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Metro duo to launch children's book

  • June 24, 2011 at 1:24 am

D5 By Alyssa MosherTimes & Transcript Staff

From Owen's encounter with an endangered dinosaur, to Emily's friendship with a lonely dragon, Paul E. Burns' children's stories challenge the readers' imaginations.

Paul and illustrator Jennifer Aikman-Smith have collaborated on their second children's book, the 88-page Emily Finds a Dragon.

Paul, originally from Riverview, loves creating the quasi-real books that kids can relate to, while Jennifer, originally from Montreal but who has lived in Moncton for several years now, loves creating something that has never been seen before.

“We want good stories out there,” said Paul, author of Owen and the Dinosaur, published in 2008, and now Emily Finds a Dragon, which will be launched tomorrow at the Riverview Library.

The story of Emily Finds a Dragon was inspired by one of Jennifer's dragon drawings. Paul said the dragon held a little heart that said “Be My Valentine” and that was all he needed to put together a story of a little dragon who never seems able to pull himself out of life's ruts. Paul calls it a “classic Disney ending” when the dragon finally rises to the occasion and becomes the hero.

“I think kids like that idea because there's some kids, they kind of stumble from one disaster to the other,” Paul said.

Both of Paul's children's books are named after his own kids, Owen and Emily. Owen and the Dinosaur is about Paul's oldest son who always knew a lot about dinosaurs when he was young and dreamed of finding a real one when his family went to the Parrsboro fossil site in Nova Scotia.

Although Emily Finds a Dragon only plays off the name and appearance of his daughter, and is an 88-page chapter book rather than a picture book, Paul said he and Jennifer maintain the same standards for the new book.

“Both Jennifer and I like to challenge kids,” he said. “We don't like to, to use a poor phrase, dumb down the stories. we want the kid to be challenged a bit. we purposely put maybe two or three words in that they might have to look up.”

Jennifer said there's a lot of adult humour in Paul's books, too, referring to specific scenes in Emily Finds a Dragon that relate to two cops named Smith and Wesson and a particular UPS television commercial involving the lifetime of a fruitcake.

“It was fun to…put stuff on both levels,” she said.

For Jennifer, who knew she wanted to try her hand at drawing for a living since she was 11, illustrating children's books not only allows her to work with the impossible, but it also allows her to prove that her “cartoon” drawings are art, too.

“I fought with my professors, because for them art is what goes on a museum wall and I'm like, if it's a greeting card that makes your friends happy or a book your kid wants to pull out again and again…you're creating images that touch people,” she said.

Paul saw writing simply as a 25-year-old hobby until he met Jennifer, who had been freelance drawing since she graduated from Mount Allison University, and they began taking the endeavour seriously over the past few years.

“There was a lot of collaborative back and forth, which is awesome, because in normal book development you wouldn't get that,” Jennifer said. “So because you're going through it so many times and changing things, I think in the long run it makes a much stronger book.”

Paul and Jennifer have self-published both Emily Finds a Dragon and Owen and the Dinosaur. After being turned away by a few mainstream publishing companies, they decided to use Jennifer's skills as a graphic designer and her company Dragon Dreams to put the children's books together. they decided to keep all other steps as local as possible, printing the books at Tailor Printing in Fredericton and working with Glen Margaret Publishing in Tantallon, Nova Scotia to help distribute the books.

After Emily Finds a Dragon is released, Paul is just interested to see where his writing career will go.

“I'm an engineer that sells real estate and writes children's books,” he said. “My background doesn't really lend itself to (writing).”

Paul says the next books he is working on are for young adults, and who knows where things will go from there.

“I don't think I'll be buying the castle next to J.K. Rowling any time in the next year,” he says, “but we'll let it run.”

After tomorrow's launch, Emily Finds a Dragon will be available at Gifts Galore in Moncton and Cover to Cover in Riverview. Jennifer says the book should hit Atlantic Canadian Chapters stores by mid-July.

Metro duo to launch children's book

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