PaulOZelinsky.com-- what's new

There is a changing page of questions and answers on this website. Click here to see it. (Take a look at the "favo rite col or" question).

For what's really new, please follow Paul O. Zelinsky both on

Twitter, and on his

Facebook Author Page. (you don't have to be a member of Facebook to see it.)
Please click its "Like" button, if you like.

Paul O. Zelinsky is a book! Abdo Publishing has produced an easy-to-read Paul O. Zelinsky reference book, with a lot of pictures. School libraries might like it, and anybody can find it at abdopublishing.com. It's a short read (24 pages including front and back matter) but fascinating! Other illustrators featured in Abdo's Childen's Illustrators series include Ezra Jack Keats, Robert McCloskey, Garth Williams, William Steig, Jerry Pinkney and more.

*Knick-Knack Paddywhack!* was brought on Connecticut television by children's book author/illustrator, blogger, and literacy-proponent-extraordinaire Katie Davis (visit her blog here). It's always great when television pays attention to children's books; it should happen more often. If you go to WTNH's web page for this segment, please leave a comment, so the station will know that their paying attention is getting some attention!

Check out this blog on the Publishers Weekly website. One warm November morning, Paul spoke about making art, along with artists Marla Frazee and Stephen Savage, at the Society of Illustrators' Original Art Show. This article does a good job of conveying what each speaker contributed.

Check out this blog, too. This PW blog is a wonderful account of a presentation Paul and Emily Jenkins gave at The Flying Pig Bookstore in Vermont, about Toys Come Home. Bookstores and schools around the country have reacted very enthusiastically to their presentations about the Toys trilogy.

Z is for Moose will arrive in March, 2012. A picture book by Kelly Wightman, it's not quite an alphabet book, although responsible Zebra is valiantly trying to arrange things so that it is. Apple, Ball and Cat are ready to cooperate, but Moose is another matter. Z is for Moose is a story about frustration and friendship and it's very funny.
Paul came across a YouTube video that came amusingly close to shenanigans in the book. He sent a link to Greenwillow publisher Virginia Duncan...	with a meant-to-be-silly message suggesting there could be plagiarism here.	Before seeing the video, Virginia was very alarmed.. Bad Paul!

Read the story from Greenwillow's point of view on the Greenwillow blog

A First Skype visit to a school:
	Paul visited with students at the Mountainview International Christian School in Salatiga, Indonesia.They had many good questions, and it seemed that a good time was had on both sides of the world. Then the children began the first day of their last week of the school year, and Paul went home to bed.

Zelinsky in studio A new book: Toys Come Home, by the inimitable Emily Jenkins, completes the Toys Go Out trilogy.

Emily's immensely popular Toys Go Out was followed by its sequel, Toy Dance Party. Toys Come Home takes place earlier, before the other two books. But it doesn't have to be read first in the series. Toys Come Home will reveal answers to many of the tantalizing questions you may have had after reading the other books, such as: why was the one-eared sheep a one-eared sheep?

"Drawn in Brooklyn"is the name of an exhibit of children's book illustration that ran at the Brooklyn Public Library from late 2010 until January, 2011. A number of the contributing illustrators were filmed in their studios, talking about their work. You can see Paul's episode here, via YouTube and the Brooklyn Public Library's website.Videos of other artists in the show should appear on the right side of the page.

Dust Devil dedication:Anne Isaacs' dedication of Dust Devil is to her older daughter Amy. "With all my love," it says. Paul wanted his dedication to go to his older daughter Anna, who was still living in the Marshall Islands. So although he was inclined just to repeat Anne's words, he thought he'd get them translated into Marshallese. Anna sent him the translation, and it took the publishers a little doing to get its unusual accent mark over an "n."

That seemed to be that, until an emergency phone message arrived. The next morning, someone was going to be recording the text for an audio version. "How is that dedication pronounced? Please send a phonetic version immediately!"

Luckily it was possible to arrange a phone call from that remote country, leaving a native speaker's pronunciation of the phrase on the editor's voicemail.

An event in Brooklyn. Paul says: When in San Francisco recently, I visited bookstores and schools with Anne Isaacs. She would read a section of Dust Devil while I drew a picture, fast. Now I'm back in Brooklyn. Invited to a benefit for local public school P.S.8, I tried the same thing, but without Anne. So I attempted to memorize the text, and draw and talk at the same time. Not easy! Not totally successful, either! (See all pictures from the event here).

Paul Zelinsky was an answer on Jeopardy! Not only that, but this was the second time. Click here to see the "answer" on the Jeopardy website (under the category: Caldecott Medal and Honor Books) and the corresponding question, and who guessed the question and for how much.

Dust Devil journal
A new book about Swamp Angel, by Anne Isaacs, is published as of September 14, 2010. Its title: Dust Devil, the name Angel gives to the colossal horse she discovers at the core of a wild Montana dust storm.

Paul wrote a journal about the amazing adventures and misadventures he encountered (well, maybe not so much amazing as funny) while trying to make the finished paintings on wood veneer, much like the illustrations in Swamp Angel. This journal has now become available on paulozelinsky.com, but first, Publisher's Weekly published an article about it!

Dust Devil drygoods

For the library trade there is a Dust Devil poster; for the Web, a trailer. Paul has felt a need to send Dust Devil imagery out in even more directions. Here is a Dust Devil pattern he devised, using paintings from the book, along with scans of the wood on which the book is painted. He had this design printed on fabric, and you can order some of it, too. Find out about the fabric, and a vest Paul made from it, here.

The Brearley School celebrated its 125th birthday in 2009-2010, and to cap it off they had a fundraising birthday party in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria. Early in the year, Paul had drawn a series of drawings of the school mascot in period dress, one for each decade of the institution, to decorate various floors of the school. But they were also to be seen at this elegant dinner, cycling through the decades, when there were no speakers or entertainment on the stage.

A Page on this website is devoted to the planting of Rapunzel seeds. Take a look.