What fun to talk with Alexander “Alex” Guylay, 12-year old illustrator extraordinaire about his work on the upcoming children’s book, Give It A Go, Eat a Rainbow.
Yes, he’s also my darling son!
He talked about how important it is to inspire kids at an early age to think about food as fuel- and how we must strive to fuel our bodies with “go” foods.
Alex thinks kids will be able to connect with the story about Blake and his journey. He knows they will also learn a lot from this book. His favorite part? Being able to compare the Blake at the start of the book (slow, looking sad and slumping over an overabundance of cookies, cake, and sweets) to the Blake at the end of the book (full of energy, running and playing thanks to all the energy from the healthy foods Blake is eating).
Listen:
Illustrator Alexander (“Alex”) Guylay is a middle schooler at Community School in Sun Valley, Idaho. Alex knows how to fuel his body for all of the activities he enjoys, including alpine skiing, Nordic skiing, playing hockey, mountain biking, riding a scooter, and hiking. As a participant in and volunteer for Nurture programming from a very young age, Alex has absorbed and integrated nutritional advice in a fun, actionable way. Alex’s warm and witty sense of humor allows him to communicate with other kids in a way that is well-received and high impact. In 2015, Alex won a Silver Award for Academic Merit in Art, a high distinction for his dedication to the subject matter. Alex has found inspiration for his illustrations from artists Jake Parker, Alan Blackwell, Matthew Armstrong, and his art teacher Cara Frost.
Here the link to the Blake that you can print, color, cut out and take with you to your next healthy meal or snack.
Remember to use #blakeeatsarainbow when you post your picture so it becomes part of the community!
What’s the Kickstarter project? The easiest way to explain is this short video:
What is kickstarter? Kickstarter is a fundraising mechanism that builds a community and market around a product launch. “Rewards” are given for various levels of participation/money given. It is not allowed as a donation, and it is not allowed for a nonprofit. A Kickstarter campaign is a “make the goal, or don’t get funded at all” proposition that puts the entrepreneur (in this case Alexander and me) on the hook to bring a project to fulfillment and spend the money on bringing a new product to market. As you can see from the video, our product is a full-color children’s book (which has high printing costs). We are using a kickstarter campaign to see if there is sufficient interest from the market to warrant spending the printing costs. We are hoping so!
A few statistics
*56% of kickstarter campaigns fail— meaning they do not reach their funding goal. We want to beat the odds!
*The failure rate drops to only 11% once 20% of the goal has been reached. For our project that is $1,000, and we really want to get there as soon as possible. That puts the project “on a roll”; where we want to be. 🙂
*91% of kids don’t eat the recommended daily allowance for veggies. This stat explains why we think our project is important (and worth bugging you about). Thank you for listening/reading!
What you can do
*Know anyone that has kids that might enjoy the book? Have a favorite library, church group, temple group, school, after school program or place where kids convene? Buy a book for them/that group as one of the rewards.
*Tell your friends/groups about this book. The reason why we are doing this campaign is to test the market interest for this kind of book. Everyone has their own network which can build a much greater community. Please spread the word for us. We have already put in many months of time into this project, and we’d like to see it come to life.
*Stay in touch. The kickstarter will be live for 2 months, and we will be updating everyone on our progress on the book including feedback from beta readers. We’ll know if the project is a “go” by June 1st, and then the printing will begin. The tentative publication date is July 26.
Here’s the link to the campaign.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/923631210/give-it-a-go-eat-a-rainbow-kids-picture-book
Please forward this link/spread the word with a little “check out this project; you might be interested”
Let us know if you have any questions. Thank you SO much.
Love,
Kathryn & Alex
