AUTHOR IMAGE
WHERE DO THE MONDAYS GO? by Patricia Sloan
Patricia Sloan
COVER IMAGE
WHERE DO THE MONDAYS GO? - Book Cover Image - JPG - 612 x 792 - 485 KB
| mondays_cover31.jpg |
AWARDS
WHERE DO THE MONDAYS GO? by Patricia Sloan
has received the "Honorable Mention"
award in the children's book category at the
2013 London Book Festival
has received the "Honorable Mention"
award in the children's book category at the
2013 London Book Festival
WHERE DO THE MONDAYS GO? by Patricia Sloan
has been honored as a
"Finalist"
in the "Children's Picture Book: Hardcover Fiction" category for the
2013 International Book Awards!
has been honored as a
"Finalist"
in the "Children's Picture Book: Hardcover Fiction" category for the
2013 International Book Awards!
NEWS - ARTICLES - BOOK REVIEWS
CHILDREN'S BOOK REVIEW
Published April 5, 2013
http://www.thechildrensbookreview.com/weblog/2013/04/where-do-the-mondays-go-by-patricia-sloan.html
NEWSLETTER - GALSTON PUBLIC SCHOOL - Galston, NSW (New South Wales - Australia)
Published February 27, 2013
| newsletter_5_february_27_1362001666964.pdf |
AMAZON
http://www.amazon.com/Where-Do-Mondays-Patricia-Sloan/product-reviews/1607468077
KIDS ACTIVITIES BLOG - 11 STORIES TO LEARN THE DAYS OF THE WEEK
Published January 4, 2013
http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/23108/days-of-the-week
INDIAN VALLEY RECORD - BOOK REVIEW
Published October 26, 2011
http://inv.stparchive.com/Archive/INV/INV10262011P16.php
Q & A with WHERE DO THE MONDAYS GO? Author, Patricia Sloan
Space Dragon by Patricia Sloan - All Rights Reserved - Artwork Published on Elfwood.com August 31, 2005
Q - What makes this "days of the week" book different from all the other days of the week books out there?
A - It weaves in so much more than just the days of the week for educational purposes. It includes colors, time, rhymes/poetry, feelings, and a seek/find the letters for the individual days. It also personifies each day to give children a visual association.
Q - The book shows Daniel Alexander as the illustrator, however, I understand you are the creator/illustrator of the seven day of the week characters in WHERE DO THE MONDAYS GO? What inspired you to create them?
A - My approach to drawing a specific character for each day of the week was inspired by my own experience with raising a child with a learning/reading disability. I created the bold bright colored characters to give struggling readers and children with reading/learning disabilities the visual association which helps them retain information long term.
Q - Do the super-duper days have a group name?
A - Yes, I have named the group after where they are from - where time beings in Greenwich Park, London. Their group name is - Greenwich Super-Duper Days.
Q - How long did it take you to complete the artwork for the seven characters and the story rhymes/poetry for the book and can you tell us about the creative process you experienced?
A - As I mentioned earlier, my inspiration on how I could approach this subject differently came after thinking about how my oldest son had struggled with a reading/learning disability and needed a visual association to retain the information. This led me to think of the days as individual characters.
I thought about the days of the week and how I personally felt about them and realized they already had a certain identity. Nobody likes Mondays. Tuesdays are ignored. Wednesday is the over the mountain day. On Thursday everyone seems to be dragging. On Friday everyone makes a point to say "It's Friday!" Saturday is a fun day. Sunday is a day of rest/relaxation. This also helped me weave the personal rhymes I developed for each day in the story.
I thought about what colors my MONDAY character would be and immediately thought of the color BLUE and how I could blend the letters for his day into the character artwork. I have always had a special interest in doing "Name Art".
For the characters in the story, I started on MONDAY first, using an M shape for his hair...O for his nose...N for his mouth...and then worked the other letters into the body of his character. Suddenly, there he was staring back at me on a piece of notebook paper.
From there, I grabbed my sketch book and drew him out again and colored him blue. I then worked on the other characters which seem to just jump on to the paper, except for Friday. Friday was a struggle.
I originally had the FRIDAY character as a bird, however, I decided there should be only one animal character so I reworked FRIDAY and made him a WANNA-B-BIRD. He has extra shoes attached to his "true shoes" so it looks like he has bird feet. There are several other things he has attached to himself like the plume of feathers on his head and the peacock feathers he straps to his arms.
It took me about two to three months to complete the character drawings for my seven day of the week characters in WHERE DO THE MONDAYS GO? - which I created back in 2005. I had the basic poems for each day as well but I continued to work on poems until I felt they had just the right feeling for that character/day.
With more and more self-publishing options starting to emerge, I continued to wait and look for the right company to self publish through. I finally decided on FastPencil the latter part of 2009. I then worked on the design/layout of the book which included Daniel Alexander's additional artwork for the scenes I envisioned for WHERE DO THE MONDAYS GO? - which took about 12-14 months to complete.
Q - Who is your audience?
A - The target audience would be primarily children that are struggling to read/learn, however WHERE DO THE MONDAYS GO? it is great educational book for all children in general (ages 3-12). Parents/teachers/educators are finding they can utilize it to discuss feelings, colors, poetry, art and time.
Q - If you had to chose a favorite character - which one would it be and why?
A - As both the author and the creator/illustrator of the Greenwich Super-Duper Days, I am often asked which character is my favorite. It is very hard for me to choose since they each have such unique qualities. If I had to choose - my favorite would have to be Super-Duper MONDAY since he was the first one of the group that I created and my inspiration for the rest of the day of the week characters. Also, MONDAY has always been perceived as the "underdog day" and he deserves to feel just as super as the rest of the days of the week!
