The Red Poppy launched in Wellington.

• Penny Scown of Scholastic reports

  "We launched The Red Poppy at the Children's Bookshop in Kilbirnie, Wellington last night - great occasion! Thanks to Ruth & John McIntyre for hosting us".

  
  

  The Red Poppy Launch

  
  

  David Hill, Penny Scown, photo of Rob Kennedy (composer of the song, Little Red ...Poppy, on the CD that accompanies the book) and Fifi Colston, collaborators on The Red Poppy

  
  

  
  

  
  

  See More at : The Children's Bookshop  and at the Scholastic Facebook page.

Here are comments from my blog a couple of weeks back:

When the Publishing department at Scholastic received a copy of a CD of the haunting, lyrical song The Red Poppy from Canadian musician/teacher Rob Kennedy, they just knew they had to do something with it and approached David Hill to see if he’d be interested in writing a war story for a picture book – his first.

 David was very interested in the subject matter and came up with a sensitively written, poignant story that shows the similarities between soldiers on both sides. Scholastic then approached Fifi Colston to do the artwork. “All along, we knew we wanted this to be an absolutely beautiful production – a really special book,” says Scholastic’s Senior Editor, Penny Scown. Fifi produced some stunning and evocative illustrations, which meld seamlessly with the text to portray a grim story with a positive outcome. She then worked with designer Penny Newman and Scholastic to get just the right cover and feel for the book, which is available in hardback with gorgeous endpapers and which includes the CD of the song The Red Poppy – the inspiration for the whole project.

An utterly gorgeously illustrated, superbly designed book, that tells a moving story, and includes  the haunting song on the CD that started it all. This book should be in every New Zealand home and in multiple copies in public and school libraries. Watch for it next year when book prize time comes around. It is a winner in every way.