A hundred and one students age 6 through 12 from Wallace Elementary School have had their artwork published in the “101 Wallace School Frogs Coloring Book.” The book, published in May by Jersey City resident Susan Newman, supports Frogs are Green, a Jersey City-based educational non-profit Newman founded to raise awareness about the decline and possible extinction of amphibians caused by global warming.
The idea for the book came after Newman received 400 entries from Wallace Elementary School in an international contest her organization has run for seven years, the Kids’ Art Contest.
The contest received 1,441 artworks from 32 countries, including Sri Lanka, China, and Turkey, and from around the U.S.
“Every year our reach grows farther and farther and it gets bigger and bigger,” said Newman.
Newman, a part time Wallace teacher, collaborated with the district and with art teacher Lynn Fusco to encourage Wallace students to submit their drawings of frogs.
“Mrs. Fusco decided to take on the contest as a project and work with as many students she could,” said Newman. “Every time I would substitute at Wallace, she would hand me another stack of entries. I had no idea it would become as widespread as it did.”
Newman said it was because of the widespread involvement that she decided to create the coloring book.
“When I got all the art from them, I said I had to do something more with them, because they all did such a great job,” said Newman. “All their submissions were in black and white art, so I thought it would make a great coloring book. I picked the top 101 drawings. We wanted to make sure there was a variety. There is a little bit of fantasy and a little bit of reality and a lot of different types of art in the book. I scanned all the pieces and designed the cover, put it together, and published the book through my non profit.”
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“I wanted to honor their hard work and accomplishment.” – Lynn Fusco
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A learning experience
Newman said not only did the children draw frogs for the contest, but they learned about them as well.
“They learned about the patterns frogs have which you can see in their drawings,” said Newman. “They learned about some frog’s ability to camouflage. Some of the art shows frogs disappearing into the background; they learned what frogs eat and what eats frogs, some of the pictures have bugs… There was a lot of learning going on in addition to just art.”
The submissions were also displayed in the lobby of Hoboken City Hall at 94 Washington St.
Fusco and Newman decided to throw a publishing party for the kids in the school’s cafeteria that included cake and copies of the book so the children could see their hard work.
“I just thought it was great idea,” said Fusco. “I wanted to honor their hard work and accomplishment. I don’t think any other school has had a coloring book published in Hoboken.”
“The look on their faces was unbelievable,” said Newman. “They were so excited. I don’t think they really realized they would be published until they saw the book themselves. They were like, ‘holy moly.’ ”
The coloring book is available at frogsaregreen.com and Amazon Smile. If purchased on Amazon, the Wallace Parent Team Organization will receive a portion of the proceeds as long as the purchaser enters Wallace Parent Team Organization as their charity.
According to Newman, the coloring book will also be available at Little City Books on First and Bloomfield streets for $9.95.
Marilyn Baer can be reached at marilynb@hudsonreporter.com.
