King Cole Theatricals – Stellaluna

Sunday, November 29, 2009, 3:00 PM and 4:30 PM, Smith Theatre

A spectacular new musical based on the best-selling children’s book by Janell Cannon! Enjoy the heartwarming story of Stellaluna’s journey as she is separated from her mother before she can fly. She is adopted by a family of birds who turn her world literally upside down and teach her the essence of friendship in humorous and touching ways.

www.kidsentertainment.net/stellaluna.htm

pbskids.org/readingrainbow/books/episode_detail_108.html

Author Janell Cannon


Self-taught artist and writer Janell Cannon has always admired animals,
especially creatures that have been misunderstood or neglected. Her love of
bats, spiders, Komodo dragons, and snakes inspired her work at a public
library, where she developed award-winning summer reading programs about
these unusual animals. While conducting research for a program about bats,
Janell found only two books on the subject, both out of print. She decided it
was time to make her own story about these wonderful creatures.


Janell Cannon created Stellaluna (1994) in hopes that she would transform
young people’s fear of bats into informed affection. “Fruit bats don’t drink
blood and won’t get caught in your hair. I hope to show them in a positive
light so that they might be given more respect,” she says. Janell points out in
the book that fruit bats benefit our environment as they pollinate plants while
foraging for nectar and distribute, through their droppings, seeds from fruit
eaten whole. The artist and writer also wanted to touch readers with a story
about a friendship shared by two different kinds of creatures, a bat and three
baby birds. Cannon likens the book to “a mirror, so that anyone who looks into
it will see their own story their own way.” She never suspected her book would
become a runaway bestseller.


After the success of Stellaluna, Janell left her job at the library in order to
devote more time to writing and illustrating books. She was happy finally to
have the opportunity to tell the adventures of one of the mysterious, gentle
creatures who entered her imagination more than ten years ago. Before
Stellaluna was even a thought, Janell was creating series of elaborate, detailed
drawings of what she calls Fuzzheads. In Trupp: A Fuzzhead Tale (Harcourt
Brace, April, 1995), she has created the first of many stories about these
intelligent animals as they explore the world of humans.


Janell Cannon has ideas for many more books about Fuzzheads and “animals
that make people uncomfortable.” She works from her home/studio in southern
California, which she shares with a cat and a parrot.


copyright Harcourt Brace & Company