Air Show! With Treat Williams- Release date 6/15/10

Air Show!
It started with a book party for 'Wow City”. Treat Williams and I live in the same town and our kids go to school together. Treat has been flying airplanes of every description since he was in High School- he flew his first solo flight at seventeen. I'd been drawing airplanes of every description since I was a little kid. I filled many sketchbooks with the exploits of Johnny Johnson, Spitfire ace…
When Treat saw my drawing of “Wow Airplane” The idea for the book was born. It was simple. Treat had an airplane, actually two, and my Dad lived in Oshkosh; Oshkosh Wisconsin hosts the biggest air show in the country every summer, the Experimental Aircraft Association Air Venture. Ten thousand airplanes fly in from all over the world- every kind of airplane: the latest big military and commercial jets, lovingly restored historic planes, experimental and cutting edge aircraft designs, and every imaginable private plane, large and tiny. We figured we'd fly out there, write a book, and stay at my dad's- hotels in Oshkosh are booked years out during the air show.
Treat has a two engine private plane, Navajo 95 Charlie Lima, and we took some friends along, also pilots. There was Carl Penner, who has been a commercial airline pilot with Delta (heavy metal) but is also an accomplished stunt flyer and aircraft mechanic. He has a hanger full of banged up old planes that he is restoring at our little country airfield. Carl restored and owns a Chinese Mig15 from the Korean War. Our other pilot was Harry Bibb, also a commercial pilot with Delta, who once flew elephants in Viet Nam for the Air Force. We took along the pilot's three teenage sons, and then me with a sketchbook and camera.
We had a full plane and a full house, so we rented a ramshackle old farmhouse near the Oshkosh airport from one of my high school friends. I stayed at my dad's with the air conditioning. I still hear about that farmhouse….
The Air show was spectacular. Always is, as you can see by the pictures and the book. The flight there and back was terrific fun, being with all the pilots and hearing their chatter and stories. It's an entire, fascinating world, aviation, with it's own language, history and legends.
When we were home, Treat took me flying in his T-6 Texan, a World War II combat trainer and we did loops, rolls and other aerobatics. You sit on your parachute as a cushion and get the drill on how to pop the canopy and bail out if things go south. Throwing up is considered bad form. We buzzed the Wasatch Mountains so close you felt like you could reach out and touch the peaks.
We worked on the book with Donna Bray as our editor and Anne Diebel as our art director. Namrata Tripathi, Tamson Weston & Joann Hill also contributed to the final editing and design. We were just so stoked from start to finish that everything about doing this book was nothing but pure fun. Once, while I was drawing the Boeing B-17 and jabbering on and on about the design characteristics, may assistant called out “Bob! don't geek out on me!” We hope that you and your children enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed making it.
  For lot's more cool airplane pictures, click here!

Wow Ocean is finished and off to the publisher: Here are some of the pages! All of the fish will be labeled in type- so it will be a learning book.

Sophie Peterman Tells the Truth has gotten three starred reviews so far!

THE FOLLOWING BOOK RECEIVED ITS FIRST STARRED REVIEW IN THE OCTOBER 1, 2009 ISSUE OF KIRKUS REVIEWS.  PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR THE REVIEW:

SOPHIE PETERMAN TELLS THE TRUTH!

Written by Sarah Weeks

Illustrated by Robert Neubecker

(Beach Lane Books; ISBN 9781416986867; November 2009; Fall catalog pg. 271)

Straight shooter Sophie Peterman gives readers the lowdown on babies: They are your “worst nightmare.” With a cocked eyebrow and a clear, authoritative voice she lists reasons why you can’t trust a baby. They leak, they smell, they swallow (and eventually return!) your favorite marble, they rummage in your drawers and they devour your hidden Halloween candy. While not the first book about a disgruntled older child and the arrival of a cooing, burping bundle, this effort finds success through Sophie’s fresh voice. Never whiny or petulant, she deftly delivers deadpan observations that evoke smiles. Neubecker’s vivid artwork pops as he uses his bright palette and unique perspectives to create facial expressions that perfectly capture Sophie’s annoyance, her mother’s frustration and the baby’s clear-eyed joy. Oversize, all-caps, hand-lettered portions of narration add emphasis and allow Sophie’s voice and the artwork to seamlessly merge. When Sophie finally warns that you can go from hating baby to liking baby, she offers truly touching anecdotes that make her transition believable: Upon hearing a tiny voice call out, “Soapy!” to her, she just melted. Readers will too.

(Picture book. 4-8)

Publisher's Weekly, starred review;

Sophie Peterman Tells the Truth! Sarah Weeks, illus. by Robert Neubecker. S&S/Beach Lane, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-4169-8686-7

In a rant worthy of talk radio, young Sophie warns readers of the horrors of siblinghood: “Babies are not sweet. Babies are not precious. Babies are not cute. Babies are... your worst nightmare!” If readers need further proof of Sophie's claims, Neubecker (Wow! School!), wonderfully in his element, offers a portrait of infant-as-alien worthy of the Weekly World News (in addition to aliens, Sophie also compares babies to pirates and monsters). Truth (actually) be told, all of Sophie's complaints are familiar to the genre: babies are smelly crybabies, attention hoggers and violators of personal space and property. But Weeks (Catfish Kate and the Sweet Swamp Band) makes the material fresh: her heroine has an indelible personality and a voice that spills off the page, aided by comic typography (“If you have to sit next to a monster all the way to your aunt and uncle's house in Syracuse, New York, do not breathe in through your nose”). Fully owning her wounded rage, Sophie seethes with precocious certitude as she marshals evidence (she's big on lists) and wields rhetorical flourishes—the text is a gift to anyone reading aloud. Ages 4–8. (Nov.)

From School Library Journal, starred review;

PreS-Gr 2–In no uncertain terms, a girl warns readers about the perils of a new sibling. Looking like an alien at first, and the object of unwarranted praise and attention, a baby is prone to all manner of gross behaviors. Sophie reveals that the situation doesn’t get better as the infant grows into a toddler (known as a “monster”): stealing Halloween candy, swallowing lucky marbles, and exhibiting general uninhibited behavior. She softens, though, when the monster begins to focus affection on her but leaves readers with a warning not to reveal this softness to parents lest they repeat the experience. Weeks has created a feisty, forthright protagonist who lays out the pros and cons of a new brother with delightful tongue-in-cheek detail. The ink and digitally colored illustrations and boldface words in the text perfectly catch the narrative nuances and enhance it with cheeky perspectives and funny touches. Older siblings will laugh at the younger child’s antics and parents will chortle at Sophie’s reactions and perspective in all her righteous truth telling.–Marge Loch-Wouters, La Crosse Public Library, WI

 Well, my goodness....

 

Good morning!  Here's Wow! School!  This book is based on our lovely Colby School here in Park City. I sat in on classes and drew as the year progressed. Donna Bray, my editor, sent me lots of info on her pre-school in Brooklyn too. It's a bit of a mix between Pre and K.... I wanted to get the three R's in; my daughter, Joey, was in pre school at the time and was booming out the ABC song all day long.  I'm changing the way I'm using the Blog to focus more on books. Sophie Peterman's just out and has already gotten two starred reviews! So, I'm playing catch up and posting some of my earlier books now and will bring things up to Sophie as soon as I can.