Addie Boswell
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The Making of... Five on the Bed

2/2/2021

 

A Largesse of Little Free Libraries...

10/1/2020

 
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Six months with no public library has been painful. Thank goodness my daughter and I know where all the Little Free Libraries are in our neighborhood. (16 in a 1/2 mile radius!) We bike around and collect reading material when we need a break. Thanks to the pandemic, I finally finished building my own version in my front yard. Check out their map to find more near you.  If you're interested in building your own, this book has great inspiration.

Join Me at the Portland Book Festival!

10/28/2019

 
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The Portland Book Festival (formerly known as Wordstock) is coming up. Though I know it is difficult to get downtown, park, and navigate crowds with young children, the benefits of the Festival are so great! And there's a great new addition this year: Me! Leading a bunch of favorite kids crafts. Find me in the tent outside the Oregon Historical Society and ... 

  • Create an Un-breakable bookmark!
  • Collage a favorite animal character!
  • Learn to draw in funny, picture-ish ways.
  • Design and build your own books to start writing!
  • Take a break, and read the books in the cozy Kid's Nook.
I will be leading all of these activities in the kid's tent, which is right next door to the Author Readings. Stop in any time between 9 and 3 to make art with me and other vendors.
Right next door, at the Oregon Historical Society, you can see your favorite authors & illustrators as they give STORYTIMES and sign their books after.
  • 9:00 am - 9:20 am: Great Job, Dad! & Great Job, Mom! With: Holman Wang
  • 9:20 am - 9:50 am: The Shortest Day With: Carson Ellis
  • 9:50 am - 10:10 am: Pepper and Frannie With: Catherine Lazar Odelle…
  • 10:10 am - 10:30 am: The Piñata that the Farm Maiden Hung With: Samantha R. Vamos
  • 10:30 am - 10:50 am: The Whole Wide World and Me With: Toni Yuly
  • 10:50 am - 11:10 am: Northwest Children’s Theater
  • 11:10 am - 11:30 am: Baby Dragon, Baby Dragon! With: Lena Podesta
  • 11:30 am - 11:50 am: My Grandma and Me With: Mina Javaherbin
  • 11:50 am - 12:10 pm: A Zebra Plays Zither With: Janice Bond
  • 12:10 pm - 12:40 pm The Evil Princess vs. the Brave Knight With: Jennifer L. Holm
  • 12:40 pm - 1:00 pm Just Like Beverly With: Vicki Conrad , David Hohn
  • 1:00 pm - 1:20 pm: Peter and Ernesto: The Lost Sloths With: Graham Annable
  • 1:20 pm - 2:00 pmThe Proudest Blue With: Ibtihaj Muhammad , Heidi Schulz
  • 2:10 pm - 3:10 pm: Science Comics: Wild Weather With: Jonathan Hill , MK Reed , Elleona Budd
  • 3:10 pm - 4:00 pm: Lost & Found: Middle Grade Novels With: Rosanne Parry , Jasmine Warga , Kate Ristau
  • 4:10 pm - 5:00 pm: Strange Places: Middle Grade Novels  With: Emily Chenoweth , Rivka Galchen , Lanel Jackson
  • 5:10 pm - 6:00 pm: Facing the Past: Middle Grade Novels With: Dylan Meconis , Renée Watson , Heidi Schulz
  • Musician Emily Arrow will host storytimes and lead singalongs!
  • And other family fun!

There's more! Books and gifts and freebies at the Book Fair, panels on writing throughout the festival, good food trucks, and great bookish energy. The Festival is free to kids (17 and under) and adults can buy Advance passes for $15 (day-of passes increase to $20) which include a $5 voucher to spend at the extensive book fair. All passes include admission to the Portland Art Museum.

How To BUY a Book

4/7/2019

 
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Is there a right way to buy a book these days? I say nope, because every book matters. But if you're wondering how your purchase matters to moi, the author, read on.

Authors and illustrators get an equal percentage of every book sold. Since printing costs of picture books are high, that percentage is usually about 10% of the list price, split between them 50/50. Which means for every $10 book sold, I would get $.50 for the hardback, or $.30 for the board book. As you can imagine, the goal is quantity, and any way you buy is good for me in the long run. For example:


  • Buy from your local, independent bookstores. This supports authors and local business at the same time, and you definitely do you civic duty going this route. Check Indiebound.org to find out who's carrying in your zip code. If your favorite store isn't listed, please go and request the book --  chances are they'll order more than one.
  • Borrow from the library. The author and publisher are only paid once for a library sale (not every time the book is borrowed). But considering that there are 120,000 libraries in the U.S. (compared to about 11,000 bookstores), and that librarians are an author's best friend, getting into libraries is very important to us. Our books stay on library shelves a long time and entice readers who don't have the money for new books; I personally get 95% of my books at the library. So if your library doesn't have a copy, please request they carry it.
  • Buy straight from the publisher: In this case Penguin RandomHouse distributes for my publisher Little Bigfoot. Buying here gives the publisher a larger percentage of each sale -- and they will apply their profits to produce more good books -- and hopefully 'hire' the author again.
  • Buy from Amazon (or BarnesandNoble.com): I always check customer reviews and comments on Amazon before I buy anything, and these sites add legitimacy and ease for lots of book-buyers. As a giant, they are able to set rates that can hurt the creators, so beware buying anything that's been marked down, and avoid buying "used" unless something is out of print.
  • Buy from the author: Authors can buy their own books at wholesale price and sell them in ways that don't compete with these other sellers. The author gets a larger percentage of the book this way ($5 vs. $.50) though the sales don't apply towards royalties and there is the added hassle/cost of shipping. If you'd like to buy a bulk amount for a good cause, live in the neighborhood, or want an autographed copy, this is a good option. (Just email me, but note: there isn't space for inscriptions on Go, Bikes, Go! because it is chock full on every page.)

What about e-books?
These generally function the same way as paper books do, though authors and publishers have been arguing about e-book royalty rates. (Creators believe that the lack of printing costs should translate to larger portions for them -- the standard split is currently 12-20%, which would be halved with the illustrator.) Since board books like Go, Bikes, Go! are made for toddlers, they are not usually offered as e-books, and e-book sales for picture books still make up a small percentage of all sales.

Getting Back on a Bike

7/9/2018

 
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This is the cover for my newest board book (to be released to the public in Spring 2019!) Illustrated by Alexander Mostov, published by Little Bigfoot, Go, Bikes, Go! celebrates the variety of bikes and bikers I have seen in my rides around Portland --where an estimated 3.5% of our citizens commute by bike.  (Which seems low, until you compare it to the national average of .4%.) But don't mistake me for a hard-core, lifelong biker. I grew up on a gravel road miles from pavement. No, I didn't really ride a bike until I was twenty-five. Here's the story.

When I moved across the country -- from Washington, DC to Portland, OR, at age twenty-four -- my one and only aim was to "be an artist." Thus starts my fifteen years of teaching jobs and art shows, public projects, rejections, and picture books, the building of my current life. On that fated journey West, I made the very bad decision to buy a new car -- a silver Honda Civic whose interior I can still almost smell. In my second year of "being an artist" and all the part-time, low-paying jobs it entails, I couldn't pay my debts. My student loans got deferred, my credit cards got cut up, and my cute little car got... repossessed. (A relief, by that point.) A friend gave me a bike. 

I remember my first ride, guided by my friend Beth through Portland's streets. I remember her saying, "don't weave in and out of cars, stay straight and in the view of drivers." I remember wavering when I turned corners, sweating profusely, and generally hating it. That was before the rainy season. I don't remember if it took weeks or months to really enjoy biking. But I spent the next three years commuting solely by bike (and bus and borrowed friend.) Those rides are some of my great moments in Portland. Once I found a free drawing table that I balanced all the way home. Once I felt like I was riding straight into the moon (the basis for the painting below) and it was magic. Many times I felt connected to my fellow riders, strong in my own skin, and just happier to be alive. (Something I've never felt in a car.)

I am on my third bike now, and the first one I actually paid for  -- $150 on Craigslist. These days, I share a car with my husband and turn out to be naturally lazy. I bike less than I should and gripe about how busy Portland has gotten. But sometimes still, I feel the magic. Go, Bikes, Go!
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Mice and More Mice

4/10/2018

 
You'd think a mouse would be simple. But when I start on a new character, I'm always overwhelmed by possibility. How realistic or human-like should he be? What medium should I use? Full color or limited palette? How does he move? Here are some various iterations for Bailey Mouse, a book-loving pinyon mouse created for The Children's Book Bank. The popcorn scene is a fun assignment around the word "Blustery." 
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Oregon Reads Aloud

2/13/2017

 
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A celebration of SMART's (Start Making a Reader Today) 25th anniversary, this new anthology features 25 read-aloud stories by Oregon authors and illustrators, about Oregon places, people and events. Like Sasquatch, and swifts, and rodeos and evergreens and volcanoes. And my contribution Go, Bikes Go! Did you know that Portland is considered the bike capital of the country? During the three years I commuted solely by bike, I happened across all of the strange and useful bicycles featured in my story. Can you find some of these in the drawing below?

Big bikes
​Small bikes 
Extra tall bikes

Old bikes
New bikes
Built-for-two bikes

Bikes with three wheels
Bikes with four
Doesn't that bike need one more?
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