Although we hope more honors lay ahead for the book, these first two awards felt great. The results from the two categories are below. Thanks and best wishes.

2009 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Results

Religion/Spirituality

Gold (tie): Jesus from A to Z, by Kevin Graham and illustrated by Jennifer Yoswa (Windom Publishing)
and Take It to the Queen: A Tale of Hope, by Josephine Nobisso and illustrated by Katalin Szegedi (Gingerbread House)

Silver: All You Want and then Some, by Carolyn McWilliams Brown and illustrated by Deb Hoeffner (Winepress Publishing)

Bronze: Nonnie, What’s God? by Linda L. Lile and illustrated by Jenniffer Julich (A-Lu Publishing)

Alphabet/Counting Book

Gold: Fun with ABCs Lotería Style, by Luciano Martinez (Lectura Books)

Silver: Jesus from A to Z, by Kevin Graham and illustrated by Jennifer Yoswa (Windom Publishing)

Bronze: Dr. Little’s Tri-Alphabets and More: English · Español · Français [A Tri-Lingual Book], by Sylvia Hawkins Little and Graphic Designer Marlina Rahman (Epic Press)

Technorati Tags: children’s book, book awards, religious books, alphabet book

In the Sept./Oct. issue, on page 46 in the “New Stuff” section, the magazine says, “Adults and children alike will love this beautifully illustrated book that shares the captivating stories of Jesus’ life by way of the alphabet.”

We are honored to be included in a trade journal that is noted as the “interdenominational magazine for Christian adults who work with children from birth to sixth grade,” and included in a section of the publication where recommendations are made for the best resources for them to use.

Technorati Tags: children’s ministry magazine, illustrated book about Jesus

Need to work on that if many TV interviews lie ahead, but it was nice last week when the opportunity to do a radio interview came along. Compared to how comfortable I feel on radio, I realized, the difference of being on television is kind of shocking.

An old college friend, who fills in on the morning show on KEZW in Denver, invited me to be a guest on the show. And I went to the station instead of simply calling in on the phone.

The studio, on the 11th floor of a building in the Denver Tech Center, offered a grand view to the northwest on a perfect fall day in Colorado. The Flatirons near Boulder, with the Rockies lined up behind them, both stood out against a ideal blue sky.

The interview involved a nice back and forth, covering where the “Jesus From A To Z” book idea came from, how it was created and where things have gone since. Since I have done mostly phone radio interviews in the past, speaking into a big microphone with headphones on was a little different, but the experience was a great one. Thanks to Pat for making it an easy ten minutes and for the exposure to a great Denver audience.

Technorati Tags: radio interview, children’s religious book

That chance encounter with the television station has since turned into a nice working relationship between KWHD and Windom Publishing. We will have a TV commercial running this fall and hope to be featured on the network’s morning program at some point. The folks at the station, which bills itself as a family/Christian station, also have helped spread word of our book to churches and organizations in the area.

We hope a long working relationship develops out of this chance encounter, and also hope more coincidences lie ahead for the book.

[tags]children’s book, God moment, alphabet Jesus book[/tags

We started the first day, Friday, at the Children’s Book Breakfast, which was hosted by Julie Andrews, who has a new book out that features 150 poems and other children’s pieces chosen by Julie and her daughter. We made several nice contacts at this first event, and the three authors who also spoke at the breakfast were each impressive in the their own right. My favorite was the author Meg Cabot, with her interesting journey to becoming a children’s author.

The most rewarding part of the Expo, however, involved working out of our distributor’s booth, Midpoint Trade Books, to share our new book with any and all interested passers-by. It felt intimidating at first to just hold the book up and wait to catch someone’s attention. But after several great conversations and some nice feedback, it became much easier to wait around for the next interested party to talk to about the book.

We ended up with a nice list of contacts and people to follow up with for promotional and sales opportunities. And we entered an awards contest, the Mom’s Choice Awards, which will hopefully prove to be beneficial if we are lucky enough to win an award.

Signing copies of the book and giving them away to interested and interesting people was one of the highlights of the Expo. In fact, we made friends with one of the show’s security gate checkers, who noticed us carrying the book the first day and stopped us to have a look at it. She had a young daughter, and on the second day, asked if we might have an extra copy for her.

Leaving the Javits Convention Center on Sunday afternoon, we were able to give her our last copy of the book, just before we jumped in a cab and headed for LaGuradia. She was very happy to receive the book, and it felt great giving someone the last copy to share with her little girl.

Onward now we head to the International Christian Retail Show, which will be held in Denver the middle of July. Hopefully even more contacts and interested readers lie ahead.

Technorati Tags: Christian books, stories of Jesus Christ, children’s books, Kevin Graham

We should have a good idea of what might be possible with our book, Jesus from A to Z, after visiting with — hopefully — hundreds or even thousands of people over the next four days. Should make for a few interesting posts up on my return next week.

In the meantime, thought I would share a great review we received from a big industry publication, Kirkus Reviews. This is a big publication for libraries, so we’ll hope it leads to many sales from that arena. Here’s what they said:

(From “Kirkus Reviews”)
Stunning oil paintings with glowing colors and a flattened perspective provide memorable visual impact in this alphabetical introduction to important people, events and stories from the life of Jesus. The book’s striking design has a large trim size with an unusually wide horizontal orientation, using double-page spreads to showcase the art in a size that will work well for reading to a group.

Each letter focuses on one word that relates to the life of Jesus, with a brief, easy-to-understand paragraph of text about each term. The book’s alphabetical structure, however, shuffles the traditional chronology, which may require some additional explanation for younger readers.

The pages for the problematic letter Q step outside the framework of the text to discuss quiet time for the reader to think of God and Jesus, a departure (though a quiet one) from the rest of the alphabetical choices. A great deal of information is packed into the short text blocks, but Yoswa’s compelling art is the star of this alphabetical show. (Picture book/religion. Ages 4-9.)

Technorati Tags: Christian books, stories of Jesus Christ, children’s books, Kevin Graham

I’m happy to report that the resulting reactions and discussions were quite positive. The effort didn’t involve but five or six contacts, but two immediately were enthused and wanted to talk about the book in their publications – one in the northern city of Huntsville and one in the southern city of Mobile. One reporter responded to a voice mail I left her after visiting our website and being impressed.

We’ll have to wait and see what the eventual outcome is around the reviews of the book or other mentions that may result, but it was a promising start. And the conversations with these people were enjoyable and easygoing. Hopefully, many more such discussions lie ahead.

Technorati Tags: Christian books, stories of Jesus Christ, children’s books, Kevin Graham

An interesting part of the experience for me involved talking to her about my time growing up at the United Methodist Church there, recalling some of my formative years there in learning about Christianity and spirituality. In a small town like Durango, members of the youth group crossover into middle school and high school, so those friendships can span quite a large swath of one’s life. Many happy memories remain from those years, and it was nice to think back on them.

Back to the review, however, here is my favorite part: “Graham, who has had 10 other books and a number of freelance articles and columns published, has achieved his goal. Parents, grandparents and even Sunday school teachers will find the book a valuable and enjoyable read and teaching tool.”

But she also wisely noted the book’s beautiful illustrations by Jennifer Yoswa. That part included the following: “You’ll have to read the book to find out the rest of the letters, but be sure to take time to look at the deceptively simple, rich illustrations by Jennifer Yoswa. While she appears to paint in broad strokes with simple drawing, the detail in shadings, colors and portrayal of the lesson at hand had me going back for second and third looks. I imagine children would have great fun looking for all those fine points in the art.”

If you are interested in the rest of the review, please see the full Durango Herald article.

Technorati Tags: Christian books, stories of Jesus Christ, children’s books, Kevin Graham, book review, children’s Bible book

Brook Trout Rising

Three of his paintings hang in my house. Two are scenes of the Desert Southwest and one is of the San Juan Mountains. They are all ethereal, beautiful and mesmerizing. Kind of like their creator – Stan Englehart.

Stan passed away last week at age 78 in Durango, Colo.

A bit of a sense of the man can be found in a description of him found in the foreword of the book, Stanton Englehart: A Life on Canvas. The foreword includes the following descriptions of the man:

…compassionate, inspirational, visionary, gifted, generous, vibrant, joyful, humble, learned, passionate, always in touch with the magic and beauty of nature; a person of insightful intelligence and absolute integrity, informed intuition and disciplined commitment to his work-play; and most simply, always a great hugger and good listener, a gentle soul, a gentleman to the core.

Happily, not one of the words above is an exaggeration. (For more on his life, the Durango Herald published this nice piece about his life.)

I am thankful and fortunate to have known Stan. My parents were good friends of the family, and I have always treasured the time I was able to spend with him, limited as it was.

One afternoon at his house and studio, Stan and I started talking about fly fishing, a shared passion between us. We traded a few stories as I looked over his rods and gear, which were kept in the studio along with his art supplies.

A bit later, I tried to pick out a painting to purchase in the upstairs portion of the studio. Lots of paintings were lined up against the walls. When he told me that this set of paintings was headed for an upcoming show, I wondered why I was considering them. He noticed my confusion and quickly added, “Pick whatever you like. I have plenty.”

I set about this difficult task. Pick just one? How?

Back down by the fishing rods a while later, Stan came up to me with a gorgeous painting of luminescent, almost glowing green mountains. In the foreground, a pastoral body of water spread across the canvas, dotted with trout rings. “I want you to have this,” he said.

It will always be one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. As I listened to him tell me about creating the painting (always my favorite part of the process), he eventually decided to title it, “Brook Trout Rising.” It has proudly hung in my kitchen since.

I and many, many others are sorry to hear of his passing.  But thankfully, his spirit will live on through his work, which hangs in many houses and buildings around the country and world. I know this to be true in my home.

Technorati Tags: paintings, Stan Englehart

The pair began with good wishes and went on to briefly speak of the importance of family and Christianity. A minute or two later, I told them I had something for them to see and showed them a copy of our book, Jesus from A to Z.

Flipping through the book, one of the young men stopped at the spread for “M,” or Miracles. The scene depicted in the painting by illustrator Jennifer Yoswa is of Jesus walking on the water. The disciples’ boat is some distance off, and Jesus is reaching down to grab Peter and pull him out of the water.

The young missionary said this was his favorite miracle. He said he liked the idea of what would have transpired after Jesus lifted Peter out of the water and told him to have faith. The two men would have walked on the water over to the boat, he said, where they would have rejoined the disciples.

The young missionary said he liked the idea of Peter being on top of the water with Jesus – still a part of the miracle – and the two men walking together to return to the boat. And I had to agree.

Technorati Tags: Christianity, Jesus walking on water, miracles of Jesus