Two New Books with a Papercraft Influence for Young Readers

You might remember the impressive magazine collages of Megan Coyle that caught my eye more than a year ago. Megan has been very busy since then creating thirty vivid designs to illustrate a charming story for small children.

It's about a sweet mallard and flying fish who meet one another at the beach and ponder what it would be like to live the life of the other. (Aw look, they're smiling!) Most of us wouldn't be able to bring personality and dimension to bits and pieces of flat magazine pages, but Megan makes it look easy.

Will Duck and Fish decide to trade places? I must say Fish looks pretty upset while flying over an airport!

But on the other hand, Duck seems to be getting along swimmingly in the underwater world. I wonder how things will work out?!

Duck and Fish can be previewed and purchased on Blurb.



Saskia Akyil and I met when she asked me for photography advice regarding the cover she'd just quilled for her first young adult novel. Yes, a quilled design on a book cover - what an eye-catching idea!

We struck up a conversation... Saskia, a young American mom living in Germany, was inspired to do the cover art after seeing Yulia Brodskaya's work. She's the first to admit she's a novice quiller. "I'm sure I'm not the only person who saw Yulia's artwork in Oprah magazine and thought "Wow, what is that? I want to do it!" Regardless of Saskia's skill level, the colorful designs on both the front and back covers will grab the attention of young readers everywhere. Maybe they'll even be enticed to give quilling a try - that would be nice!

I guarantee a teen adventure story involving summer romance in a foreign land (Turkey in this case, the homeland of Saskia's husband) would have appealed to me when I was a young teen. Wait... who am I kidding? It appeals to me now. :)

Secrets of a Summer Village, is listed worldwide on Amazon as a print book. It's also available electronically as a Kindle download from Amazon.