Book 1 - Ginger Bird and the Big Bad Bug
with the Hard Hard Heart
 by Dorinda Clifton

Ginger Bird gets involved with the Big Bad Bug with the Hard, Hard Heart, and she wishes she had done what her mother told her: never eat the Big Bad Bug.  But Charlie comes down in his balloon and offers Ginger Bird one of his love cakes.  And Ginger Bird is OK!  And she’s learned a lesson: ALWAYS  listen to what your mother says.

Dorinda Clifton uses her unique combination of fanciful writing skills and distinctly off-beat artistic gifts to create a series of coloring books that are delighting children and parents. 

The stories, with their rhymes, rhythms, and repetitions, come from plays Dorinda wrote to help teach English to Czech theater students in Prague. She used her drawing skills to get across the meaning of the words in the stories.

Dorinda did pre-publication readings in public libraries to get feedback about the Color Me Crazy books from children and parents. This is what the kids said about Dorinda’s books: 

            “It’s a cool book.  Fun to read out loud.”  --- Brad, age 8
            “I colored the book and the envelope and sent it to my grandmother.” --- Harry, age 5
            “It’s like the pictures are asking you to color them.” --- Sue, aged 11.

A mom who saw the books at the 2006 Wordstock Bookfair in Portland, OR, laughed and said, “This is NOT Dick and Jane!”

The books are high quality, printed on heavy paper stock that takes all kinds of color including watercolor. Tucked inside each book, securely tied with ribbon, is a large envelope.  The book can be mailed in the envelope to a child as a gift, or the child can color the book and then use the envelope to mail the book to someone.

Dorinda grew up in an old-time Hollywood family. Her father, Elmer Clifton, starred in D.W. Griffith's epic silent films, Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. Dorinda trained as a dancer and had featured roles in musical theatre: The Three Musketeers, The Song of Norway, and The Waltz King. In films, she was the star of Girl of the Limberlost and was featured in other major studio productions, working with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Busby Berkeley, Gene Loring, Doris Day, Esther Williams, Charles Chaplin, and Jimmy Durante. The Gettysburg Review and Bryant Review have published excerpts from her memoir, published by Bedbug Press, Woman in the Water: A Memoir of Growing Up in Hollywoodland...more info>