Last week my new book, ALLY-SAURUS AND THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL went on sale. The following day I received a starred review from Kirkus! Read it here: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/richard-torrey-74492/ally-saurus-the-first-day-of-school/

My new book, ALLY-SAURUS AND THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL is available in stores and online today!

MY DOG, BOB (Holiday House Publishers) comes out in September. Really happy with how everything looks in print. Won't show you tight shots of the pages, but I will show you the endpapers, which may be the best endpapers I've ever done. In fact, these endpapers might get me an Oscar nomination for best endpapers if there was an Oscar for best endpapers....which there isn't so...uh...yeah...

Last Friday I had the pleasure of introducing ALLY-SAURUS AND THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL for the first time to the wonderful students and teachers at Rolling Hills Primary School in Commack, NY. An overwhelmingly positive response! After a year and a half of writing, drawing, and planning, there is no better feeling.

We’re all experts at inventing reasons for why we can’t get our work done.
For those times I try to remember Steven Pressfield’s admonition in his awesome book, the WAR of ART:

"Tolstoy had 13 kids and wrote War and Peace."

Two years ago I scribbled the first draft of the story....

....and yesterday a box arrived with advance copies of ALLY-SAURUS AND THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

Always an exciting day!

For my fourth birthday, my great-grandparents gave me The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf. It quickly became my favorite book, especially the incredible illustrations by Robert Lawson.

Lawson's ink drawings of Ferdinand inspired me to become an illustrator, and as you can see by my handiwork on one of the pages (below) I began practicing right away-then was sent to my room. In the end all that early training paid off as I grew up to write and illustrate children's books. On a shelf, next to copies of my own books, sits my copy of Ferdinand...Thank you Nanny and Poppy.

With that, I want to welcome you to my new website and blog (hate the word blog...sounds like something you take antibiotics to cure). Anyway, procrastinating caveman that I am, I launched my last website (richardtorreystudios.com) exactly five years ago this month and then never updated it...mostly because I didn't know how (hence the caveman reference). As the cobwebs formed and the dust built up, I stopped posting to the website's blog and pretty soon it all sort of went to sleep.

But I didn't.

In fact I've now written/illustrated 14 books-three of which come out in the next 10 months. Three books in the next ten months! If that's not reason enough to stop procrastinating and redo my site than I don't know what is.

So I hope you like it. I did it myself. It's not perfect but it's not bad for a caveman. In closing, I pledge to make this new site worth visiting, and to update it more frequently than my old one...which shouldn't be too hard.

TORREY, Richard. Because. illus. by author. unpaged. CIP. HarperCollins. June 2011. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-0-06-156173-3. LC 2010010510. PreS-Gr 1–Young Jack promises to show examples of why “because” is a “real answer.” Amusing drawings and the boy’s single-sentence clarifications for questionable behavior justify why cereal is spread across the floor, why the dog is in time-out, and why boy and dog are covered in strawberry icing. Readers don’t truly learn why Jack is swathed in Band-Aids, but Torrey skillfully counterpoints scenes such as the child relinquishing his teddy and blanket, then reclaiming the toy “Because he needs me.” The final “because” effectively wraps up the tale, as Jack gently embraces his tethered tail-wagging pooch: “Because sometimes I have to play with my other friends.” Torrey paints scenes of a suburban family with a fully stocked kitchen and toy chest, a beach vacation, and an iPod. The story will allow youngsters to recall fondly their own “because” moments.–Gay Lynn Van Vleck, Henrico County Library, Glen Allen, VA