Press Release
Mt. Pleasant, SC (February 1, 2014) – Kristin Haas understands the struggle that young children face when learning math, and in her debut picture book with illustrator Shennen Bersani, The Shape Family Babies, they tackle the tough subject of geometry together.
Mt. Pleasant, SC (February 1, 2014) – Kristin Haas understands the struggle that young children face when learning math, and in her debut picture book with illustrator Shennen Bersani, The Shape Family Babies, they tackle the tough subject of geometry together.
Readers
are introduced to many members of the shape family throughout this story after
three babies are born to Mother Rhombus and Father Rectangle. Two of the babies
were easy to name, but the new parents get help from extended relatives for the
third. Kristin was inspired by both her experience as a teacher and her
experience as a child to write this book. “I enjoy putting on voices for
characters to make a story more lively,” said Haas. “My book was influenced by
this. I wanted to include many different characters from different generations
to give the reader and listeners the opportunity to play with different
voices.” The whimsical illustrations by Bersani help readers to clearly
identify each shape without losing that element of fun.
Geometry
is sometimes a complicated subject for young children; The Shape Family Babies includes a For Creative Minds section where
children and parents have facts and activities to dive deeper into shape
names. Online the publisher offers
teaching activities, quizzes and standards alignment to seamlessly integrate
the book into an elementary classroom.
Kristin Haas is a third grade teacher with a Masters in
Elementary Education. As a teacher, she sees how books inspire learning and
engage the minds of young readers. Kristin hopes this book will encourage young
math fans at home and in classrooms to learn about the myriad kinds of
geometric shapes. This is her debut picture book. Kristin lives in Newburgh,
New York with her family.
Award-winning
children’s book illustrator Shennen Bersani has
two million copies of her illustrated books cherished and read by families
throughout the world. She has been a freelance illustrator since 1989. She
works primarily with colored pencils, sometimes using a mixed-media technique
of colored pencils, crayon, and paint. For this book, she used a Wacom Cintiq
Pen Display where brush strokes of many sizes and colors are created with a
digital pen on a flat screen glass display. Her art delivers a unique blend of
realism, heartfelt emotion, love of nature, and life lessons for children of
all ages. In addition to Sea Slime: It’s Eeuwy, Gooey and Under the Sea; The Shape
Family Babies; Shark
Baby; Home in the Cave; The Glaciers are Melting!,
and Astro: The Steller Sea Lion for
Sylvan Dell, Shennen has illustrated a number of
best-selling books, including, Snakes:
Long, Longer, Longest; Sharks: Big, Bigger, Biggest; Ocean Counting: Odd
Numbers; Icky Bug Shapes; andMy Sister, Alicia May. Shennen lives with her
family near Boston.
For more information
about The Shape Family Babies or to schedule an interview with either Ms. Haas or Ms.
Bersani, contact Heather Williams at (843) 971-6722 or heatherwilliams@sylvandellpublishing.com.
