31 in 31 Official launch post!

Hooray!
Huzzah!
Sound the horns!

Here’s all the info you need to know about 31 in 31!

What’s the challenge?
Read 31 different picture books in 31 days.
Yeah, that’s one a day in the month of October.

• Read it aloud.
• Read it to kids.
• Read it to yourself.
• Just read it!

My goal is to try to read picture books that were published in the last few years, but you can read any picture books that you want!

Why?
See this post for more reasons why,
but, basically, I love picture books.

• I’m a picture book writer
• a PiBoIdMo participant,
• as well as a well intentioned 12 by 12’r (I see next year going a little bit better!)

I’m also that person who does not have kids but is ALWAYS excited to
talk to you about a picture book
or even read you one.

How do I participate? 

Participating is SO easy.
If you can read, you can do it! (yes, that means kids too!)
Each day I’ll post about the book I read that day, and update my bookshelf drawing (you’ll see it later!)

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS

• follow my blog, and
• comment on the post about what book you read that day.

Want to tell us how it was?
Even better.
Can’t make it to the blog everyday?
Hey, I understand.
Come to the blog when you can and feel free to comment on days gone by to catch up!

Can I win things?
Yes, each day you comment with a book you read, you will be entered to win prizes!
There will be three rounds, each ten days long (well, the last one is 11 days!)
and you can win one prize per round!
(There are rounds so I can get the names of the winners before I meet the author/illustrators!)

Prizes include signed books(one per round):

• Goldilocks and the three dinosaurs by Mo Willems
• This is not my hat by Jon Klassen (personalized to the person of your choosing)
• and Voyage to Bunny Planet by Rosemary Wells (again, personalized to the person of your choosing!)

And other fun stuff:

• idea notebooks with a hand-pulled linocut print cover
• “dummy” notebooks for all you pb writers out there. 32 pages with a fun lino-cut on front.
• “Rockstar” linocut print postcards

Also, here’s a free prize right here:

 

Download this, print it out, keep it around, use it as a mantra…whatever you’d like!

Speaking of free, here are some fun tools to help you out with the challenge!

A little badge I whipped up:

And a fun bookshelf! (scroll down to see!)
I love drawing the spines of books and coloring,

and thought you could have fun writing in the titles as you go.
I always loved those kinds of things in school.
If you want to play and draw along, I have a few versions you can print out.
SOMEONE wants me to mention that there’s a good looking sock monkey sitting on the bookshelf too.

Here’s the first, all colored in. You just write the titles!

Here’s one that just has the bookshelf colored in.

Here’s a plain one, no coloring, if you want to get all creative!
Singe Singe says you can even go crazy with the color he is too!

So, let’s go the library,
load up on books,
get our crayons out,
And get reading!

I’m very interested to see what everyone else is reading, so, please, COMMENT!
And then you can win too!

Ok!
Read and write  and color on!
KE and SS