Wiggles Press Books Continues to Make History with the Release of A Dragon Valentine and Asian Language Books.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) January 10, 2012 -- Another year has passed and storybook publisher Wiggles Press Books continues to make history with the release of A Dragon Valentine just in time for African American History Month, Valentine’s Day, and the emergence of the Year of the Dragon. This is a story about two friends who get their wires crossed.

The main character Mia is invited to Ling’s house for a party two weeks before Valentine’s Day, and that’s when she begins to dream of candy shaped hearts, wonderful treats, and lots of fun at her first big girl party.

Oh boy, she is in for a BIG SURPRISE – It’s actually Chinese New Year and Chi’s Birthday – and the Wong family is celebrating the Year of the Dragon.

Readers will enjoy seeing just how they eventually make a cross cultural connection with illustrations created by Katy Loutzenhiser and Jing Wang has translated text into Chinese.

Written as a life-like American experience the author, Rochelle O’Neal Thorpe, hopes it will show how children are often engaged in their own worlds and can innocently engage each other in cultural understanding when they are allowed to share and make friendships outside their heritage.

In addition, Wiggles Press Books has release The Tales of Teacups in both Mandarin and Japanese and Gabe and the Park & His Big Toybox on Kindle – Kindle Fire now makes reading colorful picture books fun for children to read and learn. These books in print and digital are ideal for Pre-School and elementary level introduction to East Asian languages.
Wiggles Press Books offers The Tales of Teacups in English as an iTunes download by StoryChimes and in Dual Text Chinese and English on Amazon in Kindle and print. Gabe and the Park & his Big Toy Box are also in print and kindle in Chinese, Japanese and English.

The publisher seeks to develop other software releases of storybooks in Chinese and Japanese for Android and iPad with dual language capabilities by year-end 2012. In the mean-time language CD are available this Spring 2012 with hardcover editions.

Illustrator

A Dragon Valentine is uniquely illustrated by Katy Loutzenhiser who co-authored and created the artwork for Solaka, the Girl with the Long Blue Toenails. Katy delivers detailed etchings with spot colors that provide a dreamlike experience that will delight young readers.

Her minimalist style of using only soft colors against a black and white pencil in is reminiscent of mid-century art popular in picture books and magazines like the New Yorker. This second published book definitely provides an impressive start for the maturing artist.

Katy works primarily with pencil, charcoal and oil paints, taking special interest in portraits and cartooning. She studied under art professors Mark Wethli, John Bisbee and James Mullen at Bowdoin College. She has also pursued training at the Art Institute of Boston, Art Institute of Chicago and at the University of Barcelona in Spain.

Translators
Jing Wang is the Mandarin Translator for A Dragon Valentine and Gabe and the Park & his BIG TOYBOX.
She grew up as young girl from Chengdu City, and she loves playing piano and travelling. She has the dream of pursuing the field of mass communications, and right now works in New York City as a financial reporter for the Sinovision News Department. Jing Wang has a Bachelor in Communication from the University of China and a Masters of Arts in Communications from Emerson College.

Author

Rochelle has a Master of Arts degree in Integrated Marketing from Emerson College School of Communications and a Bachelors of Business Administration degree from the University of Massachusetts, Isenberg School of Management, and minored in Chinese Language and Literature. She also studied Japanese at Harvard Extension School and Showa Boston. She is conversant in Chinese, Japanese and Spanish.

Rochelle wrote her first children’s book about her own family and parenting experiences in 2004. Since then she has pen over ten short stories for children; Captain Remarkable (2004), Gabe and the Park (2006), Gabe and the Bike (2006), The Doll at the Christmas Bazaar(2008), Gabe’s Nantucket Adventure: Daffodil Dogs and Cars (2010), The Tales of Teacups (2010), Dolly’s Winter Surprise (2011), Dragon Valentine (2012),and Gabe and Storybooks (2012). Future works include The Tales of Cranes, Snowman in Central Park, and Aisha’s Gift.

Wiggles Press Books was founded in March 2009. Its objective is to provide multicultural literature for young readers created by first-time writers and illustrators. This publishing house aims to deliver storybooks for the hands of little readers that encourages an eagerness to learn and inspires the imagination.

By 2012, Wiggles Press grew its authorship from one to twenty-five new authors with a promising catalog of picture books and juvenile chapter books for Pre-K to 14 years.


Contact: Rochelle O’Neal Thorpe
Email: email@wigglespressbooks.com
URL: wigglespressbooks.com

Book: A Dragon Valentine
ISBN 978-1-935706-03-8
LCCN: 2011901172
8.5 x 11 Picture-book
Full color / 26 pages

Asian Language Books ISBN

Gabe and the Park (Chinese) 978- 1935706618 Gabe and the Park (Japanese) 978-1935706632

The Tales of Teacups (Chinese) 978-1935706250
The Tales of Teacups (Japanese) 978-1935706557
The Moon Creeper (Chinese) 978-1935706243

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