In this summer season, water is one of the most healing elements. In this issue, we celebrate water. We give you a simple recipe for infusing water with refreshing fruit. We are excited for you to read a wonderfully long fable about a kind fisherman who shares his gifts of the sea. We make a plea to save the sea turtles, we learn about the ephemerality of rivers, and we remember that no matter how hot we are, there is always water inside of us, inside of our plants, and even in the air.
Happy summer!
The target audience for each magazine is children ages 3–8, or children who are being read to and/or are just learning to read—but because children are never far from their siblings and caregivers, we created a magazine that can be enjoyed by all ages, from 1 to 100.
Thank you for allowing us to bring heartfelt literature and art to children—and adults. Hooray!
Issue 22 Contributors
- Holli Bettis (Fisherman text) lives in Honolulu and teaches Early Childhood at the Honolulu Waldorf school. She is a mother of three daughters and lives a simple life. She enjoys surfing, fishing, gardening, singing, handwork, writing stories for children, and sunsets on the beach.
- Charles Beyl (bookmark) lives in Sugar Land, Texas, where he creates humorous illustrations while wrangling his pug, Peaches, and keeping an eye out for snakes and alligators. His work includes the Map It! Jr. series published by Rand McNally and the forthcoming Little Lunch Truck.
- Lucille Clifton (blessing the boats poem) was a poet the New York Public Library loved so much, they put lines of her poetry on the sidewalk next to the main branch.
-
Heather Feinberg (Ammi text) is a mother, counselor, writer, educator, and the founder of Mindful Kids, a nonprofit organization in Austin, Texas, whose purpose is to help children (and the child inside us all) discover their voices, access their power, and, most importantly, connect to their inner knowing.
-
David Gregal Jr. (Ask Arden art) lives in Maryland. At the end of the day, he loves reading books with his wife and three kids before bedtime.
-
Danielle Hark (blessing the boats art) is a writer and artist from New Jersey. She is the founder of the nonprofit Broken Light Collective that empowers people with mental health challenges using photography. Danielle has two sassy young daughters, a Samoyed pup, and a Scottish Fold cat.
-
Polina Ipatova (Covers) is an artist from the Ukraine. She has a soft spot for the 1980s and rock and roll.
-
Aimee Hagerty Johnson (Upon Viewing the Moon) has always loved to do all kinds of art. Some of her favorite things to draw are horses, sweaters, coffee pots, trees, and telescopes.
-
Lida Larina (Root & Star comic) is an amazing artist who lives in Russia. She has contributed to every issue of this magazine.
-
Martine Lloyd (Moth Silver Shimmer art) is an Australian Illustrator who enjoys creating art that is realistic at times and whimsical when the mood strikes. A lot of her illustrations involve animals and retro wares.
-
Joo Ann Loong (Washing Day art) is a concept artist and illustrator who creates stylized and realistic concept design packages for animations and live action films. She specialises in creating environment concept art and story illustrations.
-
Gina Marie Mammano (Mission page poem) is a longtime teacher, storyteller, and poet. In her spare time she likes to sing, play her sweet, silver flute, and make friends with the outside world.
-
Courtney Mandryk is one of the makers of this magazine. She hopes that this issue inspires people to, among other things, u se less plastic! Quote: Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.
-
Sarah McDonald (Intuition text) is a creative entrepreneur who spent seven years as a daycare provider, learning more from children than she could ever teach.
-
Neridah McMullin (Washing Day poem) lives in the city, but is a country girl at heart. She loves history and true stories. An author of seven books for children, Neridah is also an award winning short story writer and poet. Neridah loves cricket, footy, birdwatching, walking her dog, and meeting other people’s dogs.
-
Claude Monet (Water lily paintings) was a French painter who lived from 1840 to 1926. He is famous not only for his paintings but also for his garden.
-
Sofi Naydenova (You Are Enough) is an illustrator who makes joyful illustrations and short animations about life, human relationships, and funny characters, but she also shows conceptual pieces with subjects covering ecology and veganism. Her work has been shown in Hungary, Germany, Russia, and Japan.
-
Tim Reisert (Moth Silver Shimmer poem) lives and teaches in Cincinnati, Ohio. He participates with the Ohio Writing Project. His poems have appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal.
-
Louis Renard (Mission page fish) was the first person to print a book about fish in color. Imagine that! Before Renard, all the fish in books were black and white!
-
Katrina Roberts writes and draws in a blue house bordered by creeks and a pasture of Appaloosas in the Pacific Northwest. Among her loves are all plants, poems, oceans, cheeses, thrifting, her three children and partner, seven cats, a rabbit, their gigantic great pyrenees pup, volunteering, and the library. She aims to try or make something new every day.
- Heather Franzen Rutten (Rainy Day comic) is an artist and illustrator living in Pennsylvania. In her free time, she likes playing video games and attending orchestra concerts.
-
Milena Velez (Colors of the River poem) has been writing poetry since the first grade when she was inspired by the neighbor's dog and American singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder. Since then, she has loved writing about nature and the wonderful things that happen to her and around her. Milena is originally from Bulgaria, which is known as "The Land of Roses."
-
Stephen Whiteside (There’s Water poem) has been writing rhyming verse for children for many years. His book “The Billy That Died With Its Boots On” and Other Australian Verse won a Golden Gumleaf award for Book of the Year at the Australian Bush Laureate Awards.
-
Szabo Zelmira (Intuition art) is an illustrator and set designer who lives in the middle of beautiful nature in Romania.
