Witch & Wolf Shop Open!

https://www.zazzle.com/mbr/238392501521034992

Witch & Wolf offers high-quality, original artwork. Artist Liz Amini-Holmes is a San Francisco Bay Area award-winning book and commercial illustrator. She weaves her favorite themes of folklore and fairytales, pagan mythology, symbolism, dreams, and nature into her work. Using rich colors and theatrical compositions her art holds a story within a story of something hidden and mysterious, bittersweet and unrequited, making it altogether unique. Please check back often as new items are uploaded several times a week.

Fatty Legs (10th anniversary edition)

The beloved story of an Inuvialuit girl standing up to the bullies of residential school, updated for a new generation of readers.

Margaret Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton’s powerful story of residential school in the far North has been reissued to commemorate the memoir’s 10th anniversary with updates to the text, reflections on the book’s impact, and a bonus chapter from the acclaimed follow-up, A Stranger at Home. New content includes a foreword from Dr. Debbie Reese, noted Indigenous scholar and founder of American Indians in Children’s Literature, while Christy Jordan-Fenton, mother of Margaret’s grandchildren and a key player in helping Margaret share her stories, discusses the impact of the book in a new preface.

With important updates since it first hit the shelves a decade ago, this new edition of Fatty Legs will continue to resonate with readers young and old.

https://www.annickpress.com/Books/F/Fatty-Legs-10th-anniversary-edition

Announcing Representation!

I am excited to announce I have signed with Johan Almvqvist, founder of Tapir Literary agency.  Johan is formerly of Callisto media, Chronicle Books, Random House, and others. He has represented popular authors such as Jo Nesbo, James Patterson and Dan Brown as well as entertainment brands properties such as Disney’s Frozen and HBO’s Game of Thrones and The Beatles. Tapir  Agency will be representing me in all things literary and art. Stay tuned for project updates!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johan-almqvist-60b2762/

Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code garners Southwest Book Award

I am incredibly pleased to announce the book I illustrated, Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code by Joseph Bruchac (Albert Whitman and Company) has been selected to receive a Southwest Book Award, sponsored by the Border Regional Library Association (BRLA). So proud and grateful! To see all the winners visit: http://www.brla.info/swba18.shtml.

Praise for Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code

• A perfect, well-rounded historical story that will engage readers of all ages. - Kirkus Reviews starred review

• Bruchac distills his extensive knowledge about the Navajo code talkers in this complex biography for young readers. - Booklist

• A can’t-miss picture book biography. - School Library Journal

• Bruchac movingly draws a parallel between the trauma of indigenous boarding schools and war. Amini-Holmes’s paintings capture the nightmarish atmosphere of both. - Publishers Weekly

KIRKUS REVIEW for Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code

For young readers, a nuanced, compassionate biography of a Navajo Code Talker.

Like many Native American children, Betoli, a Navajo boy, was taken from his family to a missionary boarding school, where he was forbidden to speak Navajo and forced to change his name to Chester. He endured the painful process of having his long hair shaved, forlornly depicted in a stark image in which black crows with outspread wings carry away the strips of his hair. Summers spent at home, immersed once again in the love, language, and culture of his people, gave him the strength to carry on. As he got older, Chester adapted as best he could to the forced assimilation. He joined the military during World War II and became one of the first Code Talkers, who used their own language to undermine the Japanese, efforts that helped to end the war. Bruchac’s story dares to go beyond the war in highlighting the postwar trauma that Chester experienced, demonstrated in a beautiful yet haunting illustration that symbolically captures his pain. This tale of a real-life Code Talker humanizes the main character by giving readers the whole picture of his connectedness to home and family, which is reinforced in Amini-Holmes’ textured paintings, which resonate on an almost ethereal level.

A perfect, well-rounded historical story that will engage readers of all ages. (author’s note, partial code key, timeline) (Picture book/biography. 6-10)

CHESTER NEZ AND THE UNBREAKABLE CODE NEWS

Fantastic news about CHESTER NEZ AND THE UNBREAKABLE CODE. First, the book has been named a Junior Library Guild Selection for April 2018, which means that the Junior Library Guild has named it a gold standard book. Second, Kirkus Reviews has given the book a STARRED REVIEW!! I am proud and thankful! Nice mentions about my artwork https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/joseph-bruchac/chester-nez-and-the-unbreakable-code/

CHESTER NEZ AND THE UNBREAKABLE CODE

A Navajo Code Talker's Story

by Joseph Bruchac ; illustrated by Liz Amini-Holmes

Age Range: 6 - 10

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/joseph-bruchac/chester-nez-and-the-unbreakable-code/:-)
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/joseph-bruchac/chester-nez-and-the-unbreakable-code/

Publishers Weekly Review of "Miracle"

Miracle

Chanavia Haddock, illus. by Liz Amini-Holmes. BookBaby, $11.95 paper (24p) ISBN 978-1-48359-930-4

In a brisk, gentle poem, a brown-skinned girl named Piper Rose stays outside all day in the snow, waiting for a miracle: “Miracle miracle, where are you?/ I’ve searched and I’ve searched the whole day through.” Throughout, Amini-Holmes incorporates the word miracle into the landscape around Piper Rose: she perches on it pensively in the opening spread, and it later appears written in cloudlike letters in the sky, in the branches of a tree, and on the face of the sun. Piper doesn’t take much notice of any of these signs, and in the final pages, readers will understand that she’s holding out for a specific miracle: the appearance of the moon in the night sky. Though miracle is quite literally spelled out on each spread, it’s unclear whether Haddock aims to encourage readers to appreciate small, everyday miracles; the overall effect is that of a contemplative nursery rhyme. Piper Rose’s red coat and windblown, vibrantly striped scarf are an immediate draw in each of Amini-Holmes’s illustrations. The snowy scenes are all quite similar, but they exude a quiet, wintry peacefulness. Ages 4–8. (BookLife)

Reviewed on: 07/03/2017

Release date: 05/01/2017

Hardcover - 28 pages - 978-1-4835-8660-1