Bailey Beats the Blah Blog Tour

A must have for every classroom library, Bailey Beats the Blah is an empowering mental health picture book for children 4-8 years, spring-boarding emotional awareness and action plans to help lift a child’s mood.
  

Aligned with the Kids Matter program on the National Education Curriculum and supported by counselling service, Kids Helpline, Bailey Beats the Blah features self-esteem and resilience skills for children, families, teachers, parents and counsellors.

What's more, 5% of book proceeds will be donated to Kids Helpline - 24/7 support and counselling for young people - now that's a win/win!

WIN a copy! - details below.

ISBN: 9780987274045 - Digital Future Press

Bailey Beats the Blah is available from Amazon.

by author Karen Tyrrell - illustrated by Aaron Pocock

Bailey hates his new school. His tummy aches. He has no friends.

His dog Fuzzy slobbers all over him. BLAH!

How can Bailey change his BLAH to HA-HA-HA?

This is the final stop in the Bailey Beats the Blah blog tour and after a whirlwind schedule, author Karen Tyrrell has popped in to Under the Apple Tree to answer four quick questions on the process she undertook for commissioning talented illustrator, Aaron Pocock, for her first children's picture book, Bailey Beats the Blah. 

Hi Karen and welcome, 
As this was your first experience working with an illustrator, how did you and Aaron first initiate the illustrative process for Bailey Beats the Blah?

Hi Angela, I sent Aaron the manuscript for Bailey Beats the Blah with detailed suggestions for his drawings, plus the characters' emotions and details that weren’t in the text.

This must have been an interesting and exciting creative process for you as a writer. Can you describe the development of each picture?

Aaron created a sketch for each page. I later checked these, making suggestions of what extra details I wanted added, concentrating on the emotional and body language.  Aaron added these more details until I was satisfied with the black inks. Then Aaron added vibrant colours. Aaron sent these back for final tweaking and approval.

I love the samples you've shared with us below. Aaron's characters are full of emotion and movement. I can just imagine the dog Fuzzy's confusion and Bailey's annoyance at all his slobber. Wonderful!

At what stage did you know the pictures were ready for publishing? It must be difficult to determine this.

When the illustrations could not be improved any more, Aaron added his own unique personality and humour to the illustrations: the mouse marching with a school bag on his back; a crow clutching onto the bus stop sign.

Yes, great illustrators like Aaron are so adept at adding a sub-plot through these little additions. It all adds more for the readers to enjoy.

Finally, Karen, how did you and Anthony Puttee, the cover designer, develop the cover for Bailey Beats the Blah?

I requested Aaron illustrate a specific cover picture of a miserable Bailey with doting, loveable Fuzzy the dog. Anthony of Book Cover Café transformed this pic into a cover design, adding eye-catching colourful fonts, a purple background and ground shadows.

Anthony finally added the words BLAH in a unique red font.

Fabulous! The cover is definitely eye-catching. Thanks for stopping in, Karen, and congratulations on the release of Bailey Beats the Blah.

BOOK GIVEAWAY

WIN:  Copies of BaileyBeats the Blah, a signed Bailey artwork by illustrator Aaron Pocock and a picture book assessment with chief editor at Book Cover Café.

Simply leave a comment on any of the 16 hops on the Bailey Beats the Blah tour  (see below) Nov 3^rd -18^th. The more comments you leave the MORE chances to WIN.

WINNERS announced on Nov 20^th at www. karentyrrell.com

Karen Tyrrell is a Brisbane award-winning author of three mental health books for adults and children, an experienced senior teacher, accredited speaker and dynamic creative writing and Resilience Training workshop presenter.

Download FREE children's activities and FREE teacher notes from www.karentyrrell.com

Bailey Blog Tour & Book Giveaway

3^rd   Nov http://www.creativekidstales.com.au/authors/pitch-ya-book/pitch-ya-book.html

4^th   Nov http://blog.boomerangbooks.com.au/author/dpowell

5^th   Nov http://diannedibates.blogspot.com.au

6^th   Nov http://www.kids-bookreview.com/  

7^th   Nov  http://www.robinadolphs.com/blog/

8^th   Nov  http://charmaineclancy.com

9^th   Nov  www.melissawray.blogspot.com.au

10^th Nov http://claireeverafter.com/

11^th Nov http://squigglemum.com

12^th Nov http://www.nickyjohnston.com.au/blog/

13^th Nov http://nccparentsplace.wordpress.com/

14^th Nov http://authorjillsmith.wordpress.com/

15^th Nov http://natashatracy.com/topic/bipolar-blog/

16^th Nov http://buginabook.org/category/childrens-books/

17^th Nov http://www.writeawaywithme.com/blog/

18^th Nov http://angelasunde.blogspot.com