illustrated – Karen B. Jones

My most recent project has been illustrating a book for Jean Ball-Maurer titled Rocky The Human Squirrel. It’s a short, illustrated chapter book. I did the color cover (front and back) and 10 black and white interior illustrations.

She just emailed me that that the paperback is up on Amazon now. She’s so excited to see her first book out in print! Here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BW385B6V

The ebook will be coming in a few days. I’ll post about that when it’s up and I’ll share a look at the illustrations pretty soon also. In the meantime, here’s the cover:

The front cover of a book with the title, "ROCKY The Human Squirrel" and bylines for "Jean Ball-Maurer" and "Illustrated by Karen B. Jones". The word "ROCKY" in the title is in all-caps and uses an acorn for the "O". The cover artwork shows a cartoon squirrel standing on a branch holding a tree bark sign reading "FREE TO BE ME". Behind the squirrel and branch are tree leaves on the sides and top and blue sky behind everything. There is a copyright notice across the top that reads, "Copyright © 2023 Jean Maurer. All rights reserved."

Hey, I haven’t plugged The Genie Loophole lately. This is a book by Paul Maguire that I illustrated earlier this year and it’s available in paperback through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers.

It’s about a boy named Teddy who finds a genie’s bottle washed up on the beach one summer day. As you can guess, this causes all sorts of trouble for him.

It’s a middle-grade chapter book with one black and white illustration per chapter. (You can view the images in my portfolio here.) It was tremendous fun to work on. The character design is based on the author’s son, Finn.

Go buy a copy! It’s a fun story for a kid around 9 years old. It would make a great Christmas gift.