A Beautiful Blizzard Is on Its Way

If you read children’s literature blogs, you’ve heard all about Robert’s Snow and the big blog event surrounding it. But in case you’ve missed the news, here’s the lowdown, courtesy of the indefatigable Eisha and Jules at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

Robert’s Snow
is Grace [Lin]’s book, published in 2004, about a mouse not allowed in the
snow. The story was inspired by Robert’s battle with Ewing’s sarcoma.
After the book was published, Grace gathered artists from all over the
children’s book illustrating community to create special snowflakes to
be auctioned off, with the proceeds benefiting sarcoma research at
Dana-Farber. These snowflake auctions became known as the event
“Robert’s Snow.”

This year, more than 200 well-known children’s book illustrators
from around the world have been given a five-inch wooden snowflake to
decorate at will. Like actual snowflakes, each design is unique. The
2007 online auctions for bidding on these hand-painted snowflakes will
take place in three separate auctions, open to everyone, from November
19 to 23, November 26-30, and December 3-7. You can read here for more information.

But starting today — and lasting for over one month until the day before the auctions — over 65 bloggers will be highlighting some of the snowflakes and the illustrators who created them….

I am delighted to say I’m one of the bloggers who’ll be featuring snowflakes. I am even more delighted to say that the illustrators whose work I’ll be featuring are two of my favorite illustrators ever: David Macauley, author of—oh, you don’t need me to tell you this, but I will anyway, because it’s so exciting—The Way Things Work, City, Cathedral, Castle, Pyramid, and so many other amazing books; and the enchanting Timothy Bush, whose picture book James in the House of Aunt Prudence makes my family’s best-of-the-best list.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My turn doesn’t begin until next week. For now, treat yourself to the first round of snowflake interviews at the following blogs:

Grace Lin, featured by Becky Bilby at In the Pages . . .

Randy Cecil, featured by Liz Dubois at ChatRabbit

Michelle Chang, featured by The Longstockings

Kevin Hawkes, featured by Cynthia Lord at cynthialord’s Journal;

Barbara Lehman, featured by David Elzey at the excelsior file

And keep checking in at SevenImp all week for a new round of snowflake features each day. Or visit Jen Robinson’s Book Page for a sidebar listing of the entire week’s Robert’s Snow schedule. This is going to be a very exciting event!