Book Reorder, A 2014 Celebration!

Books I have illustrated and written! www.loritaylorart.com/publications.html

I remember as a child the day that Scholastic book order forms went home. It was always the highlight of my elementary school career and I quiver now when I see my granddaughter's book order form. When the Book Fair came to the school, my heart pounded at the sight of shelves of paperbacks waiting for me, and my heart pounds when I download books onto my iPad. Having a real, live author/poet visit the school in Clarkston was beyond excitement, and I still feel the same today when I visit with other author/illustrators. You see, I have always been a nut about books. A passionist you could say.

When I stop and think about it, I had the love of storytelling--both writing and illustrating--since I was in sixth grade. My teacher told me that is what I would do when I grew I up, which made my young heart ecstatic. And in middle school I won awards for art and a contest in writing. But then by the time high school rolled around, a REAL career was suggested to me by my father. A real career, like the medical field. Art was a hobby--not a real job.

Build a Holly Action Figure! Find it and
more on Holly's Hangout Page!
www.loritaylorart.com/hollywild.html

But I still hung on--no clutched on--to the dream of illustrating and books, even after high school graduation when I was gifted a Gwen Frostic book which inspired me to take a commercial art class at the vocational school where I had taken medical assisting. Funny thing that medical field thing--I every job I had in it someone always told me that I should be doing art. Huh?! Drawing pictures and not blood. Hmm! Finally after flailing around in the medical laboratory field of pouring urine, pipetting blood clots and serum, did I take the serious art plunge. I struggled, practiced and perfected, day-after-day, year-after-year, through raising children and taking care of grandchildren. 

Now after all that hard work, can I look back and see where I have been and where I want to go with my art and storytelling craft. It's exciting really--I have so much more to say and do. Working on a mid-grade realistic fictional series like Holly Wild, illustrating ebooks, and now branching out into Kindle, picture books and perhaps graphic novel chapter books I realize this is my job. I'm a passionist for books.

And so it is with great excitement that I begin 2014 off by ordering 1,000 more HOLLY WILD: Bamboozled on Beaver Island (Book 1) books. I can't wait to see what else will come about this year.

"Crazy Cat Chase That Rabbit" www.loritaylorart.com/illustration.html