Book Trailer Premiere: Seashells: More Than a Home by Melissa Stewart and Sarah S. Brannen

Happy, happy, happy Friday! I am honored to welcome back Melissa Stewart and Sarah S. Brannen to Watch. Connect. Read. They dropped by to chat with me about Seashells: More Than a Home's book trailer, Sarah's illustrations, locomotion, Brian Lies, and more. I wrote the words in purple, Melissa wrote the words in black, and Sarah wrote the words in green. Thank you, Melissa and Sarah! 




The book trailer for Seashells: More Than a Home was 100 percent Sarah’s brainchild. She had a vision for a family reading the book together with the children commenting on what they saw. She asked a friend and his children to do the voiceovers. Another friend of hers did the animations and all the editing.

Sarah S. Brannen’s illustrations are stunningly beautiful. They really bring the book to life.

I hope Seashells: More Than a Home encourages young readers to think about shells in a whole new way. Everyone knows that hard, strong shells protect mollusks from enemies, but they can also play a role in locomotion, finding and eating food, and more.




Seashells are so beautiful. My mother and I spent countless hours wandering beaches looking at shells, picking them up, and wondering about them. Thanks to Melissa’s research and writing, I now know so much more about why various shells look the way they do, thanks to the fascinating mollusks that create them and live inside of them.

I created the illustrations for Seashells: More Than a Home several years after illustrating Feathers: Not Just For Flying, which was also written by Melissa. Even before I finished it I hoped she would write a book about shells and that I would get to illustrate it. This book was a dream come true.


Did you know that Brian Lies helped with the illustrations? I got the job in the fall and realized I would need to finish the art before summer. Although I had a lot of the shells in the book already, I somehow didn’t have any mussel shells. Brian lives near the beach and he went down and picked up mussel shells, along with some snails and a crab, and mailed them to me. Thank you, Brian!!




Look for Seashells: More Than a Home on April 2, 2019. 

Prolific, award-winning nonfiction author Melissa Stewart reveals the surprising ways seashells provide more than shelter to the mollusks that inhabit them.

Young naturalists discover thirteen seashells in this elegant introduction to the remarkable versatility of shells. Dual-layered text highlights how shells provide more than a protective home in this expository nonfiction exploration. The informative secondary text underscores characteristics specific to each shell. Elegant watercolor illustrations create a scrapbook feel, depicting children from around the world observing and sketching seashells across shores.

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