April 12, 2013

IT'S A TIGER! special for Kindle

Today only (April 12th) there is a Big Promotion for IT’S A TIGER! on Kindle. Only a $1.99 and this fine book could be yours! Hours of scrolling entertainment for you and your little one! Buy it! If you have a Kindle! Love, Jeremy

March 7, 2013

New Dennis Lee Collection!!!!!

Here’s a BIG piece of news (especially if you’re Canadian!): I will be illustrating Dennis Lee’s new collection of children’s poetry. Here is Quill and Quire’s announcement. I find it funny that they refer to me as an “up-and-comer”. I would have thought that with five books under my belt I’m not really an up-and-comer anymore. But I guess alongside Mr. Lee I’m still a bit of a newbie! This is a fantastic piece of news and I’m SUPER excited about it.

In other news I will be announcing a more, um, Big News soon. Keep your eyes peeled.

January 3, 2013

100 best books of 2012

So, It’s a Tiger is on School Library Journal’s list of “100 Magnificent Children’s Books of 2012”. Thanks SLJ!

January 1, 2013

Super Review!

So 2012 ended on a high-note with a phenomenal review from the wonderful Elizabeth Bird at School Library Journal. She says, amongst other really nice things, “the all-around best readaloud of the year, bar none as far as I can tell, has got to be It’s a Tiger!” Thanks Betsy! Go, give it a read, it’s one of the nicest reviews I’ve ever had.

November 29, 2012

Cheap Ebooks!

My two 2012 books are both available for as Ebooks. And, if you buy them right now, or in the next couple of days, you can save big! PIGGY BUNNY can be found in the Apple store here (but also available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble) for only 2.99. And IT’S A TIGER! can be found here (along with 13 other bestselling Ebooks) here. PIGGY BUNNY is available at the sale price until the 3rd of December. IT’S A TIGER! is available until the 4th of December.

September 10, 2012

BCCB review of IT'S A TIGER!

And finally a great review from the Bulletin for the Center for Children’s Books:

The young protagonist invites us into a story in a jungle setting of picturesque tranquility, until … “Wait a minute. That’s not a monkey. That looks like … // A TIGER! RUN!” We follow our narrator into a shadowy cave for safety, but what’s that lurking there? You guessed it: “A TIGER!” The pattern continues, with each seeming escape leading the plucky kid right into a new tiger trap (on a departing boat: “Say, I’ve never seen a sea captain with a tail before, have you?”).

Finally, the tiger gets what he wanted — some ear-scratching and belly rubs — and everything calms down, until the protagonist starts telling a story which begins it all again with a crocodile. Any child who’s ever delightedly fled from a playfully roaring adult will recognize the game here, especially with a reader-aloud who can ham up the tiger’s part for maximum effect. The clear absurdity of the situation papers over any logical glitches, and the structure that suggests an endless chain of good-humored, persistent predators provides for a satisfying final joke.

Tankard’s art, familiar from the irresistible Grumpy Bird (BCCB 3/07), is dense with thick, playful lines, while digital colors, often mottled or striated, fill and sometimes overflow the elements. The critters are somewhere between toy and cartoon, so the tiger’s threat is mitigated by his adorably simplistic, babyishly round shape and the fanciful details, in both text and art, that frame the proceedings as make-believe.

Youngsters may press stuffed animals into service to enhance the narrative here, but there’ll be plenty of goofy fun just in the shriek-and-giggle sharing.

September 10, 2012

Booklist review of IT'S A TIGER!

And here is a great review from Booklist:

“A little boy addresses the reader: “Are you ready for a story?” So begins a jungle tale featuring one gleeful monkey swinging from a vine, another hanging upside down, and two more with just their tails visible. But wait. What’s with that thick, striped orange-and-black tail in the mix? The typeface explodes in the following spread: “A TIGER! RUN!” And thus readers embark on an exciting reversal of hide-and-seek, with every spread featuring a telltale stripe of tiger hidden somewhere on the page—which, of course, leads to more desperate screaming and hiding. Tankard’s thick-lined, off-kilter, ink and digital-media renderings of a bat cave, a snakes’ nest, a flowerbed, and more add drama to each scenario and extra wattage to every jolt. Obviously, this will make for a boisterous soft/loud/soft read-aloud, and it comes with a nifty twist at the end, too. What’s that scaly green tail hanging from the boughs” - Booklist

September 10, 2012

School Library Journal review

I’ve been too busy/preoccupied to do all the updates that I should be doing. So here are a couple of excellent reviews of It’s a Tiger! that I have been meaning to post.

“Young imaginations will run wild with this story within a story of a young boy who escapes from a tiger over and over again in various outrageous land- and seascapes. Tankard’s bold black lines, created with ink and digital media, frame the cartoonlike characters and allow the tiger’s stripes to stand out strikingly when viewed from a storytime circle. Children will enjoy trying to spot the tiger’s tail, which is often camouflaged within the background scenery, while the protagonist regularly shouts, “A TIGER!” displayed in large-type font. Teachers can use this book to lead their listening audiences in re-creating the boy’s actions as he sometimes creeps and crawls, yet at other times he boldly races to the surprising conclusion. This tale will be a boon to creative minds everywhere and a participatory storytime winner” –School Library Journal

August 29, 2012

IT'S A TIGER! on Chronicle Blog

Chronicle Books asked me to contribute to their design blog with my thoughts on It’s a Tiger! and its development. They even pulled out some early production sketches to make my text more exciting. Go take a look!

June 11, 2012

IT'S A TIGER in Publishers Weekly

And here is the fantastic Publishers Weekly review:

Tankard’s (Piggy Bunny) artwork adds splash and color to this mock-suspense tale from LaRochelle (The Haunted Hamburger and Other Ghostly Stories), outlining the characters with heavy ink strokes and tinting them with brilliant jewel tones that make them look as if they were painted on glass or film. “Are you ready for a story? Me too,” the narrator starts, as a boy in a blue jacket stands in for the narrator/reader “we.” The Boy negotiates a series of Indiana Jones–style threats (tiptoeing past snakes, swinging across a canyon) only to find a tiger lurking after each page turn—which he always escapes in the knick of time. “Good thing we landed someplace soft. A bed of flowers?… A giant orange-and-black pillow? No, we landed on top of… a tiger!” No matter how scary the circumstances, the deadpan narrative voice reassures children that it’s just a story, and the tiger’s zigzag teeth and soft features imply that he might not be all that dangerous. The repetitive structure, action, frights, and surprise ending should make this a popular storytime pick. Ages 2–6. Illustrator’s agent: Holly McGhee, Pippin Properties. (Aug.)