MotherReader

OMG! I spent more than two hours at Big Universe creating a book. Two hours that I badly needed today to Take Care of Business. I just wanted to see how the whole thing worked, and next thing I knew I was finishing The Princess and the Peppers. It’s ready for viewing if you want to see what kind of picture book I would write with two hours and limited clip art.

Here’s your Thursday Three:

Old MacDonald Had a Farm, by Jane Cabrera
All right, we all know the song, so there are no real surprises there. Well, one surprise. Okay, maybe two. In the first verse we learn that Old MacDonald has a wife, with a kiss, kiss here and a kiss, kiss there. I think it would be advisable to not think about the here and there those kiss, kisses are going. They’ve also got a little May-December thing going on. Not that anything’s wrong with that. The rest of the book is the standard animals, but with the Cabrera-style bright lively art. At the end, surprise again. A baby! Hey, what did you expect with all that kiss, kiss here and there?

It’s Not Fair! by Anita Harper, illustrated by Mary McQuillan
The inside cover says that “Anita Harper is an author and pyschotherapist whose books focus on the emotional lives of children.” In this title, you can definitely feel the pyschotherapist coming through, but it’s not completely distracting. I’d give the credit to illustrator Mary McQuillan for making this feel like a “real” picture book and not just an “issue” picture book. Her cat family is adorable, but with a funky little spin to the pictures that keeps it from being cutesy. For the story — originally written in 1987 — a girl cat is upset that her new baby brother is getting all the attention and treats, and it’s not fair! But then it turns around and she sees all the things that she can do that he can’t do, and he doesn’t think that’s fair. The only thing I really didn’t like is that the book seemed to end suddenly. Without the “I guess there are things that both of us find unfair” wrap-up, I felt like there was a page missing. Still a good book for siblings, but watch out for that last page turn.

Jazzmatazz! by Stephanie Calmenson, illustrated by Bruce Degen
Someone was watching Schoolhouse Rock! videos before he illustrated this book. Honestly, the last few pages of the book would look totally at home in the seventies. Totally groovy. Not in a bad way necessarily, but notable. A little mouse creeps into the house and starts playing jazz on the piano, which inspires the dog, the cat, the bird, the baby and the parents to each contribute their own part in mulicolored, psychedelic patterns. Fun and bright. Really bright. Oh, I loved the note from the author and illustrator on how this book got started from emails they were sending to each other.

I’ve had a secret. No, I’m not pregnant. I’ve been sharing my blog posts at another site. I may be working more with this site in the future, but now they run some news, reviews, and interviews from MotherReader. They haven’t been ready for prime time, but they are now so I’m sharing parts of the press release. Check it out.

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Big Universe, Inc., formally launched BigUniverse.com, a unique website where kids, parents, teachers, librarians and authors can read, create and buy quality children’s picture books.

Big Universe is the first company of its kind to offer the many popular features it combines in its one website: a powerful and fun book-creation tool for aspiring authors, hundreds of children’s books readable for free on the website, a virtual mall of online children’s bookshops, blogs by professional authors and many other features designed to maximize interest in children’s reading and creativity.

“We are very excited about our launch,” says Anil Hemrajani, president and founder of Big Universe. “We have successfully created an online community where people can read, buy, sell and learn about beautiful children’s picture books — and even create them — all on one site.”

BigUniverse.com is unique because it addresses several issues related to the children’s book industry. For publishers, Big Universe maximizes the best features of web promotion to provide publishers a cost-free way to showcase their books and sell them to consumers while also building brand awareness for their companies. For parents, teachers and librarians, it offers a convenient way to browse for and buy books online. For aspiring authors, it is an easy and quick way to experiment with writing children’s books. For kids, it combines fun and education in a high-quality reading experience with an innovative tool to explore writing and creating books of their own at home or school.

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With traffic building rapidly, BigUniverse.com is already logging thousands of site visitors each week. Its goal is to quickly become a very high traffic website, hosting over a million unique visitors each month. Hemrajani, a highly regarded IT entrepreneur and author with a global following, brings together 20 years of experience building complex software applications for Fortune 1000 corporations and successful, robust online communities.

Hemrajani says, “BigUniverse.com is the culmination of a longtime dream of combining my professional background and my love of children’s books in creating the place to go to maximize the enjoyment of reading and everything that grows from it. We want to leverage the power of the Internet to increase the love of reading and writing children’s books. I hope people will love BigUniverse.com, and will realize this is just the beginning of what’s to come!”