the caterpillars on the milkweed plants, we pulled newts, frogs, tadpoles, turtles, and crayfish from the small creek's rippling clear waters. Each day was a new opportunity to investigate our aquatic backyard neighbors.

One day, my younger brother, Joe, and I were looking for newts when I spotted a small board at the water's edge. It should be noted that when exploring a creek, a discarded board almost always has an amazing treasure hidden beneath. On this occasion, turning the board over revealed something we had never seen before... a small reddish-brownish shape was uncoiling and stretching for the water. Before Joe could finish screaming the word, "snake!", I had scooped it up in my blue metal Maxwell House Coffee can and slapped the clear plastic lid on it. Joe and I looked at each other, and then I slowly lifted the lid so we could have a peek inside. The snake lunged towards our wide eyes, and I slapped the lid back down. In unison, my brother and I sprinted back up the incline towards our house, all the way shouting, "Mom, look at what we caught!"

We burst into the house and ran up the stairs to find Mom by the stove making supper. She was talking on the phone and we contorted our bodies under the outstretched phone cord to get closer and show her our catch. She continued her phone conversation and leaned down to see what we had. Again, I peeled open the lid of the can, and again the snake exploded towards the opening. It was only then that my mother interrupted her  conversation to say, "get that filthy thing out of this house". Apparently, Mom wasn't as impressed with our catch as we were.

Then we had one of those guardian angel moments. Our excitement undeterred, Joe and I walked out the front door and were met by a car pulling into the driveway. An old family friend named Fred was in town on business from Connecticut. We quickly ran over to him, hoping our snake might generate a more enthusiastic response. I repeated my can-opening ritual for a third time. However,  this time our audience recognized exactly what the can contained.  Fred said that the snake was a Copperhead and it was deadly! He told us to stay in the front yard while he took care of it. Joe and I watched as Fred took a shovel from the car port and disappeared around the back of the house with the can. A few minutes he returned with the shovel and an empty can. Fred told us that he buried the snake in the field and not to look for it because the snake's fangs were still poisonous. We always approached snakes with much more caution on our future adventures.

Dramatic moments aside, one of my favorite memories of the creek was when new construction extended the bottom of our street to the top of the hill in our backyard. My brothers and I were mesmerized by the parade of various construction equipment that slowly cut their way up the hill. The new road went over the creek and a pipe was installed to allow the water to flow underneath. This created something new for us to investigate.

Surrounding the pipe was a field of rocks that had been unearthed by the bulldozers. We didn't pay much attention to the rocks. They only warranted our attention when we tried to climb down the slope of the creek and the sliding rocks caused an minor avalanche. Splashing rocks scare frogs, so we always tried to be VERY careful navigating over them.

One day, I tripped and slid down the bank with a cascade of rocks and dust. As I scrambled to get up, I noticed an usual shape on one of the rocks. The rock contained the fossil of a fern! These insignificant annoyances suddenly became a great source of fascination. We found that the rocks split easily, and many more of them revealed the impressions of ferns and other strange shapes inside. Who would have imagined that a dirty old rock could contain such amazing ancient treasures? Inspecting each impression was like taking a peek at a secret past hidden by time. The thrill of that experience never left me and I have had rocks in my head ever since. Forty-two years later, this memory would serve as the inspiration for my latest book, FOSSIL.

MY NEXT BOOK

CHALK was the first book that I solely created and it has probably been my most successful book to date.  After the book's publication, my publisher invited me to present more of my own story ideas after I illustrated Soccer Hour.  I developed 10 different concepts, but I avoided a second chalk book because I wanted investigate new subjects.

However, I was very interested in further exploring imagination.  My favorite idea was to create two companion books for CHALK.  This was my publisher's choice as well. The imagination-based trilogy would all be 40-page wordless stories, but each book would apply imagination to three completely different elementary school subjects.  Where CHALK applied imagination to art, the next book in the trilogy will apply imagination to science.

The second book is called FOSSIL and it will be available in November.

http://www.amazon.com/Fossil-Bill-Thomson/dp/1477847006

When I originally created CHALK, I hoped that it could be both an entertaining story for children and a helpful educational tool for creative teachers.  Similarly, FOSSIL is a visual adventure that offers teaching possibilities as a book for beginning/reluctant readers, as a writing prompt, or as a visual aid for prediction.

However, I hope this story will also help to engage students' interest in science (particularly, fossils and prehistoric life) and serve as a launching point for study and discussion.  Additionally, there are great possibilities for art making- creating fossil impressions out of clay can help students better understand how the ancient world was preserved!

Creating FOSSIL was a true labor of love, and I will describe where the inspiration came from in a future post.

CHALK (Dessine!) Wins Prix Livrentête 2013

I was delighted to learn that Dessine! (the French version of CHALK published by l’école des loiters in 2011) won the Prix Livrentête 2013, a children’s book award voted on by the children of France. The Prix Livrentête competition is sponsored by Culture et Biblothèques Pour Tous in Paris, France, and Dessine! was selected as the winner in the ages 4-7 category.

A book award selected by children always brings the greatest satisfaction. However, it was especially gratifying to learn that my artwork successfully communicated with and was enjoyed by children of a culture whose language I cannot even speak!