shantinik

Dear friends --

I wanted to tell you all that my new homeschooling book is out (and
I'm very proud of it! [:-[] Sorry, proud papa can't help it.) More to
the point though, back last summer I put out an announcement for a
homeschool book cover contest, and I wanted to take the opportunity to
let you know about the winner, and to thank all your kids who
participated! (We had hundreds of entries, from as far away as Kuala
Lampur, Malaysia, and Capetown, South Africa.)

I'm very pleased with it, indeed -- the ship even has a moustache (to
resemble me, I guess, though I have never met the artist).

Anyhow -- you can see it on my website at www.skylarksings.com

At some future point (once I get myself better organized), I hope to
post some of the runnersup on the site -- there were so many good
ones! [:-)]

Thanks!

david


THIRTEEN-YEAR OLD WINS CONTEST TO DESIGN BOOK COVER


Monroe, ME: Homeschooler Brianna Kathleen Thomas of Prince George,
British Columbia has won a contest for the artwork to a book cover for
David H. Albert's forthcoming Homeschooling and the Voyage of
Self-Discovery: A Journey of Original Seeking (Common Courage Press,
2003). Ingeniously crafted from plasticine, her cover, features three
children on a boat, nicely echoing the theme in the title. She
received the prize of $100.

The art work was then used by designers Matt Wuerker and Erica
Bjerning who placed the title, subtitle and other type on the cover.

Thomas was surprised to win. "I thought for sure the prize had gone to
someone else," she said in a recent phone call informing her that her
work had been selected.

While writing his book last year, Albert decided to put his faith
where his commitments were and asked his publisher to run a contest
for a cover for his book. Greg Bates and Flic Shooter, publishers at
Common Courage Press, were worried. "One concern was whether there
were enough young artists out there with the confidence to submit
entries," Bates said. But their real worry was quality. "What
publisher in his right mind would entrust a cover--the most important
piece of advertising for a book--to a contest whose contestants had to
be 15 years of age or under," he said. "I spent several sleepless
nights worrying that we were running a contest no one would win,"
Bates continued.

But Albert, long a champion of the passions of homeschoolers, never
wavered. "We will have lots of entries and more than one great cover,"
he predicted. Albert was right on both counts.

Word spread fast around the net and the network of homeschoolers. "We
live in a tiny town," noted Bates. "And when we received hundreds of
entries, even the post office took notice. It got to the point where
the postal clerk would announce how many entries we received each
day," he said.

Shooter, in charge of the initial review of entries, said, "We were
quickly forced to develop a sorting system to handle the incoming art.
I enlisted our seven-year-old daughter to help with the task, and was
amazed to see how much she loved looking at the entries."

"We received several great entries," Shooter said. "But Brianna's work
took my breath away from the moment I opened it," she said.

"We hoped for a good cover," Bates said. "What we got was a masterpiece."

About the cover artist:

Brianna Kathleen Thomas did the cover art when she was thirteen years
old. She is homeschooled and she loves to make pictures with
plasticine and write fantasy and adventure stories. She lives with her
Mom, dad, her sister Molly, and her two brothers, Kieran and Aidan.
She also lives with her spunky cat, Scarlet and her dog, Griz, plus an
assortment of gerbils. For interviews, contact
gbates@...


Homeschooling and the Voyage of Self-Discovery: A Journey of Original
Seeking
Author: David H. Albert
Introduction by Joyce Reed: Associate Dean at Brown University
ISBN: 1-56751-232-1, paper, $17.95 ISBN 1-56751-233-x, cloth, 29.95
288 pages

To contact the author:
Phone: 360 352-0506
E-mail: shantinik@...
Website: www.skylarksings.com