Today at Longan, I had the pleasure of meeting Ann Marie Gardinier Halstead, author of the Bucket Filling Fairy. She has a background in theater and wrote the script for the play “Have You Filled A Bucket Today?”, which is based on Carol McCloud’s children’s books. She talked to the student’s about copyright and how she had to ask the author of the book for permission to adapt the book into a script for the theater. Carol McCloud loved the idea and granted her permission, which led to her successful play and the book “The Bucket Filling Fairy.”
Here is a preview of her play in action! (From http://bucketfillingplay.com/)
She talked with students about the process of publishing a book and all of the work that goes into getting a book from an idea in your head, to a published book on the shelves at a book store. One very interesting aspect that she talked about was the process of selecting the artwork to be featured in her book. When requesting artwork samples, she provided the artist with some descriptive adjectives to inform them what the character should look like, but she also left some details a mystery so that the artists had the freedom to add their own creativity. She explained to the students how a variety of artists from different areas e-mailed their illustrations and sketches and she had to narrow down the options to select the one artist that best represented the picture she had in mind of the characters and settings that she had created in her writing. The students really enjoyed hearing about this process and many raised their hands saying that they may want to go into a career with graphic design.
Early sketches from a variety of artists:
Samples from the artist that she felt best captured the personality of the BFF:
Variety of BFF illustrations by Sydni Kruger:
Color polishing by Sydni Kruger to select the best combination:
After learning about the publishing process, Ann Marie Gardinier Halstead read her book aloud to the students. It is a heartwarming story about treating others how you want to be treated and lifting them up rather than putting them down.
We can’t thank her enough for visiting Longan today! And a huge thank you to Longan’s school counselor, Amanda Hensley, for organizing this special opportunity to meet a local author!
