Free Teachers Guides and Activity Kits

For teachers and parents looking for book-related activities while school is closed, here's a roundup of links to free teachers guides and activity kits for my books. I hope they come in handy.

Matt Tavares Baseball Biographies, Teachers' Guide

Teachers' Guide for Doreen Rappaport's "Big Words" series, which includes two books I illustrated, Helen's Big World: The Life of Helen Keller, and Jack's Path of Courage: The Life of John F Kennedy

Crossing Niagara Teacher's Guide

Lighter Than Air, Teachers' Guide

Lady Liberty: A Biography, Teacher's Guide 

Dasher, Activity Kit

Dasher is available TODAY!

Dasher is a brave little doe with a wish in her heart. She spends her days with her family under the hot sun in a traveling circus, but she longs for a different life — one in which her hooves tread in soft, cold snow under the glow of the North Star.

And one day, when the opportunity arises, Dasher seizes her destiny and takes off in pursuit of the life she wants to live. It’s not too long before she meets a nice man in a red suit with a big sleigh. And soon, with the help of a powerful wish, Christmas will never be the same.

Here's the trailer...

And for anyone who would like to buy a copy (please do!), here are some links:

Indiebound: http://bit.ly/2JedkzI 
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2W0m7vh 
Books A Million: http://bit.ly/2YDofet 
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/2JulkMB

I'll be heading out on tour soon. Here's where I'll be...

For more information about Dasher, visit tavaresbooks.com. Thanks!

Dasher Tour!

Looking forward to hitting the road soon for the Dasher book tour! If you're going to be near any of these places, come say hi!

20 years ago today...

Twenty years ago today, on February 13, 1998, I walked into the Candlewick Press office for the very first time. That was the day I found out that Candlewick wanted to publish my first book. That was the day my dream of being a children's book author-illustrator came true.

There were a few milestones in the months leading up to February 13, 1998. There was the day I met my agent, Rosemary Stimola, in June of 1997. And the day when Rosemary emailed me in early February saying that "something was happening" with Candlewick, but she "still had a bit to go".  But twenty years later, I think of that meeting at Candlewick on February 13, 1998, as the day my career as an author-illustrator began.

It's been a pretty amazing twenty years. Of course, there have been ups and downs. It hasn't always been perfect. Not every book is a hit. Not every review is a star. But for the most part, it has been a dream. I get to spend my days making books and sharing them with young readers. Even after twenty years, I still can't believe I get to do this.

So I just wanted to say a great big THANK YOU to all the great people at Candlewick who I've had the pleasure of working with during these past twenty years. The 42-year-old me is eternally grateful that you took a chance on the 22-year-old me.

Twenty years is a long time, but I still feel like I'm just getting started. So here's to the next twenty!

And hey, look at all these books we made together!

Zachary's Ball, 2000

'Twas the Night Before Christmas, 2002

Oliver's Game, 2004

Mudball, 2005

Jack and the Beanstalk, 2006

Iron Hans, 2007

Lady Liberty: A Biography, 2008

The Gingerbread Pirates, 2009

Henry Aaron's Dream, 2010

Over the River and Through the Wood, 2011

There Goes Ted Williams, 2012

Becoming Babe Ruth, 2013

Jubilee, 2014

Growing Up Pedro, 2015

Crossing Niagara, 2016

Lighter Than Air, 2017

Red & Lulu, 2017

I won't ramble on any longer, because I'm busy working on my next Candlewick book RIGHT NOW!

Indiebound National Bestseller List, 12/13/17

Red & Lulu made the Indiebound National Bestseller List for the 3rd consecutive week! It's at #6 this week, right between Chelsea Clinton and Goodnight Moon. Awesome. What a fun ride this has been.

Red & Lulu hits #5 on the Indiebound National Bestseller List!

Wow. Number FIVE! This is really exciting. It's such an honor to see my book on this list.

Thank you, independent bookstores!

National Indiebound Bestsellers List!

Great news: Red & Lulu just made its debut at #10 on the National Indiebound Bestsellers List!

I am so grateful to everyone who has bought a copy, and to independent bookstores across the country. It's such an honor to see my book alongside so many classic picture books and so many authors and illustrators whose work I have admired for years. Cheers!

Making Red & Lulu: One Last Minute Change

Spoiler Alert: This post contains information about stuff that happens toward the end of Red & Lulu. 

Caveat to the Spoiler Alert: But one thing I realized while working on this book is that I don’t think spoilers really apply to picture books in the same way they apply to, say, novels or movies. A picture book might take five minutes to read, but if all goes right, a kid is going to want to read it again and again, even though they know exactly what is going to happen after that first 5-minute read. That’s why I feel okay sharing some details that might be considered “spoilers”. Hey, you might even say there’s even a big, sparkly spoiler right on the front cover of the book...

Red & Lulu is my nineteenth book as illustrator, and my ninth as author-illustrator. You might think that after two decades of making picture books, I would pretty much have it figured out by now. But unfortunately, you would be wrong. I’m still learning how picture books work, and I learned a lot working on this one.

Here’s something I learned on this, my nineteenth picture book: sometimes you need to let the reader do some of the work.

Before Red & Lulu was even printed, I decided to try it out at a couple school visits, to see how it worked as a read-aloud. Over the past few years I had shared many versions of Red & Lulu with friends, family, and a few fellow author-illustrator types, so I had gotten plenty of helpful feedback. But this would be the first time sharing the final book, as it would appear in print.

At this point, first proofs had been printed, and stapled review copies were ready to send out. So this was very late in the process. I had digital files of all the spreads, so even though I didn't have a physical copy of the book, I could easily share it with an audience as a slide presentation.

So I read it to a few groups of kids, and it went really well. But there was one part that didn’t feel quite right, and I wasn’t sure why. In a pivotal scene toward the end of the story, where Red finally finds the tree and is reunited with Lulu, kids didn’t seem to be reacting the way I expected them to. Here are the pages I’m talking about.

And then you turn the page...

When I read the words “Their tree! More sparkly than ever, but definitely theirs!” I expected to get some sort of reaction from the crowd– cheers, gasps, some sign of joy or excitement. But it seemed like as I read those words, I was the only one who was really excited about it. It felt weird. 

One night, I was laying awake in the middle of the night thinking about this, going through the words and the page turns, trying to figure out what the problem was, and I had an idea.

At my next school visit, I tried something different. When I turned the page after the words, Then he turned the corner, instead of saying Their tree!, I didn’t say anything. I just waited for a bit and let the kids look at the picture.

And something really awesome happened. There was this great moment when some of the kids realized that this might, in fact, be Red and Lulu's tree. I heard a few little gasps, and quiet whispers of “Their tree!” and “I think that’s their tree!”. But they didn’t know for sure. There was still some mystery and wonder. That is what I was missing before.

There is a thrill in realizing that this might possibly be the right tree. But by starting that page off with “Their tree! More sparkly than ever, but definitely theirs!”, I was telling the reader with absolute certainly that this was definitely their tree, and I was robbing the reader of that moment of discovery.

So I wrote to my editor and art director and explained the situation, along with this image, showing my suggested changes:

This was very late in the process to be making changes, so I wasn't sure how thrilled they would be about my suggestion. But they agreed, and we made the change. Here’s how those pages ended up in the actual book:

Then you turn the page...

Now, the picture does more of the storytelling, and there is a feeling of wonder as you head to the next page. By removing the words, “Their tree! More sparkly than ever, but definitely theirs,” I am asking the reader to do more of the work, and providing the reader with that moment of discovery that I was robbing them of before. Clearly Red thinks this is his tree- he is chirping with glee. But we don’t completely know for sure until we turn the page.

What happens next? You’ll have to read the book to find out! 

Spoiler alert: It all turns out okay in the end.

Making Red & Lulu: A few things readers might not notice (but I hope they do!)

Every picture book creator has probably experienced this at some point:

You’re at a book signing, sitting at a table. On the table is a stack of hardcover copies of your brand-new book, hot off the presses. You spent a whole year working on it, and years before that thinking about it, and planning it. You poured your heart into it. And now it’s here. You’re proud of this book, and so excited to finally share it with readers.

A customer walks up to the table. She flips through your masterpiece in about twenty seconds, then looks at you, smiles, and says, “Cute!”

A part of you dies inside.

It’s a strange thing, spending months, or even years, creating something that can be flipped through in twenty seconds, or read completely in five minutes. I know that plenty of people will read Red & Lulu quickly and not think much about it, and that's totally fine. I hope those people still enjoy it. But I also hope that some people slow down, take their time with it, and dig a little deeper into the story.

And when they do, here are a few things I hope they’ll notice. 

Note: Since you’re reading this, you’re probably not one of those people who’s going to flip through my book in 20 seconds! So for you, whether you're a teacher, librarian, parent, illustration student, or anyone else, hopefully these are a few points you might find interesting and/or helpful when you’re sharing the book with kids, or just for yourself.  Thanks! 

1. The role that the evergreen tree plays in the story...

Red & Lulu is a story about change. Cardinals, like humans, are creatures of habit. They mate for life. They do not fly south for the winter. Some even make their nests in the same tree year after year. Red and Lulu live in a big, beautiful evergreen. It is the center of their world, the foundation of their lives.

I felt that the evergreen was the perfect symbol for this story about dealing with change, because even its name, evergreen, implies permanence. But of course, it is a living thing, and as unthinkable as it is for Red and Lulu, it is temporary. 

To me, the tree in Red & Lulu represents all that stuff in our lives that seems really important, but actually isn't. Maybe it's the house where we live, or the work we spend our days focused on. The tree brings great joy to Red & Lulu, and ultimately it is the tree, and their shared love of music, which leads Red back to Lulu. But in the end, they are okay without it, as long as they have each other.

2. The role that the song O Christmas Tree plays in the story...

Red and Lulu’s favorite time of year is winter, when people decorate their tree with lights, and gather near and sing: 

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Thy leaves are so unchanging… 

These lyrics are repeated a few times throughout the story. I chose this song not only because it is probably the most famous song ever written about a Christmas tree, but also because it reinforces the idea of this tree seeming permanent to Red & Lulu, making it all the more unthinkable when their tree is taken away. 

Thy leaves are so unchanging…

Red stands out against an almost monochromatic color palate

3. The role that color plays in the story

On the first pages of Red & Lulu, color is used to help show the passage of time through changing seasons– cool blues of winter, warm yellows of spring and summer, orange and browns of autumn. But once the tree is taken away, the color palate is very limited. As Red ventures into unfamiliar territory in his quest to find Lulu, I wanted him to stand out against a nearly monochromatic background.

But when Red finally finds Lulu, their reunion is celebrated with an explosion of color, thanks to the bright multi-colored lights on their tree.

4. An underlying theme in Red & Lulu: we are all connected in ways we'll never know

In early drafts of Red & Lulu, I debated the extent to which the family who lives in the house next to the tree would be a part of the story. Would they notice Red and Lulu in their yard? Would they notice when the birds were gone? Would they see Red and Lulu in the city, and wonder if those might be the same birds? In the end, I decided to make the people’s connection to the birds more like I’ve experienced in my life.

They try their best to keep the bird feeders full. But sometimes they forget. And one day a squirrel makes his way to the feeder and eats all the bird seed, as squirrels do. And because of that, Red needs to venture out one chilly morning to find some food. And because of that, he’s not around when the trucks arrive to take their tree away.

Nobody in the story is doing anything wrong, from the family deciding to donate their tree to Rockefeller Center, to the workers doing their job by chopping down the tree, to the squirrel trying to find some food. But all of these actions effect others in ways they never know. 

Anyway, I could probably ramble on for longer, but I'll stop there. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope it helps you enjoy Red & Lulu a little bit more. 

In my next post, I'll share a story about a very last minute change I made to Red & Lulu, after reading it to an audience of kids at a school visit and realizing something wasn't quite right.

Red & Lulu is available TODAY!

Hooray! It's Red & Lulu's book birthday!

This book has been part of my life, in one form or another, for the past 6 years. I'm really proud of how it came out, and it's very exciting to know that it's finally out in the world.

The response so far has been great. It got a starred review in Publishers Weekly, and I got word from Candlewick that it's already in its second printing! So far, so good...

For anyone who would like to buy a copy (please do!), here are some links to order it from a local bookstore or online:

Amazon: http://bit.ly/RedandLulu
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNRedLulu
Indiebound: http://bit.ly/IndieRedLulu

Here's the book trailer:

I'll be traveling around quite a bit between now and Christmas, promoting Red & Lulu. If you're near any of these places, come say hi!

 For more about Red & Lulu, and for a full list of events, visit tavaresbooks.com.

The Original Art 2017

Good news! Red & Lulu was chosen for the 2017 Society of Illustrators Original Art show! The exhibit will run from November 1 through December 23. Looking forward to celebrating in NYC.

Thanks for another great school year!

Last week I wrapped up my school year with two presentations at Stratton Elementary School in Arlington, Massachusetts. This was one of the busiest years of school visits I've ever had- I did 127 presentations at 49 schools, from Fredericksburg, Virginia, to Westfield, New Jersey, to Cumberland, Maine...

I've gotten so much great feedback from teachers, librarians, parents, and students. And I just wanted to use this space to say a great big THANK YOU to all the people who made this such a great school year for me. I know it takes a lot of work form a lot of people to make a successful school visit- from the parent volunteers who organize the book orders, to the librarians who read my books to the kids leading up to the big day, and all the teachers who follow up my presentations with fun writing and art projects.

When I set out to be a children's book author-illustrator, I had no idea I'd end up spending so much time talking in front of large groups of people. And as someone who used to dread getting up in front of the class to speak, I never imagined how much I would enjoy it. It truly is one of the best parts of my job.

So thanks! Looking forward to another great school year in 2017-18. If you're interested in planning a visit, let me know.

Have a great summer!

Lighter Than Air!

My new book, Lighter Than Air, is now available. Written by Matthew Clark Smith, illustrated by me, Lighter Than Air tells the story of Sophie Blanchard, the world's first woman pilot. I really enjoyed working on this book, and I'm excited to be able to share Sophie's inspiring story with young readers. Here's the cover...

And here's a quick peek inside the book...

Here's a peek inside LIGHTER THAN AIR, which comes out today. @candlewick #bookbirthday #kidlit pic.twitter.com/LdqpYFeIpl

— Matt Tavares (@tavaresbooks) March 14, 2017

Lighter Than Air is available now, from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or an independent bookstore near you. Or order a signed copy from my friends at G. WIllikers!

And for any educators out there, Candlewick Press put together this amazing (and free!) teachers' guide. Enjoy!

Fly the W for Lennie Merullo, the last 1945 Chicago Cub!

Lennie Merullo, Shortstop, Chicago Cubs, 1941-1947

About fifteen years ago, I was doing some research for my book, Oliver’s Game, when I came across a familiar name: Lennie Merullo. This Lennie Merullo played shortstop for the 1945 Chicago Cubs, the last time the Cubs made it to the World Series. But the Lennie Merullo I knew was my elementary school gym teacher.

So I tracked down my old gym teacher, and he confirmed that the Chicago Cub Lennie Merullo was, in fact, his uncle. Not only that, but he was still around, and lived a couple towns over from me. Lennie Merullo, the gym teacher, even gave me his uncle's phone number.

So I called Lennie Merullo, the shortstop, hoping he might agree to meet with me to answer a few questions. He was very nice, and offered to stop by my apartment for a visit, which was perfect, because I hoped that if the interview went well, he might be willing to pose for me as one of the main characters in the book, Grandpa Hall. I had built a fake baseball card store in my basement to use as the setting for my story (Grandpa Hall ran a store called Hall's Nostalgia). Having an actual member of the 1945 Cubs pose in the baseball card store I had created sounded too good to be true!

I had some questions prepared, but as soon as Lennie walked in and saw all the old memorabilia, especially the 1942 Cubs jersey, he just started talking. He told amazing, vivid stories about his playing days, stuff I would never have thought to ask about. I don’t think I even ended up asking any questions. I just listened.

Lennie Merullo talking to Cord, who posed as the grandson in Oliver's Game

He had met Babe Ruth and come up to bat against Satchel Paige. He had once committed 4 errors in the same inning, but he had a good excuse: he had just learned that his wife had given birth to their first child.

He brought an old gym bag filled with all kinds of things, including an authentic Wrigley Field “W” flag, which came with a funny story I don’t completely remember about a goofy teammate who thought the "W" stood for “weather”. I remember Lennie cracking up, saying, “He thought it meant ‘Weather Flag!”.

He was happy to pose as Grandpa Hall (though he was mildly offended when I asked him to use a cane as a prop). I realized quickly that I didn’t even have to explain who this character was. Grandpa Hall was a man who loved baseball to his core, even years after his ability to play the game had been taken away from him. Grandpa Hall said that every item in his shop had a story to tell. I didn't need to describe the character to Lennie Merullo because he was the character. It was magical.

Another picture of Lennie Merullo telling stories

When Oliver's Game was published, Lennie and his wife came to the book release party. He even signed some books, if I remember correctly. Over the years he surprised me at a few other book events. It was always great to see him, and he never got tired of talking about baseball.

When Lennie passed away last year at the age of 98, he was the last remaining member of the 1945 Chicago Cubs World Series team. I wish he could have stuck around one more year. I’ll be thinking of him tonight, when the Cubs play in game 7 of the World Series.

Go Cubs!

Fly the Weather Flag!

Grandpa Hall and Oliver, from Oliver's Game, Candlewick Press, 2004