"All Hallow's ABC, with its clean lines and genuine enthusiasm for the Halloween, season is a great choice for parents and kids who celebrate Halloween all through the month of October, tombstones and all. Highly recommended."
SANTA CRUZ, CALIF. — A is for Alphabet, B is for Bronze! “All Hallow’s ABC,” a Halloween-themed alphabet book by local author/illustrator Jenni Kaye, won a bronze medal at the 2013 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards, announced Oct. 3. The book was the only ABC book to win in the alphabet/counting category. Jenni Kaye is the pen name for Santa Cruz resident Jennifer K Mahal.
“This is my first children’s book, and to win a national award my first time out is just amazing!” said Mahal.
The Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards will be presented at the fourth annual Traverse City Children’s Book Festival, Nov. 9 in Traverse City, Mich. The contest, dedicated to finding the best children’s books for the North American market, is run by Jenkins Group, Inc. Last year’s competition had close to 1,000 entries.
"The Moonbeam Children's Book Awards are intended to bring increased recognition to exemplary children's books and their creators, and to support childhood literacy and life-long reading. The Awards recognize and reward the best of these books and bring them to the attention of parents, booksellers, librarians—and to children themselves,” said Jim Barnes, Awards Director.
“All Hallow’s ABC” was inspired by the author’s preschool-age daughter’s love of Halloween. The book combines colorful, modern illustrations with unusual word choices such as “L is for Lycanthrope.”
“One day, we started thinking of alphabet words that went with the season. She got bored after the letter D, but I kept going. Next thing I knew, I had the poem the book is based on,” Mahal said.
Mahal created the illustrations after seeing the font Evilz by Nan Sakurai. The font includes characters that sparked the author’s imagination.
“I emailed with Sakurai in Japan and asked if I could use her characters as part of the illustrations for my book. She said yes, and I took her work and built off of it.”
Mahal is a graduate of Chula Vista Performing Arts High School and Loyola Marymount University. She worked as a newspaper journalist, page designer and editor, as well as a performing arts center publicist, before devoting herself to writing books. She’s married to a UC Santa Cruz professor and lives on the campus with her family.
“All Hallow’s ABC,” published by Mahal’s Daring Ink Press, is available in ebook form (ISBN 978-0-9884914-0-3, $0.99) at Tomely, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. The print book (ISBN 978-0-9884914-1-0, $9.99) is available locally at Childish on Soquel, through independent booksellers and online at Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.
IMAGES AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD AT: http://www.jennikaye.com/epk
