Ruby the Red Worm
Stories about the making of our book, Ruby the Red Worm’s Dirty Job. Part of the Make-A-Book Project. Synopsis: Ruby the Red Worm is a humorous and educational introduction to composting and the essential role worms serve in the ecosystem. More importantly, it is a story about living a life of passion despite life’s bullies — even if it means eating dirt.
The following is a step by step summary of how the book is made, including: planning, creating, celebrating and making a difference in the world.
How I make the aerial view photos look real, including using satellite views and chalking the drawing out square by square.
The ice cream social and book signing celebration for "Ruby the Red Worm" drew over a 1000 people. It was one of the most overwhelming, amazing and fulfilling moments of my life to see the dreams of so many students coming to life.
The new book, Ruby the Red Worm, is finally here! Perhaps no one is more surprised how beautiful it is then me, especially the cover!
School playground photo of "We ❤ worms". I'm very surprised this picture turned out so great! Another one of my personal favorites. And a giant framed photo will soon be hanging in the school office until the end of times.
While I was producing the final book, the students continued exploring some related projects. Pictured here is Mrs. Lambert's class examining some red worms up close.
After sorting through my foot-tall stack of drawings, I begin selecting and editing my favorites.
After working with the elementary students for 6 days, I got approximately 1000 drawings to choose from. So, being more of the right-brained-artistic type, it is a major organizational challenge.
One fun idea to get the students more involved in the production of the book was to have them name the characters in the story. So I, along with my self-appointed fan club, made this ballot box.
I continue to learn how to work with the various ways kids learn and create. Some students prefer to illustrate an actual sentence from the book, which requires a more literal interpretation; while other students prefer a more conceptual approach.
World traveler came home to fulfillment. This is a great story about my trip around the world, coming home, and how this all evolved into working with local schools to illustrate children's books.
During my visit, which was Reading Week, one of the teachers organized a Storybook Parade, where all the teachers dressed as their favorite storybook character and paraded through the hallways.
