Jane Sutton

I continued my string of picture books with Esther’s Hanukkah Disaster, the story of a purple gorilla who shops for Hanukkah presents at the last minute and ends up buying her animal friends inappropriate gifts designed to make young readers giggle. Think jogging suit for a turtle. When I brought up the subject of dedicating the… Read more »

Years ago I would use a pumpkin for the head of my Welcome, Trick or Treaters! character. But two years in a row, squirrels gnawed on the pumpkin, transforming the figure from friendly to downright gruesome. Now a red playground ball with a smiling Sharpie face serves as the benevolent, inedible head. Here’s this year’s creation:  … Read more »

In my picture book Don’t Call Me Sidney, a pig who aspires to be a poet can’t find a rhyme for his name, except “kidney,” and changes his name to Joe. But the absent-minded Sidney keeps forgetting that he’s now Joe, and his friends and his mother, who named him after his great great great… Read more »

My sixth book The Trouble With Cauliflower is about a koala bear who’s convinced that eating this particular vegetable, whose taste he happens to like, gives him bad luck the next day. It’s a fun depiction of self-fulfilling prophesy, gorgeously illustrated by Jim Harris. Before this, most of my books had been novels, so Cauliflower was my first… Read more »

We were pleased to have a nice crop of milkweed plants in our yard this year because we know that Monarch butterfly caterpillars depend on them. Recently, we saw these gorgeous Monarch caterpillars across the patio from the milkweed, chowing down on a different plant!                           A… Read more »

This morning we saw a happy ending to what could have been a very sad children’s book. Earlier in the summer a mama turkey with 3 babies were frequent visitors to our yard. Then she showed up with just one baby and limping, likely the result of an animal attack on her and her family. But this morning she showed… Read more »

ArtBeat Festival in Davis Square, Somerville, MA is a fun annual event with a variety of musical acts, children’s activities, art vendors, and food. This year, four fellow children’s book authors and I will have a table selling our signed books. From the Festival Press Release: This year the Arts Council is teaming up with… Read more »

My final school visit of the year was such fun. It had been a while since I’d shared my picture book The Trouble With Cauliflower, about a superstitious koala bear, so I was pleased that the librarian chose that one from my “menu.”                          … Read more »

Thank you to Aesop’s Fable for inviting me to do a Saturday morning story hour. It was such fun to discover this terrific new independent bookstore in Holliston, Massachusetts. I’ll be back!

Several months ago Doreen Buchinski and I spoke to students at Minuteman High School in Lexington about our writing (me) and graphic designing and illustrating (Doreen) processes. Then we met with teams of students and provided feedback on their alphabet book projects. Last week we were invited back to see the results. The students’ books impressed us with their… Read more »