Lambertville artist creates animal alphabet book, with help from her youngest fans
Ask someone what their favorite children’s book was and they’ll likely have a quick answer. The messages and illustrations from these books create lifelong memories.
But Lambertville painter Gwenn Seemel’s animal alphabet book "Baby Sees ABCs" connects with kids another way.
Top donors for Seemel’s book, which raised nearly $12,000 through a Kickstarter crowd funding campaign, chose which animal Seemel painted to represent each letter, ranging from a unicorn to a quokka. Other donors embedded a child’s name on the pages.
The self-published book is on display at the Lambertville Free Public Library through Monday, Dec. 12. Seemel will host an online art talk about the book at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 10, which people can register for at https://lambertvillelibrary.org/events/month/2022-12/.
The $20 book is also for sale at gwennseemel.com/abc.
“I wanted the book to be really focused on collaboration,” said Seemel, who is in her 20th year as a full-time artist.
“I have always loved reading," she said, "and while it’s a solitary activity, you’re spending hours reading the words of someone else and getting inside their heads. I liked the idea of helping to instill that love of reading in kids early on, so doing it as a collaboration made sense.”
In 2019, Seemel blogged about her desire to eventually write a children's alphabet book with input from kids. One of her longtime clients immediately donated money to start the effort, which inspired Seemel to create a Kickstarter to fully bring the project to life.
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Nearly all of the 80 donors were represented in some way in the book, whether by choosing one of the 26 animals or embedding their names into an animal illustration. By June 2020, the book was published.
The timing worked out, too, since it helped her deal with COVID.
“Emotionally, it was really important because a lot of artists were feeling very disconnected from their audiences since they couldn’t do in-person events anymore,” Seemel said. “I had this book so we could share space in a sense because it’s a physical item that they would receive. It felt like we shared something.”
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Go: "Baby Sees ABCs," on display at the Lambertville Free Public Library, 6 Lilly St., through Monday, Dec. 12. Seemel will host an online art talk about the book at 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10. Register at https://lambertvillelibrary.org/events/month/2022-12/. The $20 book is also for sale at gwennseemel.com/abc.
Jenna Intersimone has been a staff member at the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey since 2014, after becoming a blogger-turned-reporter following the creation of her award-winning travel blog. To get unlimited access to her stories about food, drink and fun, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Contact: JIntersimone@MyCentralJersey.com or @JIntersimone
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Lambertville artist writes Baby Sees ABCs with help from kids
