A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt-Guests: Josh Funk and His Daughter, Chloe

Posted on by Penny Parker Klostermann
Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon
Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon

Hello, Great Readers of our series! Just In case you haven’t visited before, let me tell you a little about A Great Nephew and A Great Aunt. My great nephew, Landon (a seventh-grader) and I (his great aunt) collaborate. I write a poem which he illustrates. We started this collaboration in the fall of 2014 and have had so much fun with it that we decided to invite others along. Landon and I will continue to have a new episode on one Friday of each month. The other Fridays are filling up quickly with guests. I have created a page on my website to view all the episodes of A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt. Click HERE to visit the page and enjoy past episodes.

April is National Poetry Month! So  . . .

National Poetry Month brings poetry to the forefront. And if you’re looking for poetry for kids, the Poetry Friday Roundup is a great place to start. The roundup is at Teaching Authors today. If you’d like to know more about Poetry Friday, click HERE for an explanation by Renee LaTulippe.

To find out how kidlit bloggers are celebrating poetry this month, head over to Jama’s Alphabet Soup where she’s rounded up links to a world of poetry fun.

Today it’s my pleasure to share a creative collaboration from . . .

Josh Funk and His Daughter, Chloe (12 years old)

From Josh: We’re a cat family. And we like imagining what cats might do when people aren’t watching. So we have a running idea of a secret society of black cats who meet during the new moon and do secret things. They might seem nefarious at first, but they’re still cats – so when they find string, they go nuts and play. We wrote the words together and drawing hundreds of cats proved difficult, so my daughter went with a single image of Mistress Superior. Thank you for inviting us to share for Poetry Friday!

The Poem by Chloe and Josh

The Art by Chloe

art by Chloe

Many thanks to Chloe and Josh for sharing their meow-velous talents with us today.
Pretty pu-r-r-r-r-r-fect…don’t you think?

Meet Josh: Josh Funk writes silly stories and somehow tricks people into publishing them as picture books – such as Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast and the brand new sequel, The Case of the Stinky Stench, along with Pirasaurs!, Dear Dragon, It’s Not Jack and the Beanstalk, Albie Newton, and more!

Josh is a board member of The Writers’ Loft in Sherborn, MA and was the co-coordinator of the 2016 and 2017 New England Regional SCBWI Conferences.

Josh grew up in New England and studied Computer Science in school. Today, he still lives in New England and when not writing Java code or Python scripts, he drinks Java coffee and writes picture book manuscripts.

Josh is terrible at writing bios, so please help fill in the blanks. Josh enjoys _______ during ________ and has always loved __________. He has played ____________ since age __ and his biggest fear in life is being eaten by a __________.

Find out more about Josh at www.joshfunkbooks.com and on twitter @joshfunkbooks.

31 thoughts on “A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt-Guests: Josh Funk and His Daughter, Chloe”

  1. What a fantastic collaboration. We are cat people too (don’t tell our dog) and we project all kinds of emotions and motivations on them. We love them at least as much as they love and entertain us right back. What a fabulous post this week. Thank you!

    Liked by 1 person

  4. How fabulous! I simply must know the mystery that lurks within. Love that “flicker of whiskers” and I think I would have been able to tell that was “Mistress Superior” even without the title—something about the look in those feline eyes. Well done, Josh and Chloe, and thanks as always for this fun series, Penny!

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  10. There is nothing funnier than sneaking peeks at cats when they don’t know you’re there. I love that “flicker of whiskers” and the illustration looks a bit sneaky, well done. A shoelace factory must be heaven for cats I think. Thanks for the collaboration, such fun!

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  14. I knew I liked Josh for a reason – he’s a cat person,too! Well done to both him & his daughter. I know Josh doesn’t consider himself a writer of ‘poetry,’ per se, but this is very good – I especially like the internal rhyme of visible/flicker/whiskers. And Chloe’s kitty reminds me of Sarah Weeks’ Glamourpuss. (Welcome to the club, Josh!)

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