ABOUT THE AUTHORS / ILLUSTRATORS | PUBLISHER | DESIGNER | NEEDLE FELTING
Classics never go out of style—that’s what makes them classic. Cozy Classics is the popular board book series that presents well-loved stories to children aged 0+. The concept for Cozy Classics is simple: every classic in the series will be condensed to 12 child-friendly words, and each word will appear alongside a needle-felted illustration. Each word is carefully selected to relate to a child’s world, such as “friends”, “sisters”, “dance”, “muddy”, “boat”, and “leg”. The books work as word primers, even without any reference to the original stories. If you, as a parent, can fill in some of the original tale as part of the reading experience, so much the better!
The series will invigorate the genre of the infant primer whose usual concept categories—colors, numbers, shapes, animals, and so on—have become overly familiar. By presenting words that not only introduce simple concepts but create a narrative, Cozy Classics offers a fresh take on the infant primer. Parents will be able to foster a rich and compelling storytelling experience that will expand, elaborate, and grow as their children grow.
We want to be clear about one thing: Cozy Classics are not intended to provide babies with any kind of academic leg up. Our books are not meant to help you fast-track your toddler to Harvard! Unfortunately, in the minds of many, classics are associated with academics, but no classic was written for the classroom; every one was written to give pleasure. We prefer to get away from the classroom and have kids grow up thinking of The Great Books as great fun.
We hope that Cozy Classics—along with a vast army of other books—will help parents create a fun “literacy-rich environment” that will pave the way for success with reading. If parents present one of our word primers to their children with just that little extra bit of enthusiasm because they are sharing a story or characters they love themselves, then we will have done our tiny part in helping parents model an engaged and affectionate relationship with books.
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Holman talks about Cozy Classics, Star Wars Epic Yarns and career change at Interesting Vancouver 2015 (November 6, 2015):
Check out Holman and Jack’s interview with the fabulous Fiona Forbes on The Rush (February 4, 2014):
In this trailer for the April / May 2014 issue of American Craft (an absolutely gorgeous magazine), Cozy Classics is featured at 1:32: