Children's Book Guild - Jennifer O'Connell

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Jennifer O'Connell

www.JenniferOConnellArt.com

Jennifer O'Connell “I grew up with an artistic Mom and an imaginative Dad who loved storytelling. When he read us picture books, I would lose myself in the illustrations, poring over every detail. I plotted with the Grinch in his cave and raced to the tree-top party in Go, Dog, Go! I set sail with Scuppers The Sailor Dog and felt a deep happiness for the Little House when she was moved to her quiet hillside. I began making my own pictures with stories to go along with them.

"Since graduating from Philadelphia College of Art (now The University of the Arts), I have produced illustration and design work for a wide variety of clients. Each assignment is a new challenge, influencing and enriching the work that I love the most, creating picture books. I find it thrilling to produce images and words that become a whole new world within a book.

"Ideas pop up everywhere and I try to be open to them. I thought of Ten Timid Ghosts while driving my kids to school as they excitedly talked about Halloween costumes. I always carry paper with me just in case I need to write something down. The challenge for me is to focus on one idea at a time and see it through to completion.

"I live in Bethesda, Maryland, outside of Washington, DC, with my husband, Kevin, and our dog, Ruby. Our children, Bethany and Brendan, are in college and thriving. I enjoy walking Ruby, painting, reading, going out with friends, swimming, visiting galleries and museums and of course, browsing in the children’s sections of book stores and libraries!"

My Books

Merry Christmas: A Storybook Collection

Featuring: Ten Timid Ghosts on a Christmas Night
Written and illustrated by Jennifer O’Connell
(also includes Once There Was a Christmas Tree by Jerry Smath and Merry Christmas Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt)

One Christmas Eve day, the ten timid ghosts discover Christmas decorations up in the attic. They find a tree, decorate it, and put up lights outside. Will Christmas come? Join the ghosts as they hear, see, smell and feel strange things in the air that night. Is someone coming? Is that a sleigh in the sky? Count from one to ten with the ghosts as they experience the magical spirit of Christmas!

2007 - Hardcover - Scholastic/Cartwheel Books - 0-545-01341-0 $7.99

***Ten* *Timid Ghosts***

Written and illustrated by Jennifer O’Connell
2000 - Paperback - Scholastic/Cartwheel Books - 0-439-31741-x $3.99
New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today Bestseller

It’s Halloween, and ten timid ghosts in a haunted house have a problem:a mean witch has moved into their house and plots to scare them out, one by one! Young trick-or-treaters learn to count down from ten to one as each ghost flies away from the witch’s silly costumes and homemade props. When the homeless ghosts gather in the woods, their fear turns to determination and they plot their return. Will the ghosts frighten the witch away in time for Halloween night?

“For young kids who crave just a little scare, this book will be a good choice and great fun for Halloween.”
-Marilyn Courtot, Children’s Literature

In Spanish -
Diez fantasmitas timidos - 0-439-31741-x $3.25

A Garden of Whales

Written by Maggie Davis
Illustrated by Jennifer O’Connell
1993 - Paperback - Firefly Books - 0-944475-35-3 - $6.95

“The story unfolds thorugh the eyes of a young boy who dreams of the whales and of the dangers that surround them. When he is unable to warn them, he enlists the help of his friends and, with the tears of whales present and past, creates a magical whale garden to repopulate the sea with these majestic creatures...The book gently delivers to children the important message that this magnificent and endangered species must be protected and preserved before it's too late.”
-Hugh Bowden, Ellsworth American

“O’Connell fully enters Davis’s dream and strikingly echoes the fluent reverie. This is a bedtime read-aloud that will set heads nodding.”
-Publishers Weekly

Awards

The Christopher Medal for Promise Not To Tell
by Caroline Polese, illustrated by Jennifer O’Connell, 1985

The Christopher Medal for Imagine That! Exploring Make-Believe
by Joyce Strauss, illustrated by Jennifer O’Connell, 1984

The Vermont Publishers Association Special Merit Award for A Garden of Whales
by Maggie Davis, illustrated by Jennifer O’Connell, 1993

Links

To learn about Jennifer O’Connell’s presentations, see our Speakers Bureau.

To learn more about Jennifer, her art and her books, please visit: www.JenniferOConnellArt.Com and www.scholastic.com

Guild Activities

Members Only