Illustrator Rafael López invites you to a Book Fiesta!

When I started this project I knew I wanted to talk to writers and artists to see what they thought about growing a library. The first person I knew I should talk to about this was my Dad Rafael. He is an artist who makes children's books. I will tell you a secret. He always has paint all over his hands and sometimes his face and then he drives to school to get me and has a big purple dot on his nose. This is a very special book he painted that was written by Pat Mora. It has a very big idea in the words and pictures: READ! Anytime, anywhere is a good place to read a book. Even in a crazy submarine. You can imagine you are a pirate or a mermaid or that you are riding on the back of a huge elephant. Look at his paintings and you will see what I am talking about.




So here are some questions I asked my Dad about being a children's book illustrator:

Dad why do you think it is important to grow a library?

When you read books it helps you grow your imagination. You can travel to faraway places without ever leaving home.

Tell me a story about you making art when you were a kid?
When I was a kid I loved to draw so much that Grandma Pillo asked my Uncle who worked at a paper mill to help. He gave me these big gigantic rolls of paper. I would move all the furniture and roll them out from one end of the room to another. I remember drawing an amazing parade with calaca cats [those are skeleton cats] and goat drummers. I worked on it for days. When I ran out of paper your grandmother told me I could draw on the walls. Your aunties got really mad at her and said she shouldn't do that but she whispered in my ear to keep going.
When I got a little bit older we learned how to make our own paints the way the native people of Mexico did. We ground them from rocks and plants. We put the powder in these little bottles, added water and vegetable oil and I painted my room so that it looked like an Egyptian tomb. It took me a year and I got the idea from looking at a story about King Tut in National Geographic. Grandma Pillo kept the room just the way I left it and you remember how bright the colors still are, don't you?

If you were a child like me or my friends and wanted to paint books one day what would you do?
I think the most important thing to do first is to draw, draw and then draw some more. Whenever you can tell your friends and your family to get you notebooks and pens and colored pencils. Practice every day and keep all your notebooks so you can see how you are getting better. When you go to restaurants and they give you something to draw with do it. Walk around with a sketchpad and draw what you see in life. Each week find your favorite drawings and make your own story to go with it. Write the story out. Maybe you want to make more than one picture to go with your story. Before you know it you will have a book!

Dad, what is a book fiesta?The idea is to have a party to celebrate Children's Day/Book Day on April 30th.This is what Pat Mora was talking about when she wrote Book Fiesta! Maybe you and Pierre can get help and organize a party at your school on April 30th and everyone can look at all the wonderful books you have collected to grow this library. You can count on me to give all the books I have painted so far. I know you can get this done and have lots of fun as this is a really good idea. If we can get a space for this library we can do a mural there with the kids, parents and teachers. We should make the library a really beautiful place where kids will want to relax and read. We can start drawing some ideas for it this weekend.

You can see more of Book Fiesta that won the 2010 Pura Belpré for illustration and other books my Dad painted by clicking below and going to his blog:
http://rafaellopezbooks.blogspot.com
He also has a website at: http://www.rafaellopez.com