Merry, merry!

I recently spent a weekend with Emily in Toronto, enjoying the St. Lawrence Market as well as Yorkdale Mall. At Yorkdale they have such lovely, glitzy decorations:

In this hallway, the stars change colours as Christmas songs play:

My favourite shot, Emily with stars in her eyes.

As everyone makes it home for Christmas, I realize that my mom has always been right: All we need for Christmas is to have our families around.

I hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmastime! I also hope there are a couple of lazy pajama days in your upcoming week, a nice break from the hustle-bustle of the past month.

Merry Christmas!

Judy Ann

Another good review!

Terry Hong is an author, editor, reviewer, critic, teacher, speaker and consultant, and she writes a blog for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program. She cleverly calls her blog, "BookDragon"and she reviews books which have a multi-cultural component. I'm tickled that she likes Reaching for that reason. Here's part of her review :

"Author Judy Ann Sadler creates a gentle lullaby while illustrator Susan Mitchell adds a colorful touch … not just in her choice of color palette but with clearly multicultural grandparents (Oma and Opa in addition to Grandma and Grandpa) and multi-ethnic cousins and Auntie, too. In today’s world of shifting borders, Reaching is a timely reflection of the global village in so many of our own families!"

Isn't that nice?

All the best,

Judy Ann

Lovely review!

I was delighted to hear from my friend, Marsha Skrypuch , that CM Magazine (an electronic reviewing journal) ran a review of Reaching. I especially like how the reviewer, Meghan Radomske, a librarian at Guildford Library in Surry, BC, wrote,


       "Babies and toddlers will enjoy Judy Ann Sadler's flowing language-her use of rhymes and repetition create a soothing melody to which young babies will respond."

About the art, Meghan says,

      "Susan Mitchell's bright, radiant watercolour illustrations bring the joys of getting to know a newborn baby to life and reflect the flow of Sadler's words."

She concludes:

      "Sadler and Mitchell have created a warm, joyful picture book worth sharing with any new families."

And she rated it as, "Highly Recommended." Yay!  Reaching even made the cover  of this edition!

All the best,

Judy Ann

December!

It has always been the tradition in our home to kick-off the Christmas season on December 1st. We don't put up any decorations or play Christmas music until it is officially December. I always used to wake up the family by playing, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!" by Andy Williams, nice and loud, early on the morning of that special day. For the past few years I've had to do it by phone! It has also been a tradition for Jeff and Emily to put up the outside lights together, usually on a blustery, snowy day. Em can't make it home for that fun task this year, but here's a photo from a couple of years ago.

I've done a bit of baking and a lot of Christmas song singing today. I love the holiday season, even though it is a bit of a marathon!

Happy December,

Judy Ann