It's Only the Wind [Hardcover]

It's Only the Windis set in the foothills of the mountains. It is that time of night when young kids have a hard time transitioning to sleep and call out to mom from bed with one request after another. This story playfully hops back and forth between real and imagined, fact and fantasy, from soft, shadowy quiet to bright and colorful action. The story celebrates children's heightened imagination with imagery that takes the children from their cozy beds into the sky, away from their room as they envision the meaning of their mother's explanations. Wind words lyrically wind through the double spreads as the kids fly, sweep, sing, and sail always with their eyes closed, as mom has asked them to do so they can be ready for sleep. Sprawled among their bed sheets, the children's curiosity is finally satisfied, as you will see in the end. Wind facts included on the last page.

I love language. I play with words to discover different sounds and meanings, just as I experiment with one surprising color next to another. Words have a different kind of power than pictures or even music. When I write, it is the images that create the words for me. Writing and illustrating picture books allows me to move between two worlds. Pictures are an underlying force behind words in picture books, they tell a part of the story outside of the words. I believe that children have feelings and understanding beyond their capacity to express in language and that pictures speak in a language that words cannot.

Mama! The wind is pounding!

She's just working hard, rolling big waves onto rocks to make sand for the beaches. Night-night, little ones.

rolling rocking; reach beach

Do you hear a whistle?

That's a Chinook wind sliding down the mountain eating up all the snow. Tomorrow will be bright and warm. Sweet dreams!

sweet eat; slide glide

A lighthearted bedtime picture book in which a mother soothes her children to sleep with fanciful stories exl£Ý