Longmont children’s author Elizabeth Everett has recently published her second picture book, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Daytime Star,” which teaches young readers about the Sun and how it impacts Earth and solar system.
The book highlights how the “daytime star” creates life on Earth, controls seasons and days, helps us to tell time and maintains planets’ orbits.
“Written in bouncing rhyming couplets that are easy to digest, the deceptively simple text presents essential scientific facts... seamlessly interwoven with everyday experiences,” the School Library Journal wrote in its review of Everett’s latest book.
Everett moved to Longmont four years ago after she spent 16 years teaching math to elementary, middle and high school students in Maryland.
The author said her teaching background and her experience reading to her young son inspired her to write children’s books.
“We had a book from the library, I want to say it was ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Car,’ and we were reading it, and you know, just being the teacher that I am, I’m always looking for the curriculum connection — I was thinking ‘wow, this would be really great for teaching facts about the star that makes life possible,” Everett said.
The song “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” is nearly identical to the children’s tune for the ABCs, which helps young readers connect to her book, she explained.
“To find something children can relate to and have an opportunity to make it a learning experience — more than just the nursery rhyme itself … apply it to some facts, I always like that,” she said.
The book, which is also available in Spanish, was illustrated by Beatriz Castro.
“The illustrations are beautiful — they’re very child-friendly, they’re very engaging,” Everett said.
Castro studied illustration at the School of Arts in Logroño, Spain. Her art appears in books published around the world.
Everett’s debut picture book “This is the Sun,” which was published in October 2022, won the Creative Child’s 2022 Book of the Year award in the Books on Nature category, and a Tillywig Toy and Media 2022 Brain Child Award.
Everett will be reading “This is the Sun” in a Paint Me a Story event at Crackpots in Longmont on March 10. The children’s event is set to begin at 10:15 a.m. in the studio, at 505 Main Street.
