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WORK TITLE: Springtime Storks
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WEBSITE: https://www.chelseaobyrne.ca/
CITY: Vancouver
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COUNTRY: Canada
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PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Emily Carr University, BFA, 2016. Working towards an MFA from Emily Carr University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Artist and illustrator. Has worked for many years as an art educator with both children and adults. Has worked with numerous nonprofit organizations and commercial clients, including The Globe and Mail, Door Dash, Girl Scouts of America, City of Vancouver, University of British Columbia, and SAD Magazine.
AWARDS:Silver Medal Award, International Student Illustration Competition, 2016; Excellence in Book Design, Alcuin Society, 2020, for Hello, Crow!; Bologna Children’s Book Fair finalist, 2025, for Springtime Storks.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
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Chelsea O’Byrne is an artist, illustrator, and teacher based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her commercial work includes creating artwork for clients such as Girl Scouts of America, Door Dash, and The Globe and Mail. She has also illustrated numerous children’s books, mostly for ones written by other authors. In an interview on the website of Emily Carr University of Art and Design, where she did her BFA, O’Byrne talked about her artistic approach: “That’s my favourite thing about illustration. . . . It can be a very representational art form, but there’s actually a lot of room to be abstract and introduce layers of metaphor. I always try to find some way to bring a little abstraction to my stories. And all of my favourite children’s books have that deeper layer of meaning that can be inferred.”
Hello, Crow! was O’Byrne’s picture book debut. Written by Candace Savage, the story features Franny, a girl who has made friends with a crow by leaving crumbs. In return, the crow brings Franny small gifts. Initially, Franny’s dad thinks she is just making up an imaginary friend, but he comes to realize that the friendship between the girl and bird is real.
A contributor in Kirkus Reviews particularly appreciated O’Byrne’s illustrations, writing that they “celebrate the wonders nature offers this resourceful protagonist.” They called the artwork “very child friendly” and called the book as a whole a “gift for the nature shelf.” Katie Callahan also enjoyed the book, describing it as a “verdant and engaging read-aloud, perfect for budding naturalists.”
Springtime Storks, written by Carol Joy Munro, is another children’s book about birds and is actually based on a true story about two storks (who mate for life) and what happens when one of them is shot by a hunter. An older man and his granddaughter rush to help the wounded bird, and they are able to nurse it back to health. Unfortunately, the stork can no longer fly, but its mate returns to find it in the spring so that they can raise another brood of chicks together. O’Byrne used chalk pastel and color pencil for her illustrations that convey how much the storks care for each other.
Writing in BookPage, Linda M. Castellitto enjoyed the book throughly. She highlighted O’Byrne’s “beautiful” illustrations and appreciated how the “emotive art captures the storks’ joyful reunion and parental pride in their chicks.” Castellitto heartily recommended the book to “budding naturalists.” A writer in Kirkus Reviews wrote, “This arresting long-distance tale of animal devotion will captivate readers.” They described O’Byrne’s artwork as “attractive.”
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BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
BookPage, December, 2024, Linda M. Castellitto, review of Springtime Storks: A Migration Love Story, p. 30.
Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2019, review of Hello, Crow!; February 1, 2024, review of Two Homes, One Heart; October 1, 2024, review of Springtime Storks.
School Library Journal, September, 2019, Kate Callahan, review of Hello, Crow!, pp. 105+; September, 2020, Molly Dettmann, review of Teatime around the World, p. 106.
ONLINE
Chelsea O’Byrne website, https://www.chelseaobyrne.ca/ (April 25, 2025).
Emily Carr University of Art and Design website, https://www.ecuad.ca/ (January 16, 2024), Perrin Grauer, “Chelsea O’Byrne Illustrations Illuminate a Pair of Upcoming Children’s Books.”
Chelsea O’Byrne is an artist and illustrator living and working on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, Canada). Chelsea uses a combination of many materials in her work, including gouache, watercolour, coloured pencil, pastel, graphite, ink, and various printmaking techniques. Her work has earned awards and recognition from the BC Arts Council, Access Copyright Foundation, the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, Kirkus, and The New York Times.
Chelsea is represented by Writers House Literary Agency. In addition to her work as an illustrator, she regularly teaches art workshops for all ages.
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I have been teaching art workshops for all ages for over eight years. My workshops emphasize collaboration, material exploration, and being physically engaged with drawing. My kids and adult workshops both encourage students to move around, view the paper from many different angles, and mix multiple drawing materials together. We always work collaboratively, inspired by a central theme or question. My main thematic interests in my workshops are place and memory – how urban environments, home environments and nature all shape our understanding of the world and of ourselves, and how these understandings are distorted or enhanced through memory and imagination.
I am available for in-person public speaking and workshops at schools and libraries in the BC Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island or Gulf Islands, or online workshops anywhere in the world. My workshops at schools include a Q+A about being a professional illustrator and technical demonstrations of my process. If you’re a teacher or librarian and you’d like me to visit your school or library, please email chelsea@chelseaobyrne.ca
Chelsea O’Byrne Illustrations Illuminate a Pair of Upcoming Children’s Books
Chelsea O Byrne 022 ECU 2024 01 11
Chelsea O’Byrne in her East Vancouver studio in January, 2024. (Photo by Perrin Grauer)
This post is 13 months old and may be out of date.
By Perrin Grauer
Posted on January 16, 2024
The artist, ECU alum and ECU staff member brings her rich, thoughtful artwork to two new books from major international publishers.
A pair of books illustrated by artist and ECU staff member Chelsea O’Byrne (BFA 2016) are slated for publication in 2024.
The first, written by Jessica Young and published by Harper Collins, is titled Two Homes, One Heart. The second, written by Carol Joy Munro, is titled Springtime Storks: A Migration Love Story, and will be published under Astra Publishing’s Minerva imprint.
While both are children’s books, each deals with difficult subject matter. Two Homes One Heart, for instance, is a book about divorce.
“It is really hard to talk with kids about divorce and frame it in a way that’s not just doom and gloom and scary,” she tells me. “So I really love this story, which is very joyful and focused on the family’s journey of healing. The love in their family doesn’t go away, it just takes a different shape. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s a really uplifting story.”
Two Homes One Heart
Using colour to establish a conceptual theme, Chelsea brings the story behind Two Homes, One Heart to life in her illustrations. (Image courtesy Chelsea O’Byrne).
Chelsea, who is also a teacher, found inspiration for the book while reading Leo Lionni’s classic children’s tale, Little Blue and Little Yellow, to a class of preschool-aged kids.
She decided to focus on colour as a theme, using watercolour, oil pastel, pencil crayon and other dry media to bring her vibrant images to life. She painted the left side of the book in blue for the father, and the right side in yellow for the mother. The daughter, who moves back and forth between parents, is represented in green.
“By the end of the book, both sides have a fully colourful world again after they’ve healed from the divorce,” Chelsea says.
Springtime Storks, meanwhile, is based on a true story, and begins with an incident of momentary violence. A female stork is shot by a hunter, leaving her unable to fly. And though she’s nursed back to health by a kind farmer, she is never able to migrate again.
But storks mate for life, and every spring, her partner travels thousands of miles to be with her again.
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In these hand-drawn thumbnails from the wall of Chelsea’s studio, she works to establish the vernal colour palette and other visual themes for Springtime Storks. (Photo by Perrin Grauer)
As with the subject behind Two Homes, One Heart, Chelsea says Springtime Stork’s opening scene proved challenging to illustrate. A fiery blast, a single drop of blood and a fallen feather gesture toward the injury, but neither guns nor hunters are depicted, Chelsea says.
And any darkness is quickly forgotten as readers enter a dreamy visual world inspired by the work of Croatian folk painter Ivan Rabuzin. Croatia, she notes, is the country where the real-life storks raised nearly 70 chicks over 20 years.
“I wanted to pay homage to Rabuzin in the book, because so much of the story takes place up in the sky,” Chelsea says. “I was playing with the clouds and making sculptural shapes in the sky, which is what his clouds look like.”
Baby blues, bright pinks and green foliage light up a landscape in full bloom as the story moves toward spring, when the male stork returns home.
The Springtime Storks
In her illustrations for Springtime Storks, Chelsea paid homage to artist Ivan Rabuzin, who hailed from the same country where the real-life storks lived. (Image courtesy Chelsea O’Byrne)
Chelsea says using colour and form as emotional and metaphorical cues is one of the most satisfying parts of her practice.
“That’s my favourite thing about illustration,” she says. “It can be a very representational art form, but there’s actually a lot of room to be abstract and introduce layers of metaphor. I always try to find some way to bring a little abstraction to my stories. And all of my favourite children’s books have that deeper layer of meaning that can be inferred.”
Two Homes, One Heart is available for pre-order now, with publication in March, 2024. Springtime Storks is slated for publication in the fall.
And don’t miss Chelsea’s gorgeous contributions to Cary Fagan’s middle-grade story, Hans Christian Andersen Lives Next Door, out now via Tundra Books.
Visit Chelsea’s website and follow her on Instagram to learn more about her work.
Visit ECU online to learn more about studying Illustration at Emily Carr.
Savage, Candace HELLO, CROW! Greystone Kids (Children's Fiction) $17.95 9, 24 ISBN: 978-1-77164-444-0
With patience and persistence, Franny befriends a crow.
Franny's father calls her a "featherhead," but what she's paying attention to is the natural world. Savage, who has written extensively about nature for adult audiences, both tells and shows us an antidote to Richard Louv's "nature-deficit disorder" in this satisfying picture book. Her nature-loving protagonist leaves a mess inside but finds endless entertainment out of doors. Seated on a rock with her sandwich, she drops crumbs that attract a crow. The next day she purposefully brings food, and soon the crow begins to bring her small gifts. Eventually, her father recognizes that the crow is not imaginary; their friendship is real. The illustrations celebrate the wonders nature offers this resourceful protagonist, especially in a spread illustrating "a dozen different ways to pass the time while she waited" for the crow to appear--climbing trees, swinging on a tire swing, reading in a hammock, looking through binoculars, drawing, making a daisy chain, even helpfully trimming a bush. O'Byrne's illustrations show an appealingly freckle-faced white girl living with an indulgent, if distracted, father, also white. These images are relatively flat and childlike, and the effect is very child friendly. In an afterword, the writer tells readers a bit more about crows and poses an unanswered question: "Do they actually like or love their human helpers?"
A gift for the nature shelf. (Picture book. 4-8)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Savage, Candace: HELLO, CROW!" Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2019. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A593064459/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=4e19b245. Accessed 15 Mar. 2025.
SAVAGE, Candace. Hello, Crow, illus. by Chelsea O'Byrne. 32p. Greystone Kids. Sept. 2019. Tr $17.95. ISBN 9781771644440.
K-Gr 3--Franny Featiierhead, a whimsical young girl with pitch-black hair and rosy cheeks peppered with freckles, is determined to befriend a crow that she meets while eating lunch atop her favorite rock. The unlikely friendship between the crow and the child develops due to Franny's messy nature. Readers are first introduced to Franny through the colorful illustrations of a kitchen in disarray with water overflowing from the sink, a toodibaish on the floor, and coffee cups sprinkling down onto the counter. They get a glimpse inside Franny's mind as she stares, marveling at the wonders of nature outside her window. Lush green trees, vibrantly colored flowers, and the animals that call the world outside their home envelope her as she enjoys her lunch. Unbeknownst to Franny, a dropped crumb leads her to her new friend. The curious crow with feathers as black as night and dark, beady eyes sneaks closer to Franny, until he steals away his prized crumb and flies off. Franny shares her excitement of meeting the crow with her father who quickly discounts the idea of a friendship. Through Franny's persistence and the occasional crumbs dropped from her lunch, the crow returns, leaving little gifts on her favorite rock each day. One day, a simple moment teaches her father that friends can be found in unlikely places. VERDICT A verdant and engaging read-aloud, perfect for budding naturalists.--Katie Callahan, Howard County Public Schools, MD
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
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Callahan, Katie. "SAVAGE, Candace. Hello, Crow." School Library Journal, vol. 65, no. 8, Sept. 2019, pp. 105+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A597858995/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=4e365728. Accessed 15 Mar. 2025.
WAISSBLUTH, Denyse. Teatime Around the World. illus. by Chelsea O'Byrne. 48p. Greystone. Oct. 2020. Tr $17.95. ISBN 9781771646017.
Gr 3-5--This nonfiction title provides insight into teas enjoyed around the world. A fun poem accompanies the refreshing, informational bits. Filled with rich artwork to complement each new scene, readers will not only engage with the fascinating information but will also enjoy the singsong poem that is unveiled one or two words at a time. As the narrative moves from scenes set in Chile to Hong Kong, many different people are depicted. The artwork is clearly presented and touches on nuances in various cultures without using stereotypes. An author's note reveals the inspiration for writing the book. While this text is not meant to cover the entire history of tea, it is a tribute to the drink. VERDICT This colorful book is filled with refreshingly diverse scenes depicting how tea is enjoyed around the world. A great purchase for elementary nonfiction picture book collections, especially where more cultural appreciation texts are needed.--Molly Dettmann, Norman North H.S., OK
KEY: * Excellent in relation to other titles on the same subject or in the same genre | Tr Hardcover trade binding | lib. ed. Publisher's library binding | Board Board book | pap. Paperback I e eBook original | BL Bilingual | POP Popular Picks
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
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Dettmann, Molly. "WAISSBLUTH, Denyse. Teatime Around the World." School Library Journal, vol. 66, no. 9, Sept. 2020, p. 106. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A634532142/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=de5d68ac. Accessed 15 Mar. 2025.
Young, Jessica TWO HOMES, ONE HEART Harper/HarperCollins (Children's None) $19.99 3, 12 ISBN: 9780063253971
A separation grows into expanded love.
After a couple--one who has shoulder-length black hair, the other red-haired and bearded--decide to live apart, their child navigates the ensuing changes. First, the bearded parent sets up a new home with help from the child, but soon the little one says goodbye and returns to the black-haired parent's house. Then comes the inevitable question: "Are we still a family?" New experiences and traditions are formed, the new home adds a puppy, and the additional physical space creates room to metaphorically grow into. The child still spends time with both parents, but in different locations now, and later, all three attend a community-wide event. Through love continually shared, the two homes become more and more connected. Brief, rhyming verse flows well across the pages. Though the text is spare, the characters' love for one another is palpable. The mixed-media illustrations are homey, populating the pages with long-limbed bodies and many cozy details. The established home and black-haired parent are awash in yellow, while the new home and bearded parent are dominated by shades of blue. The child, at first stuck in between, is an earthy green. But more green elements begin to appear in each house, with other colors seeping in to balance the scenes, and by the end a literal rainbow spans the homes. The family trio has pale skin.
Full of heart. (Picture book. 3-6)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Young, Jessica: TWO HOMES, ONE HEART." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A780841030/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=ce122866. Accessed 15 Mar. 2025.
Springtime Storks
By Carol Joy Munro
Illustrated by Chelsea O'Byrne
PICTURE BOOK
One sunny day as she's flying high above a patchwork of rolling farmland, a sudden blast changes Katerina the stork's life. Felled by a hunter's bullet, she lies helpless, her beloved mate, Luka, squawking in distress, until a farmer and his granddaughter carry her home.
As the duo tend to Katerina's injured wing, Luka hovers outside, peeking through windows to reassure himself Katerina is safe--and ensure she knows he is close by. But as winter looms, the storks must part. "He would not bear the coming cold," Katerina explains. "I could not bear the flight. And so we said goodbye."
In some tales, the story might end with that wrenching separation. But in author Carol Joy Munro's moving and hopeful debut, Springtime Storks: A Migration Love Story (Minerva, $18.99, 9781662651212), that separation is just the beginning. Like the real-life Croatian storks that inspired Munro's story, Katerina and Luka continue their love story in an unexpected way.
Chelsea O'Byrne's beautiful, often fanciful, chalk pastel and colored pencil illustrations cleverly convey Katerina's longing for Luka: At night, a stork-shaped silhouette swoops through the stars, and by day, as Katerina stretches her wings, Luka-shaped clouds encourage her. O'Byrne's emotive art captures the storks' joyful reunion and parental pride in their chicks.
Budding naturalists will flock to Springtime Storks and its memorable celebration of loyalty and devotion, call to protect and conserve wildlife, and heartfelt reminder that love can prevail despite unanticipated challenges.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
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Castellitto, Linda M. "Springtime Storks." BookPage, Dec. 2024, p. 30. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A815804678/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=64a41a45. Accessed 15 Mar. 2025.
Munro, Carol Joy SPRINGTIME STORKS Minerva/Astra Books for Young Readers (Children's None) $18.99 12, 10 ISBN: 9781662651212
Munro draws from actual events for this story of Katerina and Luka, a monogamous stork couple whose bond endures even the harshest setback.
During the birds' southward migration, Katerina is shot down over a village. A farmer and a little girl rescue her, bring her home, and nurse her back to health. Her mate remains nearby, afraid to approach, but eventually comes to her. Katerina, unable to fly, urges Luka to leave before winter. He returns late the next spring. They have three chicks together, and before Luka leaves again, he promises to return early next spring with their children, "when the magnolias bloom." The real story, recounted in the author's note, is somewhat different but still focuses on the couple's fidelity. Munro explains that a bird named Malena was shot while traveling from Croatia to South Africa, 8,000 miles away; a villager cared for her and built her a nest on the roof of his house. A male stork, Klepetan, noticed Malena, and the two formed a relationship. Klepetan would migrate but return to her each spring, year after year. Livestreamed video kept the world apprised of their activities. Narrated by Katerina, the story is both immediate and tender, ideal for individual and group sharing. The large white birds with orange beaks swoop gracefully across green fields in attractive naïve-style illustrations rendered in chalk pastel, colored pencil, and digital pencil.
This arresting long-distance tale of animal devotion will captivate readers, especially bird lovers. (information on the other birds mentioned in the story)(Picture book. 4-7)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Munro, Carol Joy: SPRINGTIME STORKS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Oct. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A810315238/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=8dd00919. Accessed 15 Mar. 2025.