Happy Birthday to Lenny Lee!

 

Mixed up raccoon who said, "moo"

Soon found out that cows say, "moo"

So this raccoon and friend

Decided to send

Special birthday wishes to you!

Happy birthday to a special new young friend, Lenny Lee! I met Lenny online during my blog tour for Animal Sound Mix-up at Sharon Mayhew's Random Thoughts blog. Lenny has his own blog, Lenny's World, and I hope you'll pop over to say happy birthday to him and enjoy his great blog!

Lenny inspired this little poem through his comment to me about feeding cookies to some raccoons when they started saying, "moo." He wanted my advice since I know all about this stuff. After all, the animals in Animal Sound Mix-up are all mixed up in what they say. I'm happy to say I got the raccoons straightened out, and as you can see, they join the cow in wishing Lenny a happy birthday.

Hope you have a wonderful birthday, Lenny!

Gratitude and Prize Winners

A big congratulations to the winners in the prize drawings for Animal Sound Mix-up tour. The Animal Encyclopedia was won by Janet Johnson. The winner of a $10 Amazon gift certificate is Kathy Stemke.

Due to problems with my Google account and not being able to send me notification of book purchases, I'm extending the drawing for the animal ornament set until Monday to give you a chance to email a confirmation of your order for Animal Sound Mix-up to beautifulmomentsofjoyandpeace at yahoo dot com. Thank you so much to all who purchased copies!


A huge thank you and hugs to each of you who visited the stops on my tour and shared with me the joys of Animal Sound Mix-up through the great reviews, interviews and other fun! I appreciate you, your comments and the new followers. I've tried to follow you but Google Friend Connect has not been working for me, so I'll be back and follow as soon as it will let me.

My great appreciation goes to the blog hosts for this journey. Hope you will visit these great blogs again. They each have much to offer.

Beth Reinke at  Beth's Book Basket
J. Aday Kennedy at A Writing Playground
Lori Calabrese at Lori Calabrese Writes
Janet Ann Collins at OnWords Blog
Donna McDine at Write What Inspires You
Sharon Mayhew at Random Thoughts
Katie Hines at Walking on Water
Virginia S. Grenier at SFC: Families Matter
Rosemary Marotta at Rosemary's Reading Circle

Prizes and Animal fun

As the blog tour for Animal Sound Mix-up nears a conclusion, I've found that my gmail account has been having problems and not receiving emails. This was the address I had given to contact me when copies of Animal Sound Mix-up were purchased to enter the prize drawing. Please leave a comment below or contact me at beautifulmomentsofjoyandpeace at yahoo dot com to let me know if you purchased a copy of the book. That will ensure that you are entered in the drawing for an animal ornament collection.

There will also be drawings for a $10 Amazon gift certificate and Animal Encyclopedia from those leaving comments during the tour.

The complete schedule for the tour, in case you missed any stops and would like to visit, is below, followed by some animal fun.

  October 1:  Beth's Book Basket
                   review by Beth Reinke
October 4:  A Writing Playground
                   interview, bio and book blurb by J. Aday Kennedy
October 5:   Lori Calabrese Writes
                   review by Lori Calabrese
October 6:  Janet Ann Collins
                   review and animal trivia
October 7:  A Writing Playground
                   review and book marketing brainstorm by J. Aday Kennedy
October 8:  Connie Arnold, Children's Author
                   excerpts and illustrations featuring Kit Grady
October 11: Write What Inspires You
                    review by Donna McDine
October 12:  Random Thoughts
                   Q&A by Sharon Mayhew
October 13: Walking on Water
                    interview by Katie Hines
October 14:  SFC: Families Matter
                    review and Q&A by Virginia S. Grenier
October 14:  Rosemary's Reading Circle
                    with Rosemary Marotta
October 15: Beth's Book Basket
                   interview by Beth Reinke
October 16: Connie Arnold, Children's Author
                   blog tour conclusion and prize winners announcement


Below are some unusual animal sounds with links to information about those animals on Wikipedia. Enjoy!

Alligators - bellow, hiss
Falcons -  chant
Ferrets -   dook
Foxes -    bark, yelp or simper
Giraffes -  bleat
Linnets -   chuckle
Nightingales - pipe and warble
Ostriches - bleep bleep
Tortoises - grunt

Visit with Kit Grady, Illustrator

 It's my great pleasure to share with you a little about Kit Grady, the illustrator of Animal Sound Mix-up. I'm sure you'll agree with me that her illustrations are delightful, and it's interesting to learn what was involved in the artistic part of this book. Please be sure to leave your comments or any questions you might have for Kit, and enjoy!

Animal Sound Mix-up was a manuscript that when I saw it, I knew it could really be an enjoyable book to illustrate. What great creatures Connie had filled into this story with a wonderful message. I began my process of illustrating “Animal Sound Mix-up” by breaking up the manuscript, allowing for good flow and visual possibilities. I pulled out my sketch pad and began drawing. After several weeks and lots of drawing paper used, I scanned the art into my computer. I used Photoshop and my wacom tablet to work on the illustrations and do the coloring and tweaking. A couple of months later, I emailed the art  to the editor, Lynda Burch at Guardian Angel Publishing. She publishes in print and also ebooks which is a bonus in this ever changing world of publishing.

   

It was so much fun, yet there were challenging things like making  the illusion a deer honk, a bird oink, or having a bear baa. Animals are my favorite things to draw, so this book was a delight.

Connie and I conversed  a lot about  ideas and thoughts by email.  I haven’t met Connie in person yet, but since our imaginations seem to click in the same way I’m sure looking forward to meeting my author of “Animal Sound Mix-up.“

Thank you so much, Kit, and I'm really looking forward to meeting you as well. Here is one of Kit's illustrations from Animal Sound Mix-up, and you can see more of her art by visiting her website.

"What if when you went to the zoo,

all the monkeys were to moo?"

See the schedule for the rest of the tour and the prizes on the Blog Tour Begins post. Be sure to leave a comment to enter drawings for Amazon gift certificate and Animal Encyclopedia and let me know when you purchase a copy to enter the drawing for an animal ornament set. Animal Sound Mix-up can be purchased from Guardian Angel Publishing, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most online bookstores.