BOULDER: Children from 14 Boulder elementary schools are getting firsthand author/illustrator experience by collaborating with local celebrity, Kerry Lee MacLean, on both the writing and illustration designs for Pigs Over Boulder 2. The work will be the sixth self-published book in her best-selling and award winning Pigs Over Colorado Series, to be released in May 2012.

Students kicked off the writing with a full day at Heatherwood Elementary on October 4th, choosing to write about tubing on Boulder Creek when MacLean asked kids what they loved most about living in Boulder in the summertime. So far, MacLean has scheduled one free, full day of collaborative writing and sketching at the following public and private elementary schools:

Oct 12 - Crestview Elementary
Oct 17 - Community Montessori
Nov 1 - Flatirons Elementary
Nov 2 - Bear Creek Elementary
Nov 3 - BCSIS
Nov 9 - High Plains Elementary
Nov 10 - Bixby Elementary
Nov 16 - Uni Hill Elementary
Nov 17 - Douglass Elementary
Dec 2 - Whittier Elementary

A community-wide book release party will be held in May and the approximately 5,000 participating children will take turns autographing books as co-authors/illustrators with MacLean. Boulder children will play live music and others will be hosting (some circulating with trays of hors d'oeuvres cooked by Boulder kids). The original paintings will be displayed for sale as well.

MacLean said one of her goals is to empower children with the full author/illustrator experience, from the harvesting of great ideas, to writing and re-writing, drawing and re-drawing, to printing, binding, and finally, autographing and selling at the book