A Cache of Jewels by Ruth Heller

A Cache of Jewels by Ruth Heller

"Highly informative and lushly illustrated. An unbeatable combination for pleasure and learning." --Children's Book Review Service
"The illustrations and the vocabulary will delight small eyes and ears." --School Library Journal

Q&A - Ruth Heller - A Paperstar Profile Ruth Heller - Profile
How did you become interested in writing books for children?
I loved reading to my own children, and when they started school, I became the P.T.A. library chairman. I was the one who got to pick and choose and spend a nice fat budget for the elementary school library. I feel as though I?ve been surrounded by children?s books for years.I suppose this and my strong art background are what prompted my trying to write.
What is the biggest influence in your style of writing, and how has it changed since you first began?
Hillaire Belloc, Gilbert and Sullivan, Edward Lear?I grew up reading all of them. I love their rhythm, and I loved reading Dr. Seuss to my children. No question, these were my influences.I think I?ve become wordier, not quite as minimal and succinct as I used to be.
What made you decide to write a series on the parts of speech?
Take a peek at the back end paper of the hardcover edition of A Cache of Jewels. You?ll see that I committed myself, in print, to writing a book for each part of speech.Here I am, ten years later, thankfully completing the very last book in this series. It will be published in 1998.
Do you begin with the words or pictures when you are developing a book? How does the second part come together?
The first step is to decide what I am going to say on each page. Then I can begin to visualize my illustrations. The words dictate what the illustration will be, but that still gives me many options.Sometimes the two come together easily, sometimes not. If not, I pursue new research material until something clicks.
Did you learn anything new about the parts of speech while writing these books?
I learned many things I had forgotten, and some new information and rules that I had never known. I also learned that the textbooks that I used for research were difficult to understand and somewhat boring, and that I am guilty of frequent misuse of the English language.
How do you choose the images in your book?
An art teacher once told me to fall in love with whatever I was drawing. So I choose images that I love: candy, ice cream, butterflies, sea creatures, carousels, jewels, etc.

Ruth Heller (1923-2004) began her career designing wrapping paper, cocktail napkins, greeting cards, and coloring books after getting a fine arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley and two years of graduate work in design at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Heller's first book, Chickens Aren't the Only Ones, about egg-laying animals, was published in 1981 after five years of rejection and one complete revision. Animals Born Alive And Well (1982), the sequel and second book to be released, was immediately followed by Animals Born Alive And Well (1983), a book about mammals. Her third and fourth books, The Cause For A Flower (about plants with seeds and flowers) and Plants That Never Ever Bloom (about plants that don't), were published in 1983 and 1984, respectively. She subsequently began work on the How To Hide series, a collection of six books about camouflage and the enchantment of this natural phenomena that covered the entire animal kingdom, including insects, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and sea creatures.

A Cache of Gems and Other Collective Nouns; Kites Fly High: A Book About Verbs; Many Luscious Lollipops: A Book About Adjectives; Merry-Go-Round: A Book About Nouns; and Up, Up and Away: A Book About Adverbs constituted the next set of books, which became a five-volume series on parts of speech. Color, a fun and instructional explanation to how art travels through the four-color printing process, was also written and illustrated by her. Ogden Nash, Gilbert and Sullivan, Edward Lear, Hilaire Belloc, and Dr. Seuss are just a few of the noteworthy people that have influenced Heller's writing. All of Heller's publications are nonfiction picture books in rhyme, she claims.

Writing in rhyme is both pleasant and hard for me, and I believe it is a simple approach for youngsters to learn new things and expand their vocabulary. Big words do not intimidate children. I aim to keep my text to a minimum and rely on the illustrations to communicate as much as possible.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780698113541
ISBN 10	0698113543
Title	A Cache of Jewels
Author	Ruth Heller
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Putnam Publishing Group,U.S.
Year published	1998-02-23
Number of pages	48
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.