​The Crossover, by award-winning children’s book author and poet Kwame Alexander, was published in 2014. It won the 2015 Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award Honor for children’s literature. Rebound, a prequel to The Crossover, was published in 2018. 12-year-old African American Josh Bell narrates The Crossover in verse. 

​his stories dribble down the page much like he dribbles the ball on a basketball court with his brother Jordan at six feet tall. They are both known as “The Twins” because of their height and they play for their father Chuck who is also an NBA legend (Charles “Da Man” Bell). 

 From the first poem, “Dribbling,” readers get a sense of Josh’s playful voice like a basketball. He uses words to create fluid movements and quick changes on the page that represent his game.  

 ​The rhymes and syllables of his poems have a magic that makes the letters look like dribbling a basketball from a distance. And the tone of his poetry is as light and powerful as a basketball bouncing on the floor.

  About Author : Kwame Alexander is an American writer of poetry and children's fiction. His verse novel The Crossover won the 2015 Newbery Medal recognizing the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." It was also selected as an Honor book for the Coretta Scott King Award.

  This book describes the process of a boy understanding his father through basketball, resolving conflicts with his brothers, finding self-confidence, and discovering himself using language as if playing basketball in a basketball arena.

 If there was a prejudice that poetry must be philosophical, it must be pleasant to hear, and that only a poet can write and interpret poetry because it has a depth that ordinary people cannot understand, you will be able to create an opportunity to come closer to poetry by reading this book. 

 ​ In fact, this book was written and published by the author for 11 and 18 year olds. However, if there is a question about whether poetry can write a poem that draws a lot of sympathy to young people on the subject of sports, I recommend that adults who have such a question read it at least once.

 ​The book below has been an Amazon bestseller for 52 weeks in a row. It is a kind of self-improvement book, but it talks about the fundamentals of ideas and creativity in life, and introduces tips on how to creatively create your own work every day like an artist.

  About Author: Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of a trilogy of illustrated books about creativity in the digital age: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going. He’s also the author of Newspaper Blackout, a collection of poems made by redacting the newspaper with a permanent marker.

 ​This book will probably be a solution to your curiosity about how and how creativity is created, the ingenuity of art, just as artists create their work.

 Surprisingly, he found that originality and creativity were based on some daily habit rather than the genius. The author states that once you start anything, it starts with keeping it steady, stills, hobbies, interests and interests, and community.

 ​The author advises with this book to steal what you might get from someone else's work. It should be noted that the meaning of stealing does not mean plagiarism of copying as it is. Carrying a notebook and pen every day, he urges us to take notes and keep a record of the inspiration for the creativity and excellence of others. In fact, the author has been running a blog since the age of 22 and has kept these records for 15 years and published books based on these records.

 ​Write down what you see, feel, and think at any time. Write down the good passages you see in books, and record the conversations you hear in your ears. For creative activities, mannerism must be guarded against. To always create something new, you have to be full of interest, curiosity and energy every day. Creating a work and building a career is not something that happens in a day or two.

 Writing one page per day isn't a lot, but if you write all year round, you'll end up with 365 books.

 Creative work is not created overnight. It comes from daily records, effort, and attention. There is no special trick or know-how. You just have to constantly love what you do and keep walking while enjoying the process. Of course, the process won't just be enjoyable. You have to experience the pain of looking at a wall and talking to yourself for many years without any results and no reaction. But the famous German poet Goethe said: What we love makes us.

 Persistently give wings to your thoughts day by day. That's the point author Austin Kleon wants to talk about.

  Today, I would like to introduce a book called. The Hungry Caterpillar", a famous children's book that every library in the United States must have. The reason I would like to introduce this book is personally because of the beautiful illustrations and drawings in the book. I felt the energy in this book, not only as a children's book, but also as a work of art.

  ​And the biggest reason is that in the school class of the daughter who is now 6 years old, the parents of the birthday child visit the class to read a book or sing a happy birthday song together. My daughter asked me to read this book. As a foreigner and not a native speaker, I was given a burdensome homework assignment. But since my daughter is asking for it, such difficulties do not come very close. I decided to practice my pronunciation and learn about the book.

  ​But the moment I read this book, the burden gradually disappeared. Because the illustrations in the book were so beautiful and deep. The content was very simple, but the color and brushstrokes made a big impression on me.

  ​The book begins as follows for the sake of her sister Christina.

  The plot is very simple. The butterfly's eggs lie on the leaf during the night, then transform into a caterpillar in the warm sunlight.

  ​And the caterpillars soon begin to look for food.

  ​This book was discovered a little late for my daughter who can read and write numbers, but I think it is a good book for 3-year-old children who are interested in reading and have a concept of numbers. This is a passage where you can see how much the author loves children and made books from their eyes and levels. Counting is something adults naturally teach children.

  ​In particular, these caterpillars eat different numbers of different kinds of fruit on different days of the week. So it's great for kids to learn the names of fruits and the concept of counting and days of the week.

  ​Even after eating this fruit, the caterpillar is still hungry. So he eats the following foods. These are foods that children do not usually give to children because they are concerned about their health.

  Eventually, the caterpillar will have an upset stomach. He has to eat his own food the next day, the leaves.

  ​Then the caterpillar felt a little more comfortable. As time passed, he was no longer a hungry caterpillar.

  ​The caterpillar pupates to prepare it to become a butterfly.  And in the end it turned into a beautiful butterfly.

  ​I bought a caterpillar doll to make it more fun to read to children.

 ​When you open the zipper, you will see a butterfly as shown below.

 ​Carefully take it out and turn it over to become a butterfly.

  Eric Carle (June 25, 1929 – May 23, 2021) was an American author, designer and illustrator of children's books. His picture book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, first published in 1969, has been translated into more than 66 languages and sold more than 50 million copies. 

  As shown below, he applied acrylic on a large piece of paper with a broom and drew a picture at once.

  ​Paint the pattern by hand as above and cut out the shape to make the caterpillar like a collage.

  ​When I look at the work of the now deceased Eric Carle, I still feel his tremendous energy.

  ​Below is a selection of my favorite paintings from among his works.

  Painting was his best friend for the rest of his life for him, who went to America with only $40. He also overcame the post-traumatic stress that he had been with for the rest of his life through painting. If you look at his innocent, beautiful and hopeful paintings, you can understand what message he is sending to the world.

  When I started posting with the goal of a steady blog 2021, I was worried that I might have set a simple plan. But after six months, I realized that it was a useless worry because blogging has lots of hardships to create something new every day. In the case of blogging, 80% of first bloggers give up within six months.  It means that most bloggers quit within their first six months. The reasons are that they don't make any rewards, don't get traffic, comments, response or shares. And if it lasts more than a year, that's great.  

  ​I've been aiming for steady blogging and drawing here. Thinking about it now, I realize that it was such a grand goal. I have created a blog and info menu and have been posting every day in turn. In other words, the article is uploaded every other day for each menu.

  ​ I am well aware that consistency is my greatest strength.  When I was in elementary school, a teacher motivated me for consistency and helped me understand what consistency is and why it is crucial.

 During her class, I had homework to write a picture diary. I worked hard to write a diary  day by day. I still remember those bundles. There were seven volumes in all, and I glued to tie it for one buddle. One day after the year was over, and my teacher showed our classmates the picture diary and said. "It's harder to be consistent than good at it." Since then, that saying has become my life's motto. So I've liked doing something consistently rather than being good at something.

  But doing something consistently is not easy. In that case, I have a motivated book. It is "a day by Ivan Denisovich", written by Solzhenitsyn. This book is just a description of the day in 1951 when the protagonist, Shhoff, an ordinary farmer, was transferred to a concentration camp as a spy. Solzhenitsyn described Schhof's daily routine from waking up at 5 in the morning to going to sleep.

 ​As usual, Schuhoff wakes up at 5 in the morning. He goes to the infirmary to avoid work, but the infirmary's garden is already full, and he has to go out to work. The task was to build the house and roof of the power plant. Schuhoff got two bowls of Chezary's soup as his share in exchange for his small errands. He fall asleep thinking it's a lucky day, feeling satisfied.

​ However, the novel is the first to expose the reality of the Soviet concentration camps and how the concentration camps were operated. I was deeply moved by Solzhenitsyn's simple explanation of Schhof's day. Rather than describing life in an extreme concentration camp as despair, revenge, and melancholy, he enjoys concentrating on the process, such as the process of work, distribution, and eating of bread. He completes the day's mission diligently and returns to his dorm with energy. I was particularly struck by the fact that a day equals the length of a book. How can a day be split up into so many good bits! And I found out that it was right in the attitude of the main character's day. Had the protagonist been discouraged in advance, knowing that life in the camp would last the rest of his life, he would have lived in that environment rebellious, depressed, or harassing others.

​ But he knew that life itself was a process and that no one could measure it and dare not speak of the outcome. He was just trying to enjoy the process somehow. His day is full of the great spirit and motivation he has created for himself. In other words, when you eat a piece of bread, you eat it with good taste, like a kind of ritual.

 Through the novel, I experienced the importance of giving meaning to one's own life. In fact, these bold descriptions were very helpful in exposing the horrors of the camps at the time.

 ​The time of a day can be split into meaningful moments depending on how you enjoy it and give some significance to endure boredness. So, if you give meaning to your daily actions one by one and enjoy them to the fullest, it will be conducive to keeping things consistent. 

I wake up in the morning, take a 30-minute walk, come home, drink coffee, and sit right in front of the computer. And as soon as I sit on my desk, blog about art and related painting. Above all, it gives meaning to this behavior from various angles. When I have no motivation, I do the things on my tablet with an illustrator I want to do the most, the fun stuff. I like to draw small and compact illustrations. Because there is no stress. 

When I am in a good mood, full of energy, and overflowing with ideas, I collect and save some articles I have written for the future. It is good for preventing posts from being pushed back when you are under pressure.

And if the consistency keeps going on the blog, I reward myself. At this time, you decide on the reward list yourself. Buying me flowers, drinking Starbucks coffee, whatever. Your work will come to you as fun rather than a result if you do this. And you'll be able to keep the fun you had the first time.

When I moved to the long island from Germany in 2013, I felt my next step was vague. I didn't know about the factual American artistic circumstances. Thus I needed a more active trigger to get real-world advice such as filing taxes, building careers, worksheets, and getting health insurance. Fortunately, I found the book(The successful Artist's career guide by Margaret Peot, Northlights books) for everything that it contains artist's interviews. Therefore, I recommend you if you want to make your career in advance or shape your daily life into a work of art.