The last few days have been a wonderful opportunity to recharge at the Conference on the Young Years. One of the highlights was author and illustrator Denise Fleming. She was a seminar leader and keynote speaker. She was fun, entertaining, happy, and cheeky! As demonstrated by her books, among her loves are rhythm, rhyme, onemotapeia, alliteration, verbs, nature, and color.
Denise gives consideration to every detail of a book. Every word and inch from cover to cover has been carefully and thoughtfully designed. She described some of the small details in her books that can easily go unnoticed:
- The Tall Tall Grass has a caterpillar on each page to give scale to the illustrations.
- There are three small living creatures, such as three bees, and a little mouse in each illustration of Momma Cat Has Three Kittens. This story is based on a mother cat who took up residence under her front porch with her kittens.
- The Small Small Pond has hidden living creatures such as fish and frogs, that you must look to find.
- Barnyard Banter can be sung to “Skip to Skip to My Lou”. She did not know this when she wrote the book; a teacher pointed it out to her.
- In The First Day of Winter each illustration has a picture of the material that will be used next on the snowman when you turn the page. (hope that makes sense!)
- She pays homage to Vincent Van Gogh in the The Cow that Clucks with a feature of Starry Night. Then inside the pages of the story you can find an occasional small cameo appearance of Van Gogh in the background of the illustrations.
At her website, there are dozens of activities, patterns for hats, recipes, and instructions to make illustrations using her techniques with paper pulp. Denise encourages adults to set the mood when reading to children. Turn off the lights, make a campfire with battery powered flickering pumpkin lights, (found at Lowes) tissue paper, and cellophane. Use drama and props when reading, have your children act out the story and use movement for each of the words. She did a great job of demonstrating the use of animal puppets. She prefers puppets from Folk Manis because they can easily be moved and manipulated to appear alive. The supplies that she uses for activities are cheap, and can be found at the Dollar Tree, end of the season sales at Joanne’s Fabrics, Hobby Lobby, and other local discount and craft stores.
Denise was fun and funny. She likes the Aussie show “McLeod’s Daughters”. She chatted up the crowd while we waited for her to sign the books, then drew a cute little illustration along with her signature.
Be sure and check out her website! The handouts from the conference are there too. And if you ever have the opportunity to hear her speak…go!
Denise ~Thanks for visiting the Show-Me State!
