Thursday, July 2, 2009
Praise for My Blog!
Featured Blogs:
Johnette Downing: http://johnettedowning.blogspot.com/
Johnette has the most important aspect of a blog covered: she updates regularly! Johnette posts her tour dates, reviews, notes from fans, award information, and any other important news. She also has fun photos posted, links on the side, and an online version of tic-tac-toe (just for fun!). Johnette also has a superb website, which I will feature in a future newsletter.
I have never had praise for my Blog before; that's really cool. Thanks Caitlin and Pelican Publishing. I have nothing but praise for you too!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Tour Dates - July 2009
July 5 from 3:15-5:00, Kids Stage, Mandeville Seafood Festival, Mandeville, LA
July 6, Ripples Camp, New Orleans, LA
July 8 at 10:00 & 2:00, Allen Parish Library, Kinder & Oberlin, LA
July 9 at 10:00, Allen Parish Library, Oakdale, LA
July 13 at 9:30, Castle Tree Camp, New Orleans, LA
July 14 at 10:00 & 1:30, Plaquemines Parish Library, Belle Chasse, LA
July 15 at 10:00, West Feliciana Parish Library, St. Francisville, LA
July 16 at 10:00 & 2:00, Iberia Parish Library, New Iberia & Loreauville, LA
July 17 at 10:00 & 2:00, LaSalle Parish Library, Jena & Olla, LA
July 18 at 3:00, Pal's Ice Cream Shop, Mandeville, LA
July 21 at 10:30 & 2:00, Lafourche Parish Library, Cut Off & Lockport, LA
July 22 at 10:30 & 2:00, Lafourche Parish Library, Thibodaux, LA
July 30, Grant Parish Library, Montgomery & Georgetown, LA
July 31, Grant Parish Library, Dry Prong & Pollock, LA
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Just Plain Folks Award Nominations
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Summer Reading Program Photos
Here is a link to some photos taken by the Times Picayune newspaper during my May 26, 2009 performance at the St. Tammany Parish Library in Covington as a Kick-off to the Summer Reading Program 2009!
http://photos.nola.com/gallery/4500/Around%20New%20Orleans,%20Tuesday%20May%2026,%202009
Read, read, read!
Monday, May 25, 2009
Digital Store
http://www.johnettedowning.com/digital.html
Tour Dates - June 2009
June 2 at 1:30, Ripples Camp, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
June 3 at 10:00 & 2:00, Iberville Parish Library, Plaquemines and Grosse Tete/Rosedale, LA
June 4 at 10:30 & 2:00, Iberville Parish Library, East Iberville School Band Room and White Castle, LA
June 5 at 10:00, Iberville Parish Library, Bayou Sorrell, LA
June 7 at 9:30, Mary Peyton Miracle Run, Abita Springs Trail Head, Abita Springs, LA
June 8 at 2:00, Terrebonne Parish Library, Houma, LA
June 9 at 2:00, Catahoula Parish Library, Sicily Island, LA
June 10 at 10:00 & 2:00, Catahoula Parish Library, Harrisonburg & Jonesville, LA
June 11 at 10:00 & 2:00, Webster Parish Library, Minden and Springhill, LA
June 17 at 10:00 & 2:00 Natchitoches Parish Library, Natchitoches, LA
June 18 at 2:00, Natchitoches Parish Library, Natchitoches, LA
June 19 at 10:00, St. Bernard Parish Library, Chalmette, LA
June 22 at 9:30, Castle Tree Camp, New Orleans, LA
June 22 at 1:30, Jimmy Club for Girls, St. Rose, LA
June 23 at 10:00 & 2:00, St. James Parish Library, Lutcher and Vacherie, LA
June 24 at 10:00 & 2:00, Winn Parish Library, Winnfield, LA
June 25 at 10:00 & 1:00, Bienville Parish Library, Arcadia & Ringgold, LA
June 26 at 10:00 & 1:00, Bienville Parish Library, Saline & Castor, LA
June 29, Vermillion Parish Library, Delcambre & Kaplan, LA
June 30, Cameron Parish Library, Cameron, LA
Dixieland Jazz For Children CD Reviewed on Punny Bop
We started out with Dixieland Jazz for Children by Johnette Downing and Jimmy LaRocca's Original Dixieland Jazz Band. You can buy it on CD or for just $9 in MP3 format - Amazon's MP3 page for the album has samples of every song. Z's favorite song on this CD by far is the first one, "Dixieland Jazz' - "Dixieland Jazz, Dixieland Jazz the best jazz in the land..." - the song then goes on to introduce all the different instruments in the standard Dixieland Jazz band. Other favorite songs from the album include "Throw Me Something Mister" - all about getting some beads and doubloons from a float in a Mardi Gras parade (I can't wait to take Z to a proper Mardi Gras parade), "I've Got Happy Feet" - which for some reason reminds me of that famous New Orleans con where the con bets the mark that he can tell you where you got your shoes. (The answer plays on the New Orleans' substitution of "you've" with "you," and it's whatever street you're standing on - if you're on Decatur, for example, it's "you got your shoes on Decatur right now.") But the song is really about dancing your way through New Orleans.
http://www.punnybop.com/
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Mailbox - Letters from Friends and Fans

We also read Chef Creole and created him. What's so amazing about this is that I let the students have free range to create him. We did not use templates. So, although each one looks almost the same, there are no two chefs alike in my room. The students worked hard, and loved creating him.
I have enclosed pictures of our work that I've put on display on a bulletin board in my classroom. Just like the title of the board says, you truly did inspire us!
Thank you,
Angie C
3rd grade teacher
Zachary Elementary School
Friday, May 1, 2009
Tour Dates - May 2009
May 2 at 12:45, Concert, Kids Tent, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Fairgrounds, New Orleans, LA
May 3, at 2:45 & 4:45, Children's Tent, Fest For All, Downtown Baton Rouge, LA
May 9 at 10:00, Concert, APPLE Parent Conference, Metairie, LA
May 11-15, Banners Series School Tour, Lake Charles, LA
May 16 at 10:00, Concert, Central Library, Lake Charles, LA
May 23 from 9:30-11:30, Book Signing, Sams Club, Harvey, LA
May 23 from 1:30-3:30, Book Signing, Sams Club, Metairie, LA
May 26 at 1:30, Covington Branch Library, Covington, LA
May 27 at 10:00, Causeway Branch Library, Covington, LA
May 28 at 1:30, Slidell Branch Library, Slidell, LA
Monday, April 27, 2009
Mailbox - Letters from Friends and Fans
-Leatherman Baby Blog
Mailbox - Letters from Friends and Fans
"My 6 year old was just slurping cereal singing…today is Monday, today is Monday…and I thought about you!"
Cheers!
LeAnne, parent, Mandeville, LA
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Reader Views: By Kids for Kids
This review appeared in Reader Views: By Kids for Kids
Reviewed by Grayce Richardson (age 5) for Reader Views (4/09):
“Chef Creole is a cook man. Oooh, boudin! I liked his nose. I want some of those ingredients and I
liked it when they said his name is Chef Creole, Creole, Creole. I think I would add to this book
pickles for his cheeks. He’s missing ears.”
Parent’s Note:
Grayce really enjoyed the repetition in this book and the idea of ingredients making the Chef’s face.
It’s nicely written with a New Orlean’s flavor and feel. At the end, I might suggest adding a recipe
from the Chef’s kitchen that a child could make. Overall, “Chef Creole” by Johnette Downing is a
fun book and one Grayce likes to read.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Just One
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Appetite for Culture: Food as Identity
Check out this feature about yours truly in Louisiana Cultural Vistas!Appetite for Culture: Food as Identity
Editor's Column from Louisiana Cultural Vistas, Spring 2009
http://www.leh.org/editorials/appetite_culture.html
Here in Louisiana while our cultural identity is characterized by our uniqueness, we inevitably begin to take it for granted and develop contempt for the familiar, sometimes to the point of succumbing to alien cultural influences, in other words Americanization. One of the most distinct markers of culture is cuisine, and with good reason Louisiana cuisine is widely bruited as the best and most distinctive in the country. Yet, with so extraordinary a cuisine native to our own state and family traditions (81 percent of Louisiana residents were born here), how does one account for the proliferation of McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Shoney’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and other such American atrocities to good taste, which far outnumber the local gastronomic options?It wasn’t until my friend, the children’s musician and author Johnette Downing, was contracted to expand her book about Louisiana cuisine, Today is Monday in Louisiana, into a series featuring other states such as New York, North Carolina, and Texas that I fully realized how sadly limited are the rest of the states in having distinctly defined foods. Johnette’s book, written for children, is structured simply around assigning a distinctive food for each of the days of a week, commencing with the classic red beans and rice for Monday. For Louisiana, finding seven distinctive dishes is literally child’s play, because there is such a plethora of options that could be only specific to Louisiana and no other state. By way of illustration, here is a quick two dozen: jambalaya, blackened redfish, beignets, shrimp creole, crawfish pie, red beans and rice, chicory coffee, chicken etouffee, fried softshell crabs, ersters Rockefeller, ersters Bienville, pralines, roux, gumbo, crawfish bisque, barbeque shrimp, corn maque choux, calas, redfish courtbouillon, cochon de lait, boudin, alligator sausage, andouille, and tasso. Once one gets momentum, even more start to tumble from memory of great meals and common foods: po’boys, dirty rice, bananas foster, creole tomatoes, satsumas, Natchitoches meat pies, king cake, turtle soup, Tabasco sauce, alligator sauce piquant, cafĂ© au lait, cracklins, creole cream cheese, mirlitons, not to mention all the inventive variations on a theme: crawfish etouffee, crawfish sacks, fried crawfish ... a week would hardly be enough to encompass a catalogue; we would need a month.
Identity Crisis
Trying to employ the same principle of selection — i.e. a food that was not only widely consumed in a particular state, but could not equally be claimed by another state — leads to an exercise in futility for any other state, even ones such as New York or North Carolina which are more populous and longer-settled. For New York, for example, a few items come quickly to mind: bagels, NY cheesecake, Manhattan clam chowder, pastrami, buffalo chicken wings, Long Island duckling (apparently now all raised in the Midwest as suburbia chewed up the chicken farms), but the list of dishes unique to New York quickly comes up short. The state fruit, the apple, is hardly unique to New York, any more than is wine or cheddar cheese, and while there is some debate as to the origin of pizza (Trenton, New Haven, and Chicago all seem to have competing claims), it is now so ubiquitous that the connection to New York seems tenuous at best. One could make a case for an occasional esoteric item such as “beef on weck” a roast beef on a caraway roll (kummelweck) sandwich unique to Buffalo, but virtually unheard of in the rest of the state. One consultant in all seriousness actually suggested Chinese take-out as an option, which only serves to illustrate the point about how limited is cuisine as a definer of culture in the five boroughs.
Regional versus Local
North Carolina serves as an interesting case of how regional influences supercede local identity. Surveying locals as to regional dishes one learned of a few truly esoteric dishes, some with good reason, such as “liver mush” — a concoction of pig’s liver and cornmeal highly touted in the town of Shelby. While there are a few other foods or culinary traditions that might be distinctive to the state, such as the scuppernong grape, and the Sunday “pig pickin’”, most of its other claims actually originate in other states: Brunswick stew, which hails from Virginia, and shrimp and grits, which originates in South Carolina. Of its other most common food markers — barbeque ribs, fried chicken, and pecan pie — all are clearly regional dishes common to virtually every southern state and not unique to North Carolina, any more than was the suggestion of one informant who proposed spaghetti and meat balls for the state’s list.The evidence of regional and nationalizing influence on cuisine and its encroachment on our own communities should both give us pause, and spur us to cherish even more fiercely our distinctive cuisine and its centrality in defining who we are. Louisiana may not lead the nation in many markers of civilization, but in cuisine we stand unchallenged.
—Michael Sartisky, Editor-In-Chief
Monday, April 6, 2009
Mailbox - Letters from Friends and Fans
-Leslie Domingues, Tots N Tunes, Northlake Academy of Music, Mandeville, LA
http://www.totsntunes.net/
Monday, March 30, 2009
Back in the Studio!
Updated Tour Dates - April 2009
April 5 from 3:00-5:00, Book Signing, Louisiana Food Festival, French Quarter, New Orleans, LA
April 9 from 7:00-9:00, Book Signing & Reading, Barnes & Noble, Metairie, LA
April 11 at 2:00, Concert and Book Signing, Southern Food & Beverage Museum, Riverwalk, New Orleans, LA
April 18 from 7:00-8:30 p.m., Book Signing, Barnes & Noble, Harvey, LA
April 19 at 3:15, Concert, Kids Stage, French Quarter Festival, New Orleans, LA
April 24 at 5:30, Concert, Grand Opening of Westside Regional Library, Alexandria, LA
April 25 at 10:00 and 11:00, Concert, Peyton Arts Festival, First United Methodist Church, Alexandria, LA
April 25 from 3:00-4:00, Book Signing, School Aids, Alexandria, LA
Plenty of Smiles and Giggles - Why the Crawfish Lives in the Mud Review
-Michael Tisserand
author of Sugarcane Academy and The Kingdom of Zydeco
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Tour Dates - April 2009
April 11 at 2:00, Concert, Southern Food & Beverage Museum, Riverwalk, New Orleans, LA
April 18 from 7:00-8:30 p.m., Book Signing, Barnes & Noble, Harvey, LA
April 19 at 3:15, Concert, Kids Stage, French Quarter Festival, New Orleans, LA
April 25 at 10:00 and 11:00, Concert, Peyton Arts Festival, First United Methodist Church, Alexandria, LA
April 25 from 3:00-4:00, Book Signing, School Aids, Alexandria, LA
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Mailbox - Letters from Friends and Fans
Tour Schedule - March 2009
On Tour in the Middle East - Oman
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
More Praise for Upcoming Book!
"Snappy dialogue spiced up with French words and phrases make this jaunty story a sure-fire winner. Young readers will be delighted by this amusing, lively trickster tale that explains how the conniving Crawfish tries to fool Crab, but ends up digging himself into a hole. The cut-foam illustrations are colorful and lively. Facts about crawfish and a helpful glossary are appended. Johnette Downing, Louisiana’s popular children’s musician, has written and illustrated a charming book about critters that live in the bayous."
-Gale Criswell, former Children's Services Coordinator, Louisiana State Library
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Why The Crawfish Lives in the Mud - Advance Review
"Johnette Downing possesses an uncanny knack for engaging children and charming them with words and pictures or as a musician capturing and expressing the essence of musical styles and making them come alive and engage children. I have literally seen an entire auditorium sprout a sea of arms swaying to her musical summons. Her books are lively and original and speak "children" as if it were a language unto itself. Both her books and music teach without seeming to by invoking joy and cleverness."
-Dr. Michael Sartisky, President and Executive Director, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities
Why The Crawfish Lives in the Mud - Review
Move over Anansi, the Spider!! You have competition from trickster Crawfish in a delightful story, visually appealing and rich in text, focusing on animal life in the Bayou between a crab and a crawfish. Crawfish Fun Facts add a nice touch for the reader to gain knowledge about crawfish.
- Nancy O'Connell, Children's Services Librarian, Schaumburg Library, IL