More Q&A with Elementary Students

One wonderful morning I Skyped from my cozy studio in Brooklyn with students at the Passow Elementary School in Franklin Park, Illinois. Thanks to Reading Specialist, Elizabeth Drasutis, who set up the visit, for sending a packet of the student’s sweet notes, plus a list of questions to answer.

Q: How can you imagine all of the sea creatures?

A: It was easy. By using the photographs I took of the public and of my friends at the actual Mermaid Parade. They made the costumes. I just channeled their great creative energies into my picture book. They made it easy to illustrate 100 + characters featured in the book.

Q: How do you get picked to be the illustrator?

A: I send samples of my illustrations printed on postcards to art directors in the juvenile publishing field. The art is kept in their files. They match an illustrator with an author’s manuscript the publisher had purchased. Or, an agent represents your art and makes portfolio rounds to the publishers.

Questions from the older students:

Q: What do you find challenging about being an author and illustrator.
Art is always fulfilling so I’d say it’s the business end that can be challenging. Such as waiting in-between books. Having to prove my talent at all times to new people. Or, being very organized tracking the constant flow of new people and changes within the field.

My Studio

A: How many days does it take to make a book or an illustration?
Some illustrations are simple and some are complex. It took one month to finish my first book, AT THE BEACH. The art was simple to fit the text.

It can also take two weeks to illustrate one scene. The maps I love to create take a long time to finish.



Detail from a map I illustrated for A CITY IS

All art and images are Copyright Melanie Hope Greenberg except the student art.

My Eric Carle Museum NEA Grant Visit

What an honor to participate in the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art's very first National Endowment for the Arts grant. Read the press release.

The NEA grant brings three author-illustrators, Jerry Pinkney, Raul Colon, and myself to the Donahue School in Holyoke, Massachusetts.


The purpose of our visits is to guide second grade students to write and illustrate personal narratives in preparation for their very own exhibition at the gorgeous Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, MA in June 2012. The students were going to create 3D collages based on my book A CITY IS.


More about the museum here.

October 19 was Day 1 of my two day visit. I was facilitated by the museum's Curator of Education, Rosemary Agoglia. The day started very early and was spent presenting my author-illustrator elementary school programs in three classrooms sessions. At the end of each session the students shared what they saw in their city. I drew their images on a large pad, breaking down each idea into easy shapes they could draw and cut for collage.
I was very tired after the long day, but by a stroke of good luck I was invited to a meeting with the area's prestigious local authors and illustrators at the Richard Michelson Gallery in Northampton.

Luckily, my hotel was across the street. I signed 60 copies of SUPERMARKET while resting in bed and watching TV. My publisher, Holiday House, was incredibly generous to donate a copy of the book to each student in the second grade. Thank You, Holiday House!!


Day 2 of my visit was in the art room working with Art Teacher, Martha Mulcahy
and the Eric Carle Museum's Public Art Program Educator, Diana Mackenzie, pictured here with Margaret Bartley, Language Arts Media teacher at the Donahue School who helped bring the NEA grant alive.

There were lots of paper materials to choose from both the art room and the museum who donated neon papers and pre-cut shapes.


The young artists got busy.



When a student got stuck I helped out,

but most artists like to work on their own. I observed quietly and offered encouragement watching their art progress.


Here are the results from one day of art work.


After I went home the students followed up with another day on their collages. I cannot wait to see how it will all turn out for their exhibition at the museum.

THANK YOU, Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and the M.A. Donahue School!

We are close to the Holiday Season. My FREE Coloring Page is a holiday detail from the book, SUPERMARKET. Here it is in the book.


And here is the sketch I used to create the original art. Click on the sketch to enlarge. Print and color! Enjoy! Happy Thanksgiving!



Photo Credits: Melanie Hope Greenberg Copyright 2011 and Diana Mackenzie/Eric Carle Museum Copyright 2011

Norman Rosten

April is Poetry Month!

I feel so fortunate to have met and worked with so many talented people along my life's path. Brooklyn Poet Laureate Norman Rosten was one of these wonderful people.


I was just breaking into children's books in 1987 and Cousin Arthur's was the local children's bookstore in Brooklyn Heights. It was also a place for grown up happenings and community gatherings. The owners, Bob and Barbara Tramonte, were poets. They also owned a small poetry press. Readings at Cousin Arthur's listed some of the top poets in NYC. In 1987, the idea for the Children's Book Illustrators Group (CBIG- New York City) was born at this bookstore. I became it's first President.


Local author, playwright and poet, Norman Rosten, was a frequent visitor to Cousin Arthur's. I had read his memoir about his friend, the actress Marilyn Monroe.


Norman and I became friends during the time I designed a book of his poems, 'Songs for Patricia'. The Tramonte’s poetry press reissued it in 1988. When my second children’s book, MY FATHER'S LUNCHEONETTE, was released in 1991, Norman asked if I would read some of his children’s poems for possible publication. Being new in children's books that offer was incredibly generous and encouraging.


A CITY IS had many detours on it's journey to publication. It was rejected a few times before Norman passed away in 1995. It finally sold to Henry Holt, one of his original publishers. His poem are simple and timeless. Memories of Norman alway stay with me.

Here is an early sketch I did for the "Pocket Park" poem that never made into the book. You can download and color it.

Purchase an autographed copy of the book A CITY IS.

Art from A CITY IS Copyright Melanie Hope Greenberg 2004