Billie Webb's Blog: My House With Only One Wall - Posts Tagged "cats"

Blue Cat is my favorite character in the book Red Cat, Red Cat, Red Cat, Blue. He is different, lost and alone when Jacob finds him. Blue Cat rejoices when someone finds him and thinks his uniqueness is cool.

As a child leaves a mother's car on the first day of school, doesn't she yearn to witness a warm reception from the other children, hoping they will appreciate each other's unique and loveable qualities rather than leave her child standing alone?

Today I cherish the uniqueness of the people in my circles. We are not blue, but we are all Blue Cats in a way, and I rejoice that we have found each other.

Here is a photo of one of the blue cat puppets I made.

A coloring book is powerful. A stack of them can subdue a small crowd of children in a matter of moments. Just ask any teacher!

And the source of that power is the fullness of the experience that the act of coloring in a coloring book brings to the child. When a child receives a coloring book and crayons, she or he will seek out a suitable spot in the room for the activity at hand and then enter into a creative cocoon that I like to call a "Coloring Book Nook." For about 10 or 15 minutes, a child disappears into a private, creative, world and loses him or herself in the feeling of the wax, the soapy smell of the crayons and the brilliant colors that flow from the nibs onto pages of fun characters and stories.

Shortly thereafter, the child emerges with page after page of art that he or she presses loved ones to admire and display. Why? Because just like any other artist, the child feels that a small piece of his or her inner being has been illustrated and captured in the art work.

And so, because coloring books provide such a deep and meaningful event for a child, I could not imagine creating a picture book for children without also creating an accompanying coloring book. This is just the way I am wired: I want the children to fully experience the story!

Honestly when I tell adult people about my coloring books, they are completely underwhelmed. It is not glamorous. It is not impressive. It is not really very captivating. And if you look around, you may notice that most other children's book authors do not create coloring books, either. So I have come to the conclusion that "coloring book creation" is just another quirky thing about me.

Having said that, I need to acknowledge that coloring books are time consuming and expensive to make. Plus they sell for very little money, and they do not lend themselves to the eBook format. So I really do understand why most authors do not do it.

Clearly I do not expect to make any money on my coloring books either. What do I expect? I expect to help children create joyful Coloring Book Nooks where they can have deeper, more fulfilling experiences with my stories and characters. I just couldn't imagine publishing picture books for children any other way.

Pictured here is my puppet version of the nine cats from the book "Red Cat, Red Cat, Red Cat, Blue."

When I line them up in a bookstore or at a craft fair, it starts to look and feel a little like a party, or better yet: a playful picnic!

Surprisingly, children of all ages, including teenagers, enjoy the brightly colored puppets. It is so sweet when a little two year old cautiously reaches for one of them, and equally rewarding when a twelve year old eagerly tries one out.

I like to ask them all: which one is your favorite? If I can, I even let them hold their favorite puppet during the story.

You know, the green and red cat puppets seem to be favorites with little boys. Girls generally prefer the white one.

It turns out that the adults are the ones who have the most difficult time with this question. Some parents almost look confused when I ask them which one they like the most? With a shrug and sideways smile, their eyes and body language ask "Why would an all-grown-up adult such as myself have a favorite cat puppet?"

Dear friends, oh, why not? Let's go the park, twirl on the swing, eat a popsicle, and for goodness sake let's make a leap and choose a favorite cat puppet! We don't need to make life any more serious than we have to, do we?"

And just for the record, I am still a Blue Cat Lady all the way. :)

Once upon a time Miss Billie wrote a few poems for a few children.

But the poems were incomplete. They needed pictures.

And so Miss Billie thought "I will become an artist! And I will make pictures to complete my poems!" And she did.

But the pictures and the poems were all scattered about on many different pieces of paper. So Miss Billie had an idea! She said, "I think I need to turn these papers into books."

And so she scanned the pictures into a computer and printed them out. Then she sewed them together and glued cardboard covers on them. Yes, she did indeed make books. Just like this:


But something was still missing. The children needed something to play with while reading her books. Miss Billie pondered and pondered and finally proclaimed: "children need puppets to go with the books!"

And Miss Billie decided that she needed to become a seamstress. She bought thread and felt and a sewing machine. And the author made puppets. And the children loved them!


But although the children loved the puppets, Miss Billie felt something was still missing. She wanted to give them something more creative. More artistic. And so she concluded that the children needed coloring books to match the books.

So she made those, too. When they were done, Miss Billie gave the coloring books and a box of crayons to the children and watched them. And as she did, she realized that something was very wrong.

One child began breaking crayons in half! Another child colored a crayon nib away within moments! And another child dumped the crayons onto the table and half of them rolled off the table and onto the floor! And the crayons were not even cute!

And so Miss Billie decided that she needed to become an inventor.

After several experiments, she landed on the idea of Square Crayons: they had four nibs, were very hard to break, and they did not roll! But the best part was that she could embed cute little pictures into the surface of the crayons.

Here is a photo of her first crayons:


She took the square crayons to a few craft fairs and people gathered around and played with them. And they said, "cool!" And they bought them!

But the crayons needed improvements. So Miss Billie spent several weeks experimenting with different methods and molds until she came up with sleeker and better crayons.

Here is a photo of the result:


At last Miss Billie took the crayons to the children. She watched them color. None of the crayons broke. None of them rolled off the table, and none of the nibs wore down! Ah this was very good!

As Miss Billie looked back at all of the things that she had made for the children: the poems, the books, the puppets, the coloring books, and finally, the Square Crayons, she realized that she had done a lot of work! But it was all worth it. And she finally decided that she was done.

So with sigh and a smile, she picked up her pen and began to write another poem...