Books

My first book is Honey Badgers which was released in April of 2007. Below I’ve attached a review from Publisher’s Weekly. Second book is titled The Bedtime Train by Joy Cowley. I did the illustrations for this book–they took me one full year to complete. it will be in stores in the fall of 2008.

Publisher’s Weekly Review:

Honey Badgers
Jamison Odone. Front Street (Boyds Mills, dist.), $16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-932425-51-2
Odone’s debut book makes a deep bow to Maurice Sendak, with its somber palette and heavily crosshatched, pen-and-ink and watercolor wash illustrations. But the affectionate, dreamy text is his own. “I get along well with honey badgers,” the boy narrator begins. “In fact, I was raised by a pair—Maurice and June. They are good parents,” he adds. On the opposite page June, in a warm red overcoat, holds out her arms to a naked, Sendak-style foundling. (Honey badgers are carnivorous African mammals, making Maurice and June’s solicitousness particularly heartwarming.) Telegraphic sentences on the left-hand pages (“We have a small stream nearby to sip from”) accompany framed pictures on the right; here, the boy and Maurice, sporting warm sweaters to ward off the chill, drink on hands and knees, surrounded by a forest of gnarled trees. Visual references to myth (empty boats), fallen civilizations (Mayan stone sculptures), and wealth and education (velvet drapes and leather-bound books) give the story elegant resonance without weighing it down. “It is late now,” the boy says. “I think I’ll go to bed.” Maurice and June stand guard as he sleeps under an enormous canopy. Odone, tapping into a powerful vein of fantasy (what child would not rush to move into a cozy den with two gentle, furry parents?) has created the kind of book certain children will cling to, years after they abandon the rest of their picture book collections. Ages 4-up. (Apr.)

The Bedtime Train:

The picture book that I have recently finished illustrating(my second if you are counting) is a poem written by New Zealand author Joy Cowley,titled The Bedtime Train. It is a trip inside the mind of a young boy who cannot sleep. He creates a world in which this nocturnal train shoots him around from place to place. There was so much space inside the story for me to really get creative with the paintings. Some of the text was quite “to the point” and the illustrations directly reflect the text. Other portions allowed me to drift deep inside of my imagination and put myself into this world. If I were a sleepless young child–I would want to visit these places as well. I am lucky though, I can do it all from behind a desk. The Bedtime Train will be released by Front Street Books in the Fall of 2008.