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My name is Erin Slabonik, and I am a friendly free spirit who is young at heart while an old soul. I am on a quest to constantly improve myself while encouraging the same in others. Writing and rhyming are of my many creative passions, and words are the primary vehicles I use on this journey.
In my free time, I prefer to be surrounded by loved ones and friends. I absolutely love animals, and enjoy spending time in nature, as I find it to be not only a peaceful retreat, but also find that it inspires my painting, photography, and writing.
I've written from the time I can remember, and continue to write with a purpose to positively impact my readers. While my works tend to be very silly, light-hearted and fun, they all tell a story, and hold value that I find integral to maintaining an active imagination.
It is very important to me that my readers are part of the experience, so I've developed a curriculum to accompany each of my books, and hold workshops involving my readers in my process to better my chances of having a real solid impact on as many of them as possible.
My first workshop, The Great Learny Journey, has been successful, and is currently active. I have several more ready in waiting, as well as many works in progress. Each of them are unique, giving participants a hands on experience, making them part of the finished product, and leaving them with a sense of accomplishment stemming from their imaginations.
Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
The Great Learny Journey is a mixed media interactive book for children, written by Erin Slabonik and illustrated by 21 illustrators whose ages span from 4 years to 14 years old. The contributors were attendees at the author's Great Learny Journey Workshops, and they were encouraged to use their artistic visions in reaction to the author's poems. Each workshop included discussions of the concepts and ideas behind the poems, and then they proceeded from discussions to recreating their visions. The poems are humorous and loosely rhyming, and sometimes seem like limericks, but limericks designed for kids and those who are still young at heart. One of the early poems deals with names and how kids are sometimes picked on and ridiculed by their peers because they have what are considered to be funny names or names that can be mocked. Each page is brimming with artwork. Some of the offerings are primitive in technique, but still very expressive; others are complex and intricate with relatively successful attempts at perspective. There are pen and ink drawings, clay images, water color paintings, scratch drawings, and more. The author includes blank pages at the end of each poem to allow the reader to get involved in the creative process.
Erin Slabonik's mixed media interactive book, The Great Learny Journey, is wonderful, witty, and brimming with imagination, humor, and creativity. This homage to the creative spark in every living being is but the first of the author's Journeys, and I'm looking forward to experiencing more inspired silliness and artistic prowess. I particularly loved the Stranger Danger story and thought the climax was a riot, but I won't share it lest I spoil the surprise for a reader. In the front of this book is a listing of the illustrators who participated in this program and who can now say that their artwork has been published. What an awesome thing this is for an aspiring young artist, not to mention what a grand scheme The Great Learny Journey itself is to encourage those who never saw themselves as particularly artistic to develop new skills and achieve their own artistic visions. I chuckled over the humorous prose, but, honestly, the drawings, paintings, sculptures and other artistic creations found throughout this book stole the show for me. I just couldn't stop examining those images. The Great Learny Journey, its author, and each of the talented illustrators who contributed to this effort are most highly recommended.
