Painting for Independent Booksellers

Every year before Book Expo America, the national booksellers' convention, the Association of Booksellers for Children holds a fundraising event, featuring an auction of work donated by children's illustrators. Paul has contributed to this auction in the past, but this year he painted a picture especially for it, to mark the publication of Dust Devil, the upcoming sequel to Swamp Angel. Dust Devil is the name of Swamp Angel's horse.

 

a Toy Dance Party cupcake

Emily Jenkins was visiting Random House's Maryland printing and warehouse facilities along with the authors of the Whimsical Bakehouse books. They created a Spark the Shark cupcake in honor of Toy Dance Party. (The knife in the foreground was part of another cupcake in honor of another sort of book). Dangerous cupcakes!

Then Emily ate the shark.

The Brooklyn Heights Blog
has named Paul Zelinsky one of this year's "BHB TEN," a list of Brooklyn Heights "movers and shakers" in 2009. Thank you, Brooklyn Heights Blog!

When Paul Zelinsky visited the Dalton School in New York City and met with Grades K through 3, the librarians made a wonderful video with the children, before and after the event. It was up on the school's website, but now it isn't.

The Cover art for Toy Dance Party was on display as part of "The Original Art Show" at the Society of Illustrators in New York, from October 22 to November 25, 2009.

Paul Zelinsky's daughter Rachel emailed him this message: "Yesterday I was on the train going to work, and standing next to a woman and her two children, about four years old. They were really loud and really obnoxious and annoying. But then the woman pulled out Rapunzel and started reading it to them, and they became quiet and just looked at the book as she read. It made me very happy! "

(On one page of the book, the young Rapunzel dances on a log as the sorceress looks on-- that's Rachel.)