Redwoodshire Stories in PRINT!

Our first children's book, has arrived. "A Tale of Two Berries" is based upon our beloved lady genevieve and her cat Horatio, and their adventure here in Redwoodshire.  It includes a short children's story with 10 pencil drawn illustrations. We read it to genevieve that night and she very quickly realized that this book was about her and her cat, "E-O".  One of lady genevieve's favorite story time activities is when she and her daddy do "Little Genevieve stories".  The Laird sketches the adventure story as he tells it.  Little Genevieve meets all of her favorite characters from other books during these silly story times.

Considering the idea was birthed late last year, and really came together a couple months ago, we are quite pleased with how things turned out.  We've never done anything like this before, and were unsure how we would execute it, but are amazed at the kinds of things we are able to do with technology these days.  Thanks to the help of some friends (scanning in illustrations), the Laird's mother for proof reading, the lady's mother for the amazing illustrations, and the Laird himself for writing the story.

Check it out!  The Laird wrote the story.  The Lady's mother drew the illustrations (all except the map of Redwoodshire- drawn by the Laird).  The Lady worked on layout and format in Mixbook, and colored the front cover.  This team effort has proved to be a success!  I love what one can do in Mixbook.  Kuddos to both my mother, Robin Sabad & the Laird as this is the first book they've both made.  I can see a future for this!

Poem with a moral

The Map of Redwoodshire

Little genevieve upon meeting Mr. Blackcap

REDWOODSHIRE STORIES- a tale of two berries

For Lady genevieve's 1st birthday, the Laird gave her a special poster of Saint Genevieve.  For her 2nd birthday, he came up with an idea to write her a story about "Princess Genevieve" and her adventures in Redwoodshire, with pictures.  I thought this was an amazing idea, and encouraged him to go for it.  So many great children's books start out by parents writing for their children- The Berenstain Bears series & Winnie the Pooh stories are some of our favorites. One or both of us dreamed up the idea that he could make a new book every year, that would grow with lady genevieve as she got older- picture books, into young readers, and eventually chapter books (with fewer illustrations).  We could even make it into a hard cover book, by scanning the pictures into the computer and putting them into a book format.  The Laird loves to draw kingdoms and castles, however people and animals prove to be a challenge to his skills.  I encouraged him to see if my mother would be interested in joining this story book making adventure, and drawing the people.  She graciously agreed to draw for us.  After the story was written and story board drawn, we sent them onto my mother.  We figured we could scan in both sets of images, and impose the people into the Laird's background drawings.  After some time, mom sent us some of her initial illustrations.  They were amazing!  The Laird was so impressed that he asked her to fill in the background and draw as much of the illustrations as she was able and had time for.

We are happy to announce that the first book in REDWOODSHIRE STORIES is finished and in print (through Mixbook)!  Check out the cover illustration:

This first story is called "A Tale of Two Berries".  Princess Genevieve lives in the small kingdom of Redwoodshire.  She loves picking raspberries, but struggles to be patient as they ripen.  The gardner told her about the wild berries that grow on the outskirts of the kingdom.  She sets off on her first adventure with her faithful friend Horatio to find these "wild berries".  On her adventure she meets an unlikely character, and after a rough start, a new friendship is formed.  Hopefully this is just the first of many adventures that we will get to read about Princess Genevieve & Horatio.

If interested in a copy of the book, please contact me and we can discuss details.  

I am so proud of the Laird and grateful to my mom for offering their talents to make such a special gift for lady genevieve.