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in a jar + memory jar craft
In A Jar by Deborah Marcero (2020).
This picture book has illustrations that are pure magic while the story is about the magic of the natural world, of friendship, and of memories—those we treasure and those we share.
(click image(s) to enlarge)
“Llewellyn was a collector. He collected things in jars.”
So simply starts In a Jar. We take in Llewellyn collecting all kinds of things from the world around them and cherishing them, remembering the moments they contained, and still do.
Then Llewellyn and Evelyn meet. They collect things—together. But they’re not things really, they’re snippets, souvenirs, strands of their experiences. And that’s where the magic comes in. Sunsets, the sound of the ocean, snowball fights, seasons. These are the things they collect in jars. It feels like they’re not owning these elements, but honoring them.
Their jars are the language of their friendship, the stuff of it. The bits they’ll keep in the vessels of their minds.
And when Evelyn needs to move away, there is pain, but there is also the joy of sharing new experiences, had separately, and letting friendship hold those too.
Deborah Macero‘s artwork shimmers with color and light, sketched lines and watercolor swishes. She has a special knack for skies, as evidenced in another picture book of hers, Ursa’s Light, and its celestial scenes.
A book for anyone yearning to hang on to moments, to savor and cherish them, and for anyone who loves someone who is separated by the distance of miles, but connected by memories—even new ones still traded and shared.
Big thanks to Penguin Young Readers for the review copy and images!
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Don’t you want to collect your own memories in a jar now? Rebecca Zarazan Dunn from Sturdy for Common Things is the ideal person to make a craft for this book because she is someone with a special way of capturing moments, memories, and seasons in her own life. She’s a former librarian, a maker, a reader, and from what I’ve observed, has a deep connection with nature and people.
Over to Rebecca!
In a Jar is a tenderhearted tribute to friendship and the power of shared experience.
What I found moving about Llewellyn and Evelyn’s story is how the two friends collected their shared experiences. They savored sights and sounds and adventures, bottling them up like prized trophies. I thought to myself how wonderful it would be to capture long shadows on a summer’s eve or a snowy day with a friend.
Recently, two young siblings had an eventful Saturday. From early on it felt special, so as the day unfolded they collected bits and pieces of their day into a mason jar. For moments they didn’t have objects for they wrote a note or drew a picture. Once all the memories were captured in the jar, they made it a label and placed the jar on a shelf– A not-too-high shelf so they can unscrew the jar and recall the day all over again any time they pleased.
Just like friendship or adventures of any sort, you don’t need much to have them. It’s the same with making a Memory Jar.
Here’s what you’ll need:
*A jar. Any old jar. We reused a mason jar. I also found a few more jars at our local thrift store.
*Paper, scissors, tape, and a writing utensil for labeling the jar.
*And most importantly, memories! Little objects or tokens or drawings or words that will remind you of the moment.
A memory jar is a time capsule of an hour, a day, an event, or an entire season. It can be a play date with a friend, a holiday, a new life experience, or a Saturday spent with family. You can make one alone, but like Llewellyn learns in the story, the best memories are made with someone dear to you.
Memory is a funny thing. We store so much information in our brains and beautifully small details often get pushed into a dark corner. Creating a memory jar has the potential of time-travel, resurrecting a once shadowed memory to the light. Time spent with those we love is ephemeral, and capturing these fleeting moments in a jar preserves the love and joy felt, especially if the person we shared it with isn’t always near.
If you enjoy wrangling adventures into jars, you will most likely enjoy other things on Rebecca’s blog Sturdy for Common Things. You can also follow her on Instagram @lovesreading.
Thank you, Rebecca, for sharing this meaningful craft and your reflections on the book and on memories with us!
You might like the post I collaborated on with Kellie at The Secret Society of Books on a few years ago. She made the loveliest bear cookies for Deborah Marcero’s book, Ursa’s Light!
this writer’s life
I’m taking a minute to let readers of This Picture Book Life know that I have a new endeavor, a companion to this blog and all the stuff I’m putting out into the world. Introducing: This Writer’s Life.
I’d like to tell you about it, and then I’ll go back to regular programming here with a picture book craft post tomorrow!
I’m super excited about this project because it combines two things I’m passionate about: writing and teaching writing to kids!
This Writer’s Life is an educational video series for 8 to 12-year-olds and their classrooms—a resource library if you will—that peeks into the writing process. That means tools, writing activities, guidance, and encouragement for young writers to help develop their unique voices and imaginations.
My goal is to show kids what writing looks like, from the inside, with honesty and tips and cheering-on in order to inspire them in their own writer’s lives. And my dream is for educators to find it of use in their classrooms. I’ve got eleven episodes up so far and lots more planned. They cover “show don’t tell,” first lines, what I learned about writing from watching Project Runway, how to get ideas, revising with punchy verbs, crafting a character, and lots more. Many of them have free, printable corresponding PDFs in the show notes as well!
And my favorite part is that each episode features someone I know and admire with advice from their own creative life! I want kid viewers to see a diverse scope of creatives from a wide variety of fields represented to inspire them.
Since you follow this blog, you might want to start with Episode 8: “Picture Book Inspiration.” I talk up loads of picture books that are either about creativity in some way or else about a famous artist or writer. They’re a big help to me as a writer when I’m looking for motivation to keep dreaming and making stuff and I hope they will be to kids—or anyone of any age!
Would you like the best way to stay up to date with This Writer’s Life?
By subscribing to my author newsletter, you’ll get each new episode delivered to your inbox as well as a free, printable PDF if there is one that goes with that topic.
You can also subscribe to the YouTube Channel or like This Writer’s Life facebook page as I’ll post each video there as well if you prefer it. Subscriptions to the channel and video likes really help me out to show I’ve got an audience tuning in.
Thanks for reading! Please follow along and reach out if you’d like to collaborate in some way.
food-centric picture books to savor
Picture books touch on so many topics, including elements surrounding food—feasting it, traditional kinds of it, and the connections shared over it. Here’s a roundup of 18 food-centric picture books to savor! Bonus, some of these include recipes in the back matter too!
Freedom Soup by Tami Charles, illustrated by Jacqueline Alcántara (December 10, 2019).
Ti Gran teaches Belle to make Freedom Soup for the new year in a book that celebrates the history of the Haitian Revolution, family, and the joy and connectivity of traditions. Includes a recipe at the back and the most wonderful, gestural illustrations by Jacqueline Alcántara.
Amy Wu and Perfect Bao by Kat Zhang, illustrated by Charlene Chua (2019).
The main character struggles to make the “perfect” bao with her family until she discovers her own answer—making some just her size. Sweet, relatable, delicious.
Priya Dreams of Marigolds and Masala by Meenal Patel (2019).
Babi Ba reminisces about her memories of India by relaying sights and smells and spices with her granddaughter while they make rotli together.
Apple Cake: A Gratitude by Dawn Casey and Geneviève Godbout (2019).
A series of thank you’s to nature and its ingredients for, you guessed it, apple cake!
Wild Berries by Julie Flett (2013).
A contemplative journey in the woods for blueberry-picking with words in Cree and a recipe for wild blueberry jam. (You’ll find this one in my feature of Julie Flett’s Picture Book Life too.)
No Kimchi for Me by Aram Kim (2017).
Yoomi loves her grandmother’s food—except for kimchi, something the “big kids” eat. She’s determined to develop a taste for it to prove she’s a big kid too.
A Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin (2018).
An inventive, gorgeously illustrated mother-daughter moon myth inspired by Mid-Autumn Festival and mooncake midnight snacks!
Julia, Child by Kyo Maclear, pictures by Julie Morstad (2013).
A fictional imagining inspired by Julia Child on keeping the joie de vivre of childhood in cooking and eating no matter how old you are. And the one and only Coco Cake Land made chocolate almond cupcakes from this picture book in our collaborative blog post a few years ago too!
Thank You, Omu by Oge Mora (2018).
Omu’s stew smells so good, it attracts all kinds of visitors from her neighborhood, who she shares it with. When she has none left, those same people show up to return the favor. You can check out my post and craft to go with this lovely picture book here.
Magic Ramen: The Story of Momofuku Ando written by Andrea Wang, illustrated by Kana Urbanowicz (2019).
A biography of Momofuku Ando who invented instant ramen with the desire to provide convenient, tasty meals to hungry people after World War II.
Frankie’s Favorite Food by Kelsey Garrity-Riley (2019).
A school story about food and costumes that’s full of cute food puns!
Dumpling Dreams: How Joyce Chen Brought the Dumpling from Beijing to Cambridge written by Carrie Clickard, illustrated by Katy Wu (2017).
This picture book is the story of Joyce Chen who brought dumplings from Beijing to Cambridge and became a restauranteur and TV show host!
Porcupine’s Pie by Laura Renauld, illustrated by Jennie Poh (2018).
A sweet story of baking, sharing, and friendship.
Saffron Ice Cream by Rashin (2018).
Rashin visits the beach in Brooklyn and compares and contrasts it to the beach she used to visit in Iran, the home she misses. Luckily, she meets a new friend and a new ice cream flavor in her new home, both ways to sweeten it.
Tea With Oliver by Mika Song (2017).
This one centers on two tea drinkers destined for friendship, eventually.
Max Makes a Cake by Michelle Edwards, illustrated by Charles Santoso (2014).
A story of a sibling making a birthday cake for his sister that folds in the Passover story and Jewish traditions as well.
To Market To Market by Nikki McClure (2011).
An exploration of a farmer’s market—its food and its growers.
Please, Mr. Panda by Steve Antony (2013).
This picture book has two key ingredients that make it a fit for a food list: manners and donuts! Plus, you can check out the donut recipe my dear friend at Thirsty for Tea made to pair with Mr. Panda’s story a couple of years ago.
Your turn! Any favorite food-centric picture books to share?
count on me + math quest cards
Count on Me by Miguel Tanco (2019).
This picture book has math on its mind. And so does its main character who tells the story.
Though it takes her a minute to figure out that just like her family and classmates, she has a passion too! It’s not science or painting or playing the tuba. It’s math! And not only numbers, but all kinds of shapes, patterns, and concepts, which appear throughout the nuanced neutral watercolor illustrations.
(click image(s) to enlarge)
This story inspires in two ways. One, it tells us that everyone has a passion, it’s just a matter of finding the one unique to you. And two, that math is in so many more places than your textbook. It’s all around us. It’ll be hard for a reader to look at the world in the same way after a tour from this math-loving child. It just might turn math into the magic of the everyday.
“Math is all around us. It’s often hidden, and I love finding it.”
Each spread is a veritable seek and find of math-related elements, even before it becomes the focus of the narrative. On the first page, the main character plays checkers (math!). Outside the window, bare tree branches adorn the landscape in delicate designs (math!).
And so it continues, with little bits to notice on this math expedition through the natural and human-made world, the pale, sandy and gray palette making shapes rather than color shine. You’ll also find a math glossary at the back titled “My math,” in honor of the notebook the character carries with her on certain spreads.
Count on Me is an inventive book that pays tribute a subject no one is ambivalent about and that shapes our surroundings in myriad ways. To math!
Big thanks to Tundra Books for images and a review copy!
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I knew there was a super cool math activity to go with this book, and I knew just the person to dream it up and show us how to do it. Cue Margaret, inspirational librarian and amazing crafter at Homemade City.
She’s sharing math quest cards with us today, perfect for that quote about math being hidden around us and the main character searching for it. This art project and math-in-nature search promises delight and discovery to anyone who makes and partakes of this project. Happy scavenger-hunting!
And, in exciting news, I must also mention that Margaret is the author of a picture book coming out from Charlesbridge in 2021, illustrated by Adam Gustavson: Flip: How the Frisbee Took Flight. Cannot wait!
Over to Margaret!
The curly-haired heroine of Count on Me by Miguel Tanco has a special love for math. While her dad has a passion for painting, her mom science, and her brother music (he plays a tuba twice his size), the smallest member of the family sees shapes and patterns everywhere. She skips stones to see concentric circles form and tracks the trajectory of a paper airplane. She finds math everywhere.
Tanco’s sweet story is followed by a book-within-a-book: the heroine’s math notebook that illustrates math concepts like fractals, polygons, curves, solid figures, trajectories and sets (in terms clear enough that even I can understand).
Inspired by the small heroine’s passion for math, I painted a deck of cards with basic concepts from the book to spark my own scavenger math hunt. If we take the time to notice, what patterns, polygons, circles, and curves can we discover in the world around us?
What you’ll need:
Art cards or index cards (I picked up these little Legion Paper samplers at my local craft store)
Pen, marker, and/or paint
The world!
I copied the math concepts illustrated in Count on Meand in an attempt to emulate Tanco’s delightful, watery illustrations, I used watercolor paint to tint them. However, young artists can skip the paint and get the job done easily enough with markers and crayons.
I drew and labeled the cards with a range of basic polygons, solid forms like cones and cylinders, patterns of concentric circles and curves, and other concepts to create a deck of 25 cards. Then my son and I went hunting through the house and around our neighborhood. This is some of what we found:
We discovered so many surprises: dandelion fluff fractals, milk carton polygons, the curved trajectory of a Frisbee in flight. What will you find?
Thank you, Margaret, for this creative math scavenger hunt activity!
Margaret Muirhead is the author of Mabel One and Only (Dial Books for Young Readers) as well as Flip: How the Frisbee Took Flight, a nonfiction picture book slated for Fall 2021 with Charlesbridge Publishing. By day, you can find her wearing cat glasses and cardigans as a children’s librarian. In her free time, she makes wacky, colorful crafts at homemade city.
You might also like Margaret’s amazing pop-up paper craft for Blue Rider by Geraldo Valério. Check it out!
señorita mariposa + butterfly clothespin craft
Señorita Mariposa Ben Gundersheimer (Mister G), illustrated by Marcos Almada Rivero (2019).
Autumn means monarch butterflies migrating from Canada to Mexico and this vibrant picture book celebrates the amazing annual occasion with lyrical text in both Spanish and English to read or sing!
In fact, you can listen to the original song that inspired Señorita Mariposa right here.
(click image(s) to enlarge)
Señorita Mariposa does several things all at once. It pays tribute to one monarch butterfly, and the many like it who travel together, pollinating flowers along the way.
It shows the beauty of these magnificent marigold insects dancing through the sky by way of Marcus Almada Rivero‘s lush, crisp, and joyful illustrations.
It captures how those of us in the city or desert (my favorite spread!) or forest get to see this epic event if we look up to the sky in wonder.
And finally, it encourages love and care for the world around us, for these creatures who are part of a vast ecosystem that connects us all. The above spread in particular shows people doing just that through a community garden.
I love the way the text shows the lyrics in both English and Spanish and alternates in terms of which one is sort of singing lead (while always including translated text) on each spread.
A lively book that takes monarchs as its muse to inspire song and sweetness and science!
Big thanks to Penguin for the review copy and images!
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Not only that, but this book has also inspired a butterfly clothespin craft!
Kait Walsh is the visionary behind the Zinnia and the Bees pom-poms I’ve made with kids in libraries and bookstores for the last two years AND she devised a yarn bomb for us to do with young artists the week my book launched, so I’m already a big admirer and super grateful to her.
She’s a former teacher and illustrator who makes books for kids—you can check out her latest one, Don’t Cry Duck. She tells stories and facilitates crafts and does art-inspired community projects all over Los Angeles and I’m happy to have her on This Picture Book Life.
Over to Kait!
“Little butterfly you caught my eye”
This craft was inspired by the beauty of one butterfly and the incredible journey they make when millions of them come together.
Making this with your family? Create butterflies in honor of your relatives and discuss how the butterflies migrate north over three or four generations.
Making this with your class? Use it as a lesson about working together. Have each student make a butterfly, attach the clothespins to yarn or a string, and hang it somewhere in your classroom as a bright and beautiful reminder of connectedness.
Allow your child or students to play and discover new and unique shapes as they paint the wings. But the real fun happens when you clip all the butterflies together in a group, reminiscent of the beautiful illustrations by Marcus Almada Rivero of the Sierra Mountain butterfly hibernation in the oyamel fir trees.
The sky’s the limit! xx
Thank you so much, Kait, for making this little butterfly come to life!
For almost a decade, Kait Walsh taught five and six year-olds in a classroom. Now she spends her days creating art and stories for kids and kids at heart. Her art is a love letter. A letter that has been sketched, painted, cut, carved, stamped, sewn, glued…everything but the kitchen sink! But like all the things she has ever worked on, the real magic happens in the spaces where it interacts with you! Follow Kait on Instagram for more art, more stories and more community.
