Clip Art from djinkers.com - various collections

Classroom Webquests:      Bat Quest       Penguin Quest       Rock Star Webquest

I also love clip art - some of my teaching friends refer to me as a clip art junkie!  One of my all-time favorite artists is Dianne J. Hook of www.djinkers.com.  [My clip art addiction began with her work.  But I am developing new (or rather "additional") favorites all the time!]

So when I saw, several years ago, djinkers' blackline clip of the cute barn, the darling scarecrow, the sunflowers, the corn, the wheat, the pumpkins, the fence, and the haystack, (not to mention the darling crow!) I felt compelled to put them together in a book.  I used the principles that I learned in Early Literacy training to write a book that was patterned, predictable, and had a high text-to-graphic correlation.  I wrote my "magnum opus" - a book titled "The Scarecrow and the Crows". 

I colored the blackline images with markers, typed the text on my home computer, and  took the loose pages to my local Kinkos to make enough color copies to give one each to my sons and my sister.  I was a "published" author!  And I was smitten with the process. Clearly, it was a book that wanted to be written!  And it chose me!

Self-publishing is much easier now, and since my discovery of some easy-to-use writing and publishing tools and applications, I have had fun creating books for my grandchildren and grandnieces and nephews.  I have re-published my Scarecrow book in hard cover edition as well as written a few more.  I love the creative process - it fulfills a deep need in me.  It feeds my soul.  And I derive great pleasure in customizing books for the little ones in my life - customizing the works with their own names and photos.

Below are some examples of the stories I have done . . . and further below some that are waiting to be completed,