Author-illustrator Melissa Guion

Happy, happy, happy, happy Friday! I'm celebrating the end of a busy and rewarding week with author-illustrator Melissa Guion. She dropped by to discuss penguins, school libraries, riding a bicycle, and reading. I wrote the words in red, and she wrote the words in black. Thank you, Melissa! 

Baby Penguins Everywhere! and Baby Penguins Love Their Mama! are my first and second books. Between them, they earned exactly zero starred reviews, but they are my proudest achievement. I’m grateful to be making books and I hope to do it for a long time.

I created the illustrations for Baby Penguins Love Their Mama! twice. I work traditionally, so when a finished painting needed to be changed, I did it all over again.

The best thing about penguins is their dignity.

School libraries only LOOK innocent.

Picture books are for everyone.

One of my favorite things is a song my friend Kurt Dahle wrote for Baby Penguins Everywhere.  I meant to use it for a book trailer but didn’t have time to make one. Matthew Winner had an interesting suggestion, that I invite students to create a video set to the music. Maybe I should do that!

Reading is like riding a bike, which my daughter is learning to do as I write this.  Hard at first, but once you can do it, you enjoy it for the rest of your life.

Mr. Schu, you should have asked me to do this a long time ago. Just kidding. I’m so glad we met.

I am giving away one copy of Baby Penguins Love Their Mama! 

Rules for the Giveaway

1. It will run from 8/29 to 11:59 p.m. on 8/31. 

2. You must be at least 13. 

3. Please pay it forward. 

Borrow Melissa Guion's books from your school or public library. Whenever possible, please support independent bookshops.