One of the initiatives of the ALA’s Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) is Kids! @ your library. As part of this campaign ALSC provides free, downloadable artwork for libraries to use in promoting their programs and services to kids and families. ALSC Program Officer, Laura Schulte-Cooper tells me that parents and care-givers are also invited to print off this material to use in their own homes as long as it is for non-commercial uses.

Check out the the original artwork that award-winning children’s book illustrator David Diaz has created for this campaign. The full colour mini-posters and bookmarks are lovely! You can also download clip art adapted from Michael P. White’s illustrations in the book The Library Dragon written by Carmen Agra Deedy. With the winter rain and snow just around the corner, we are always looking for indoor activities to keep us busy and these downloadable craft projects like door hangers and coloring pages should help do the trick.

To keep up to date with all the ALSC happenings check out their blog.

As the nights start to draw in at bedtime here in the North of England, we start to long for a bit of color – and we have two bilingual English/Spanish books to hand at the moment, both of which we recently reviewed on PaperTigers – De Colores: Bright with Colors, a traditional Spanish song illustrated brightly indeed by David Diaz, who is currently one of our featured artists (Marshall Cavendish, 2008); and Colors! ¡Colores!, by Jorge Luján, and exquisitely illustrated by Piet Grobler, (Groundwood Books, 2008).

We haven’t sung De Colores yet but I’m sure we will and meanwhile, the words and pictures are as warm and bright as the music will be.

And we have all fallen in love with Jorge Luján’s whimsical poem, which is definitely to be savoured and re-read – even at the same sitting. It makes a lovely, gentle bed-time read and sends the imagination floating away towards the land of dreams. Jorge, let us know if it is ever turned into a video like Tarde de invierno / Winter Afternoon!

After our Jul/Aug special literacy focus, we now make way for Hispanic Heritage Month (Sep 15 – Oct 15), a celebration of the cultures and traditions of US residents who trace their roots back to Spain, Mexico and the Spanish-speaking nations of Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The theme this year is “Getting Involved: Our Families, Our Community, Our Nation.”

There will be all sorts of events happening throughout the country, and here’s what you’ll find on our website: interviews with author Pam Muñoz Ryan and youth services librarian Rose Zertuche-Treviño; gallery features showcasing the work of David Diaz and Susan Guevara; original heritage-related essays by Yuyi Morales and Juan Felipe Herrera, and plenty more. So dive in, and have fun – and check back here, too, as we continue the fiesta of Hispanic Heritage Month by blogging about it through Oct 15. There’s plenty of pride, information and fun to be gained from going deeper into this celebration!

While researching to put together our website’s celebration of children’s book illustrators, I’ve come across some wonderful things that never made it to the site. I learned, for instance, that in 1997 Keene State College Children’s Literature Festival director, Dr. David E. White, came up with an interesting way to add to the Festival Gallery Collection of original artwork related to children’s book illustration. He started the Festival Owl Project by inviting children’s book illustrators to donate owl renditions, in honor of the schools’ mascot, to the gallery. The project also had another goal: to raise money, through sales from materials featuring the owls, for the purchasing and framing of original pieces for the collection.

The gallery currently counts with 93 original owls, and the first 60 can be seen in these two gorgeous posters, available for sale. The posters include works by Grace Lin, Alissa Imre Geis, David Diaz, Lulu Delacre, Chris Soentpiet, Yumi Heo and many more.

Keene State College turns 100 in 2009 and Dr. White would like to have at least 100 owls by the time of their centennial celebration. Illustrators wishing to spread the wisdom have until early September 2008 to donate their owls. Owl #100 and additional ones will be unveiled during a special ceremony in October. There is no limit to the number of owls that can be in the collection, and the only requirement for participating is that the illustrator has published children’s books and that the owl itself hasn’t been previously published.

Now, who is answering the owls’ call and joining the parliament?… If you already have, please send us a link to your owl and we’ll post it here.