About Town

Insomnia Leads to Childrens' Book for Evanston Collaborators

Sleepless nights plus a Mother’s Day gift for his wife prompts a union of alphabetic proportion for author Steve Fiffer and illustrator Keiler Roberts. They published their book, Arctic Bears Chase, this spring.

One night in 2006, Evanston author Steve Fiffer couldn’t sleep. He jokes now that his usual method of lulling himself to sleep by recalling all the women he’s dated in alphabetical order* wasn’t working, so he attempted to string together a sentence using words beginning with all 26 letters — in alphabetical order. It’s a lot harder than you might think. After two days of very little sleep, Fiffer came up with, as he calls it, an alphabet string. He thought his 26-word sentence might work well in a picture book format, so Fiffer (who claims not to be a visual person) approached Evanston artist Keiler Roberts to add some illustrations. Years prior, Fiffer and his children presented a Mother’s Day gift to Sharon Fiffer: A mosaic art class …

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Christine Wolf

8:52 pm on Monday, May 7, 2012

Mark Larson, former Evanston Township High School English teacher and Golden Apple Award Winner, says, "I would have loved to share this book with my high school English students. Think of what they could learn about sentence structure, punctuation, and parts of speech and how they operate! plus, I know they would have loved the challenge of the task."   more ›

Local Authors Seek to Inspire, Fight Epilepsy with Children's Book

The Evanston-Skokie writing team was inspired to finish their book by the story of a 4-year-old boy who died of epilepsy while they were writing it. Now they're donating part of the book's sales to a foundation set up in his name.

The story of how Chip Gilbertson and Gina Restivo came to write a children’s book together starts with a date. The two, both single parents, met through Match.com in 2008. While there was no long-term romance in store for them as a couple, they became close friends. And they learned that they had each thought about writing a children’s book since they were young. They decided to collaborate. Three years later, the two published their first book, Fly Danny, Fly, which received a Mom’s Choice Award last month. The book, about a boy and his (possibly) imaginary flying pig, seeks to inspire creativity in its readers. It also supports a nonprofit foundation set up in honor of a 4-year-old boy, who was Restivo’s neighbor, and died from Sudden …

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About Town

Random Musings About Evanston

Topics for your consideration.

Ever have one of those days...the kind where your mind overflows with observations and questions in no particular order?  If not, consider yourself warned: it's bound to happen at least once.  Today's my day for a mishmash of musings.  I'd love to know your thoughts on any of the topics below:   Whew…glad that’s over! Northwestern University’s winter quarter exams end today and spring break officially begins.    Hitting the road A friend of mine whose daughter is enrolled at Giordano Dance School reports the school announced last week it's moving to Chicago.  Another Evanston institution, Roycemore School is also on the move…though it will remain in Evanston.  The school's original site is 640 N. Lincoln and the new site is at 1200 Davis …

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Candace Hill

7:42 am on Saturday, March 19, 2011

We did h ave those lovely independent bookstores, and they were all put out of business by Barnes and Noble before Borders ever came on the scene. When it comes to scheduling book signings, this is better done by the marketing department of the publisher. These folks have relationships with the bookstores, and will arrange signings for a series of stores over a period of time, if they feel your …   more ›