Since before summer this year, I’ve been on a reading initiative committee (comprised of people from KSL TV, Deseret News, Deseret Book, Deseret Digital Media and Temple Square Hospitality) to encourage kids to read regularly during the summer in the state of Utah. To do this, we created Read Today to help kids track their reading minutes, and get rewards for doing so.

ReadToday.com which I designed (sans the logo) and had some brilliant developers who made it all work wonderfully!

Some kids were reading thousands of minutes (!!) and won prizes from Lagoon Park passes to KSL5 helicopter rides! At the end of the summer we held the KSL Book Festival at the University of Utah to celebrate what every child accomplished. It was a great success!

While planning the festival, we discovered that Deseret Book had a mouse costume that we thought would be fun to have someone wear and walk around greeting the children. My cartoonist mind started buzzing, and I proposed the idea of creating a cartoon character based off the costume (the cart before the horse, in a way), and feature him on the website and on all the literature, so that the kids would recognize him at the festival. After that idea was accepted enthusiastically (woohoo!), I was feeling a bit encouraged and pitched a book idea about this mouse character. This too was accepted (double woohoo!) and within three-week’s time, I had written and illustrated a small book called The Adventures of Isaac (5×7″, 8 pages) that we gave to each child that came to the festival. Deseret Book printed the book.

I walked around with Isaac all day and helped hand out the book to the young children. What a treat that was to be able to hand out my own book! When some of the younger children were terrified of a giant rodent trying to give them hi-fives, I would just hand them a book, and they would warm up a little and allow Isaac to sign it. :)

Now that the festival is over, we’ll start a new season of reading initiatives and start planning for next year’s festival! I can’t wait! Maybe another Isaac book?

The KSL Book Festival logo I designed.

This poster features an Isaac illustration that was used on fliers, ads (TV and newspaper), volunteers' TShirts, and merchandise.

Festival and Isaac branded book bags for sale.

Bookmarks for the kids to color.

A box filled with thousands of The Adventures of Isaac book!

Isaac, me, and my children. Isaac was grounded for forgetting his glasses at home.

The reading area where we featured celebrity readings.

By the end of the day, they were desperate for readers so they downgraded the "celebrity readers" rule and had me read The Adventures of Isaac. Isaac was there to sign the books and keep the kids entertained!

My 8 year old daughter has just created an organization for the benefit of the brain. No, not the lab rat… OUR brains. Won’t you join her and back up a cause that we all could benefit from? Heaven knows we all need more brain.

My 7 year old daughter is following after me with the love of art. Not only does she draw quite well for her age, she has a sense of humor to beat all. What’s really fun is to see when she gets in this humorous mode, and she just pumps out the work like there’s no tomorrow. She doesn’t care that the final piece is her finest, she just has to get her ideas out. Many times the spontaneous scribble is much more enjoyable to see than a well-drafted masterpiece because it’s a glimpse into her twisted personality. See below:

Santa Hit By a Snowball

I love the surprised look of Santa’s eyes just after being pelted by a snowball to the face.

Santa Crash

Here you can see that Santa really biffed it in a powdery mess. Only his hat and legs flailing recklessly in the air are visible after falling out of his sleigh, apparently from several hundred feet in the sky.

Santa's Fed Up

Most likely after too many falls from his sled, Santa decides to take a safer route and buy a car. Poor Vixon.

And lastly, I let the kids have full reign of an old digital camera of mine. Not only does this appease their desire to use my brand new digital camera, but we unintentionally get some wonderful shots from their point of view. I particularly loved this one, taken by the same daughter spoken of above.

Our Christmas Tree