Crafty Llama: A Story About Crafting, Friendship, and the Very Best Gifts

Crafty Llama is a sweet story about friendship, crafting, and sharing your gifts and talents with others.

The story begins on the front matter (i.e. the copyright page and the dedication page) with illustrations of Llama receiving a haircut. Llama returns home with her bundle of “hair” and decides to do something special and lovely with it. While she isn’t sure what she exactly wants to do, she begins to knit as that is when she does her best “thinking”. Soon, her friends join in with their own crafts… except for Beaver. He doesn’t like making something unless it is useful. In the end, Beaver, using his talents, comes up with a very useful structure for everyone, and Llama makes the perfect gift for Beaver to catch some much deserved Zzzs under.

Written and illustrated by a husband and wife, Mike Kerr and Renata Liwska, Crafty Llama shares their love, admiration, and inspiration of handmade crafts. Kerr is an instructor at the Alberta College of Art and Design where he has taught many successful illustrators. Liwska has illustrated books such as The Quiet Book, The Loud Book¸ and The Christmas Quiet Book written by Deborah Underwood, as well as Boom Snot Twitty This Way That Way written by Doreen Cronin.

Crafty Llama is filled with numerous different animal characters that are portrayed as cute, kind, and playful. Renata Liwska’s illustrations are beautiful and were carefully crafted by being drawn in pencil and then coloured digitally. The resulting effect makes it appear as though the texture of the animals’ fur and hair can be felt on the pages throughout the book. The colours are soft and soothing to the eye. The animals' facial expressions wonderfully portray their emotions of thinking, wondering, happiness, excitement, worry, and thankfulness.

Crafty Llama is the perfect book to cozy up in a knitted blanket or quilt and read!