Picture Book Marathon Day 28 The End!

Picture book 28. the final book, is:

The End

The End is a book featuring hundreds of "The End" scenes from other stories. Not known stories, just scenes that look like they could be the end of a story. Kind of like Chris Van Allsburg's "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick," but focused on "The End."

The end!

Phew! What a race! This was a tough one. Some real ups and downs. I love doing the PBM, but it's nice to be finished with it (until next year.)

Take a day to figure out your favorite, we'll have the official vote on Wednesday.

Picture Book Marathon Day 27

Number 27--the second to last book is:

Shorp til' You Dorp!

An alien parent and child go "Shorping" which is like shopping, but in reverse. They look at all the items in the house and say, "We need to go shorping!" They gather the items, repackage them neatly, load them into a vehicle and take them to a "Shorping Center" where they are paid money at the register, then they carefully put the repackaged items back in the right aisles. Shorp til' You Dorp! "Dorp" is what they shout at the end, when they leave the "Shorping Center" with a nice empty vehicle and money in their pockets.

Backwards alien fun!

I'm going for the photo finish tomorrow, I'll get picture book 26 out at some point during the day. Sheesh, I can't believe I did all 28 last year, with the Land of Doom story along side each post. Yikes! I was in better shape last year.

Tomorrow is the finish line!

Just like in a real marathon, I'm walking a mile or two of the final stretch. Today, for example, I'm walking. I'll get book 27 out sometime today, most likely late, like, tomorrow late. The final stretch is never pretty, lots of limping and groaning, but I'll get there.

Picture Book Marathon Day 26

Book number 26:

The Three Little Trilobites

The story of the three little pigs, told in the pre-historic Silurian sea. Instead of being chased by the big bad wolf, the three little trilobites are on the run from a nasty Mixopterus--a sea scorpion. First the trilobites build their homes from loose shells, then Crinoid stalks, last of all they build themselves a home deep in the mud, where they live happily ever after--they even end up as a fossilized display in a museum!

Don't confuse this story with last year's "One Trick Ponies," where the three Pleistocene ponies were on the run from the Giant Terror Bird. That was a prehistoric take on the Seven Chinese Brothers--this one is based on the Three Little Pigs. Similar, but different.

Stick around through the weekend--it's the final stretch! Only two mare after today!

Picture Book Marathon Day 25

Picture book number 25 is:

The Fort That Got Me Grounded

It started as a simple pillow fort. Then it got out of control. First it took over the house, then the yard, then the whole block. It was the fort we all got grounded for, and it was worth it.

Picture Book Marathon Day 24

Book 24 is...

Rock and Roll Tractor Troll

The old bridge troll finds something he likes even more than his shiny red tractor--a shiny red electric guitar! Rock and Roll Tractor Troll! The farm will never sound the same again!

This is a shameless cash-in sequel! All popular picture books have them; see Llama Llama, Skippyjon Jones, Olivia, How Do Dinosaurs... and of course, the Pinkalicious books. Silverlicious comes out this year people--Silver-licious. I have nothing against these books. If I ever have a runaway picture book hit, I too will milk it to death.

Picture Book Marathon Day 23

Book 23 is:

Happy Bot is Happy

On a dreary planet full of worker robots, one robot is always happy. He's the Happy Bot, and nothing gets him down. Nothing.

Picture Book Marathon Day 22

Today's book is:

The Princess of Cross-section Kingdom

Will the half-a-princess save her half-a-kingdom from the half-a-dragon? Whatever happens, we'll see all the inner workings of this fairy tale.

Careful readers will notice that I skipped President's Day. That was my second, and last, free day. I'm all out of free days now. It's a sprint to the finish!

Picture Book Marathon Day 20

Picture Book #20 is:


Wiener Cat

One day dogs start eating cat food and cats start eating dog food. Cats turn into dogs and dogs turn into cats. This book is a guide to what happens to the cats. You will meet English Bullcats, Catuahuas, Great Cat Danes and more, including the titular Wiener Cat.

My kids came up with this idea.

Picture Book Marathon Day 19

Book 19 is:

The Emperor-tron's New Mecha-Battle Armor

The story of The Emperor's New Clothes told with giant killer robots.

Saturday's Post is Sleeping In

Hi marathoners and marathon watchers. Saturday's post, book 19, will be up today but not as early as usual. Same with Sunday's. It's the weekend! Oh, and possibly Monday's, since it's a holiday. But don't worry, they'll be up, just not right at midnight. Watch for them, say, two-ish. PM, of course.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Picture Book Marathon Day 18

Parody time! Today's book, the 18th book is:

The Very Hungry Computer Virus

"On Monday he ate through an Apple computer, but he was still hungry..."

Picture Book Marathon Day 17

Book 17 is:

Pterosaur Hospital

This is a fairly non-fiction look at how a hospital works. The helicopter, the emergency room, x-rays, will all be shown and explained. But instead of humans, pterosaurs will be the doctors, nurses and patients. The story will follow a pterosaur who breaks his wing. The book will take him through the process of a modern, working hospital (run by flying reptiles.)

Picture Book Marathon Day 16

Picture book #16 is a bit of a rule breaker...

It's Rapunzel & Jack book 3!*

Here's my idea for a good book with a lot of pictures: Rapunzel and Jack go on another adventure! What do you think? Pretty good idea, huh?

Shannon has more about this image on her blog. Check it out.

*This is not an announcement for Rapunzel 3, just a fun picture. This book is not eligible for voting in the final round. Why? Because I'm not the author, and because it would WIN.

Picture Book Marathon Day 15 Over the Hump!

I'm using one of my free days today to celebrate being over the halfway point. Ahhhhh, the sweet, sweet laziness I plan to enjoy tonight...

What do you think so far? Any keepers? Out of these fourteen, which story would you like to see the full version of? I'm not promising anything (really, I'm not) but when we reach the end of the month, I plan to run a poll for the favorite story. The most popular story will get the full Space Station treatment. Or maybe I'll turn it around and flesh out the least favorite one, just for kicks. Which one would you like to see?

Picture Book Marathon Day 14

Blow Wind, Blow

This story is about a little guy in an airship. He needs the reader to blow against the page to propel his ship. He coaches the reader along. For example, on one page, he says, "Take a deep breath and blow as hard as you can!" On the next page, his ship is flying really fast and he's barely hanging on. "Too hard! Too hard!" With the reader's help, he has a daring adventure, flying through all kinds of interesting places.

Yesterday I saw this book trailer for "Press Here." This book is going to be MASSIVE. As soon as you watch the video, you'll see what I mean. Take a look:

I predict this book will swallow the universe, it has legs--hungry caterpillar legs! The concept is so simple and so fun. It immediately inspired me to try something similar--by similar, I mean physical interaction creating illusions through the illustrations and page-turns alone. Blow Wind, Blow came from this.

Picture Book Marathon Day 13

Picture book 13 is:

My House is a Volcano

A kid lives in a volcano. The book is a tour of his house and how it works. In this house, the ground really is hot lava.

Picture Book Marathon Day 12

Book twelve:

Flap Flap Vroom Vroom Tweet Tweet RAWR

This is a nonsense story told strictly through onomatopoeia. Read the title out loud, you'll see. This book could be a real winning read-aloud book.

Friday and Saturday night posts are the hardest, because I don't usually post weekends. Last February, I did 28 books for the marathon (along with THE LAND OF DOOM comics, yeesh, I must have had some extra time last February.) According to PBM rules, you only have to do 26 books to finish--I may have to use those two freebies this year. Vroom Vroom.

Speaking of THE LAND OF DOOM, I'm sure you've noticed by now that I haven't been doing them this year. There is still a lot of subject matter to tackle in the next chapter of that story. But doubling it up with the marathon is nuts. So I'll do it, but I won't be doing it this month.

Picture Book Marathon Day 11

Picture Book #11 is:

Nut Ninjas

It's a martial arts showdown between two rival squirrels--the nut ninjas. Who will capture the final nut?

Picture Book Marathon Day 10

Picture book ten is:

Toe Truck

This is a book of simple wordplay puzzle images for very young readers to figure out.

Picture Book Marathon Day 9

Today's book, number nine is:

The Big Blizzard

The Big Blizzard is a wordless picture book showing a fantastical storm and the people who live in it.

Picture Book Marathon Day 8

Book number 8 is:

But I Don't Want to Have Feathers!

A troop of sassy dinosaurs take on current theories and argue with the scientist narrator.

Picture Book Marathon Day 7

Picture book #7 is:

Caveman Carpool

It's a slow day on the caveman interstate. Traffic is backed up and nobody's getting to work on time. To make matters worse, there's not enough room for everyone. It's just another day in the Caveman Carpool.

Picture Book Marathon Day 6

Book number 6 is...

Blocknapped

It's fun to play with block people when you are 1000 times bigger than they are. But what would happen if they shrunk you down and kidnapped you? Would you have to build houses and vehicles for them? Would it even be possible to build when the blocks are as big as you are? Are you their leader or their slave? What do the brick people want? You've been BLOCKNAPPED!

After rendering the type, I realized "Bricknapped" is a better title. This is actually a variation on one of last year's books (Brick Town Cop) where the hero is a human kid instead of a block person. It would be fun to build the pictures in this book out of LEGO and illustrate the kid in on top.

I meant to do a football themed book for Superbowl Sunday. But I couldn't think of one.

Picture Book Marathon Day 5

Book idea #5 is:

Table Tennis Tarsier

He's a tiny tarsier from the Philippines who plays table tennis, and he's really, really good. But since he's nocturnal, he can only play at night. Will he ever win the championship?

When I was a kid, I loved poring over animal photography books. Every one of those books had one tarsier photo. At first you'd laugh at it, but the longer you looked, the scarier it got. It's like it was staring right into your soul--then you'd turn around and a tarsier was right behind you!

Anyway, I've always enjoyed the tarsier and its huge, intense eyeballs. It seems like they'd be good at table tennis.

Picture Book Marathon Day 4

Today's picture book is...

My room is SO dirty...How dirty is it?

KID 1: My room is SO dirty...

KID 2: How dirty is it?

KID 1: My room is so dirty I have to wear a gas mask!

KID 2: My room is so dirty the cockroaches have to wear gas masks!

Two boys take turns one-upping each other on who's got the dirtiest room. One kid is cleaning his room the whole time. At the end of the book, the kid who's been cleaning says:

KID 1: My room is so dirty... actually, it's not any more. It's clean!

KID 2: How clean is it?

KID 1: It's so clean that I can go outside and play now!

KID 2: huh? (waits a beat) Oh all right. (starts cleaning his room)

I'm feeling pretty good about the entries so far. Nothing terrible yet. If you are enjoying these, be sure to check out illustrator Julie Olson's blog, she's playing along too.

PIcture Book Marathon Day 3

Picture book #3:

Groundimus Hogg and the Shadow Demon

The great warrior Groundimus Hogg adventures far and wide, searching for the Shadow Demon's lair. The Shadow Demon has cursed the land with never ending snow and ice. But what Groundimus Hogg doesn't know is that he, himself, is responsible for creating the Shadow Demon!

Yeah, yesterday was Groundhog Day, so I should have posted this then. A few years back there were about nine thousand books titled: "Namicus Name and the Thingy Thing." But were any of them an epic retelling of Groundhog Day? I don't think so. I should have pitched this book in 2004, I would have made millions!

Picture Book Marathon Day 2

Day two's picture book is...

Tractor Troll

The local bridge troll sees a shiny red tractor from his spot under the bridge. Now he is no longer a bridge troll, he is a tractor troll. And nobody on the farm is safe.

This idea came from a conversation with fellow Picture Book Marathoner Jed Henry--you can see his daily book ideas here. He said he was using a list of nouns to help him come up with ideas. He gave me the example, "...tree, tractor, troll..." as a list of nouns. Tractor Troll was born!

Picture Book Marathon Day 1

Today's picture book--the first book in the PBM, is...

Do Your Chores, Kid Mercury!

Kid Mercury has a long list of chores to do every day. He has to run, jump and blast bad guys. He has to collect coins and heart pieces. He has to find hidden treasures and power-ups--he even has to rescue princesses. What a boring life. So many chores! If only he could spend more time doing his favorite things. Things like homework, cleaning his room and taking out the trash. He wishes he could do those things all day.

I've noticed there aren't many video game-themed picture books. And I haven't met many kids who weren't interested in video games. The general feeling I get from parents is that games are somehow anti-reading. I totally disagree, I grew up reading and playing games and enjoyed both equally. I still do today.

This guy, Kid Mercury, is a mix of a few of my favorites characters from the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Can you guess who?