Shadra Strickland

Meet your instructor, children's book author Shadra Strickland. Then dive into an exploration of how text and images work together to create meaningful stories.

Strickland wraps up the class with a tutorial on creating and submitting a dummy for a publisher, including tips on how to create a dummy for self-publishing or personal gifts. You'll leave the class wanting to run straight for the drawing board in pursuit of your next story!

Every project needs a strong critique, and Strickland shares the best tricks of the trade for revising your work with fresh eyes. You'll also discover ways to experiment with mood and color that can improve your story with as little as one change in your palette.

Discover how to turn an ordinary story into an extraordinary adventure as you push yourself to add more depth, dimension and movement into your illustrations.

"From cultures and countries near and far, this collection of more than twenty poems and prayers selected especially to share with children affirms the wonder and beauty of all things great and small in our world. Whether it be the flowers in spring, the wind and the rain, the wide sunset sky or friends and family who we hold dear, there are many reasons to give thanks for the world we live in"--Simon and Schuster Publisher.

It is 1852 in Alexandria, Virginia. An orphaned slave, twelve-year-old Eliza has only the quilt her mother left her and the memory of the stories she told. Stories become Eliza's lifeline to freedom after she takes to the night upon learning she will soon be traded. "Go East. Your back to the set of the sun until you come to the safe house where the candlelight lights the window." With the words of Old Joe, the farmhand, in her ears, Eliza travels...