AWC Author Podcast Series: Lucky Beans

With tough economic times still bearing down, maybe we could all stand to learn some life (and math) lessons from an uplifting story set during the Great Depression.  Lucky Beans is the story of how Marshall Loman helps his family win a sewing machine using knowledge from his arithmetic class.  Click below link to listen to my conversation with author Becky Birtha and illustrator Nicole Tadgell. (10:06)

Lucky Beans Podcast

Becky Birtha’s picture book, Lucky Beans, is based on true stories told in her family of life during the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Becky received a Bachelor’s Degree in Children’s Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and completed a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Creative Writing at Vermont College.  The author of three books for adults, she has received awards from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, and a Golden Kite Honor from SCBWI.  Becky grew up in Philadelphia and now lives in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.  She and her partner are the parents of two, a college student and a young adult.

Nicole Tadgell has illustrated fourteen books.  To get a feel for each book, she pretends she’s the child in the story, and does the things the child does. She first realized that illustrating children’s books could be her life’s path while studying art in college.  Her rich watercolors depict lively children, fantasy, and nature.

http://www.loc.gov/pictures

http://www.worcesterhistory.org/