By Jean Matthew Hall

Yipee! I’m excited and grateful to join the Team of Christian Children’s Authors.

I would like to tell you a little about myself.

I’m a retired teacher. I spent almost 25 years teaching and serving as an administrator in several Christian schools. I love teaching. It really is about watching children change before your eyes. Whether it’s a positive change in behavior or self-confidence, or grasping a concept or skill that’s been a challenge, that moment of understanding is priceless to witness.

That’s one of the things I love about writing picture books. I write them to entertain children and their parents and grandparents. But I also write so that a nugget of God’s truth can float to the surface and children can snatch it up and make it their own.

In 1968, 51 years ago, I accepted Christ as my Savior my freshman year of college. My life with Christ at the helm has been an adventure. Some years have been wonderful, and some heart-breaking. But the Lord has held me firmly and tenderly every step of the way. I’m grateful.

I retired from education in 2004. About a year later I started learning how to write for publication. It is a slow process to say the least. There is a vast amount of knowledge and skills to be mastered before we can write for publication well enough to engage kids and honor the Lord with our best.

In 2016 I signed a contract with Little Lamb Books for my first picture book series. There will be four lyric picture books about the four seasons. The first one is about fall. It comes out this September. I’ve been given a peek at the illustrations and I’m thrilled with them! In June I will hopefully see the cover. Can’t wait! (I’ll be sure to share it with you, my new friends.)

I have other manuscripts sitting on editors’ desks at a few publishing houses. Just have to wait and see what God will do with them. I’m eager to see them in print, of course. But mostly I’m eager to see God use them however He plans to.

I blog twice weekly on my own website at http://www.jeanmatthewhall.com . I hope you’ll pop in on Tuesdays to read short and sincere bits of advice for parents of young children. I try to pass on some things I’ve learned about godly parenting in the 49 years I’ve been a parent and grandparent.

I also blog every Friday my reviews of picture books. You can find a link to each of my blog posts on my Pinterest Boards at JeanMatthew_Hall.

You can also find me on Face Book at Jean Matthew Hall, and on Twitter at Jean_Hall.

I’ll be posting monthly here at Christian Children’s Authors the last Saturday of each month. I hope you visit here and let me know what you think. I would LOVE to hear from you in the comments. I hope my posts will give you a window into picture books both you and your kiddos will love, and how parents and teachers can utilize those picture books. Hopefully you will also catch a peek of how God is working in my life as an author.

“…do everything for the glory of God.”  I Corinthians 10:31 CSB