Vid #21: David Suchet narrates... He's Here!

visit the The Jesus Storybook Bible site to learn more
buy the book: here
download audio on  or amazon

week 19 storytime video: God's Messenger

God's Messenger from Jonathan Michael on Vimeo.
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(no need to add a code, just hit ENTER and it'll play)

visit the The Jesus Storybook Bible site to learn more
buy the book: here
download audio on  or amazon

storytime video #20: Daniel & The Scary Sleepover

Daniel and The Scary Sleepover from Jonathan Michael on Vimeo.

(no need to add a code, just hit ENTER and it'll play)

visit the The Jesus Storybook Bible site to learn more

buy the book: here

download audio on  or amazon

week 18 JSB vid: "Operation 'No More Tears!' "

Operation "No More Tears!" from Jonathan Michael on Vimeo.

(no need to add a code, just hit ENTER and it'll play)

visit the The Jesus Storybook Bible site to learn more
buy the book: here
download audio on  or amazon

week 17 storytime video: a servant girl & the proud general

A servant girl and the proud general from Jonathan Michael on Vimeo.

(no need to add a code, just hit ENTER and it'll play)

visit the The Jesus Storybook Bible site to learn more
buy the book: here
download audio on  or amazon

Dicken's Christmas Carol: the marked up manscript

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in just 6 weeks to raise much-needed cash in September 1843.

Printing the manuscript was a Christmas rush job, so there wasn't enough time for Dickens to make a clean manuscript copy. As a result, the copy that went to print is heavily marked up and extremely difficult to read. It has all of Dickens’s additions and subtractions in his own hand.

The manuscript is housed in the Morgan Library. And every year they turn the page so you can look at the next spread. This year, for the first time, all 66 pages are available online. (So you won't have to wait 64 years to see the entire book.)













The watercolor of the Ghost of Christmas Present, above left, had to be redone because the spirit was supposed to be wearing green, not red.

Here's just two of the changes he made to the text (so brilliant!):

On page 3, he inserts “his eyes sparkled” to amplify the portrait of Scrooge’s nephew, whose beneficence is crucial to the plot.

On page 12, where Scrooge takes Marley’s ghost to be evidence not of the supernatural, but of his own indigestion, (“more of gravy than of grave,”) he converts the offending bit of food from being a “spot of mustard” to a less digestible “blot of mustard.” (Genius!)

Read more here.

Listen to an interview here.

improving book sales

On December 3rd, in 1926, as if caught up in one of her own plots, Agatha Christie disappeared without a trace. Her abandoned car was found in a chalk pit seven miles from her house. Police and the public organized search parties. The whole country was riveted and the story got loads of media attention. Then, 11 days later, Agatha Christie turned up in a luxury hotel. She had assumed a different name, and claimed she couldn't remember a thing. It had been a hard year — her mother had died, and her husband had left her for his young mistress. To this day, no one knows if she really did have amnesia, or if it was a big publicity stunt to raise book sales, or a way to publicly expose her husband's infidelity. But all the media attention made her even more famous, and she ended up as one of the best-selling authors of all time. Excuse me but I now need to find an emergency chalk pit.

Isaiah reading

this photo made my day... (Thanks to Reggie, his dad, who let me post this photo of Isaiah from his blog where he very kindly reviewed the book.)

testing books on children

The snow storm didn't stop us. We had loads of fun in Cold Spring NY last Saturday, reading Handbag Friends and How To Be A Baby and laughing and singing. And here we are reading HOW TO BE A BABY and laughing fondly at all the things babies can't do, poor things. (Like, for instance, when you're a baby you don't carry a back pack. You go in one. And you don't read books. You eat them. Stuff like that.) (Thank you Merritt Books and thank you children.)

Reading to children is a great (the only?) way to test a children's book. And here's one really cool thing I learned from a favorite publisher of mine (David Fickling):

I was testing out HANDBAG FRIENDS on some children in its very earliest stage (pencil sketches in a paper dummy) and I came to a bit where the children were asking me loads of questions. Like, "What is a Swamp-A-Stomp?" and "Where is the Murky Space Weed?" and "What do you mean Baglodytes?". So much so that I could hardly turn the page. Later, I reported back to David, "Oh dear I think I should write more in there because they're asking lots of questions." And then he said, no, you want them asking questions. It's when they aren't asking questions you need to worry because then they're not engaged. And you know the definition of a boring book, don't you? A book that does the work of the reader for them.

Isn't that great?

Hmm. Come of think of it, that could apply to more than just books...

my blog interview with eucatastrophe

Love this blog run by Dan Cruver. Check it out. It's a very thought-provoking, moving, inspiring blog by a really cool guy who loves my new storybook bible, which means he is not only really cool but also really extremely smart (!)--no, truly, it is a huge compliment (and he really does know his stuff. He's a Professor of Bible apart from anything, but once you start reading his blog you get the idea.) Anyway, he was kind enough to interview me (to read interview click here <+> ) about what it was like writing The Jesus Storybook Bible.

I knew I'd love his blog the minute I read the quote in the mast head (plus I learned a new word, coined by Tolkein, "eucatastrophe" which I thought at first was an alarming mix of catastrophe and an apostrophe--like some kind of unfortunate grammatical error that might lead to terrible things like the downfall of empires. But, happily nothing of the sort--it means "happy ending." Except Tolkein believed joy doesn't end and neither does the Story... so it's only an approximate translation):

"The story begins and ends in joy." J R R Tolkein.

Harry, The Strong and Cool and Brave

This is Harry (when he was quite a bit smaller than he is now). As you can see, he's full of adventure and an intrepid explorer. Which is why one of the bravest characters in Handbag Friends is named after him. And, just like him, he's very handsome, too (but you don't need me to tell you, you can see very well for yourself).

And I get to be his aunt. (Which only makes me the luckiet, proudest aunt alive.)

Right now I'm working on a story for him. I just hope I can finish it before he's too grown up for it. But then I prefer to think about the lovely thing C S Lewis wrote in his foreward to THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE:

"MY DEAR LUCY, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realised that girls grow up quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be
your affectionate Godfather,
C S LEWIS”