Nutshell Regatta

I wrote and illustrated Nutshell Regatta in homage to my grandmother, an amazing friend and a fabulous storyteller.

Jonna with her Grandmother
The pond in Nutshell Regatta

A small pond, nestled below the hill where our house sat, brought mystery and adventure to every summer day.

I was thrilled to have a first place ribbon awarded to Nutshell Regatta at this year’s Chanticleer Conference in Bellingham, Washington.

Winning first place in Little Peeps

Chanticleer Reviews
Little Peeps –
The CIBA’s First Place ribbon

Illustration from Nutshell Regatta

Reviews for Nutshell Regatta

Chanticleer Reviews

From beginning to end, Nutshell Regatta is an imaginative poem.

Laster takes mundane aspects of nature—like twigs, pebbles, and common flowers—and turns them into lyrical images and dramatic adventures sure to captivate any child or child-like heart. The tension of Burt and Betula falling over the waterfall is just the right touch of stress, with a valuable resolution.

Laster could have resolved the story with the grandmother or narrator scooping the nutshells out of the water to save them. Instead, she takes a different and more developmentally helpful direction: the little sloops fall down the waterfall, and the grandmother coaches the child on creating a happy outcome for the event (the passengers going on a new adventure). This resolution could help guide anxious children to find positive meanings in change and transition.

The illustrations are wholesome and sweet, with little twig people peeking out of each picture even before they are introduced into the story.

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Tiny Beans

Why Imaginative Play is So Important

In the picture book, Nutshell Regatta, a young girl and her beloved grandmother spend an afternoon exploring a pond and the many creatures and plants living in and around the water. Through their interaction, and using imaginative play, their experience transcends what most people might see when looking at a similar landscape. The animals take on unique roles, the plants play their special parts and the little girl and her grandmother transport themselves to a whole other world whereby they share a unique adventure and create their own story. This is imaginative play.

When we engage in imaginative play, we engage all of our senses. Observing a scene is very one-dimensional. Creating the scene, however, is multi-dimensional. All creative people and great problem solvers use imaginative play. At its core, imaginative play, is “thinking outside the box”.

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Motherhood Moment

Nutshell Regatta is a colorful, whimsically illustrated picture book written by Jonna Laster, that paints an afternoon of imaginative play shared between a grandmother and her granddaughter – a sailing competition using nutshells for sailboats, mint leaves for sails and twigs for passengers.

Studies have shown play is crucial for many areas of children’s development—from physical strength to cognitive and linguistic growth. One 2008 study found that play contributes greatly to physical health—using more calories than comparable organized physical activities.

Laster wrote this book, in part, to honor her grandmother who taught her that imaginative play can happen anywhere: telling a story, acting out favorite scenes from movies or books, thinking up as many uses for a cup or a paperclip as you can, building a fort, sitting on a patch of grass or under a tree and looking as closely as you can.

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Order your copy of Nutshell Regatta from Hope & Plum Publishing.
ISBN # 9781838030254