LOCAL AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR OF
ANNUAL HIPPO BALL
BOOK SIGNING AND READING ANNOUNCED
October 12, 2016
When you think of hippopotami you probably don’t imagine them waltzing around in heels and lipstick or riding the train with suitcases in hand. But that is what first time illustrator/author Anne Lindgren saw in her mind when family friend Mark Fine wrote “The Annual Hippo Ball”. Lindgren knew right away that she wanted to bring the hippos to life through illustrations.
“And 35 years later its done!” laughs Ms. Lindgren.
Mr. Fine’s poem, with modifications by Ms. Lindgren, describes a yearly gathering of hippopotami traveling by every means possible to get to their annual party. They eat, dance, sightsee atop double-decker buses, greet new friends, and make new ones. The illustrations in this book are lush with color, movement, and laughing hippos.
She immediately made pencil sketches of anthropomorphized (drawn like humans) hippos to illustrate the scenes. Because of a very busy life the sketches resided in a big black portfolio under her bed for years, then decades. Every few years the hippos would call to Anne to come free them from the clutches of dust bunnies. Finally, Anne realized that if the hippo book wasn’t finished soon her grandchildren would be too old to appreciate the book. That was the wakeup call.
Being a pencil-in-hand artist, figuring out how to digitize the sketches and get an actual book printed proved to be a major challenge. The learning curve was enormous. Her son Robb helped her with the arduous task of digitizing her images. Her daughter Julia helped edit the rhymes to fit Anne’s artwork. And Jeff Dwyer, a local retired book agent advised her on how to get the book printed and distributed. This led to Anne creating her own company, “Kiss Me Quick Publishing, LLC” in order to get the book printed.
Anne finds the reviews on Amazon to be amazingly insightful and helped her define exactly what the Annual Hippo Ball means to her readers.
Daniel B. writes, “My wife and I love Annual Hippo Ball because it is an excellent end-of-the-evening-parents-are-completely-over-it-fall-asleep-now wind-down book.”
Another Amazon customer writes, “The perfect book for my 3 yr old and 1 yr old grandchildren. Simple "story line" and colorful illustrations. I particularly love the lipstick on the lady hippos at the ball! Very cool. Your children/grandchildren will love this book.”
Please stop by and meet Anne at the new Cedar Key Country Store at the corner of Route 24 and 2nd Street in Cedar Key the Saturday, October 15th between 11 and 3 pm. She will be signing and selling the Annual Hippo Ball books just in time for holiday gift purchases. The Annual Hippo Ball can be purchased at www.annelindgren.com or www.amazon.com.
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