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Debra Frasier
Pictured in her studio, Debra is cutting one of the 129 pairs of worn blue jeans she collected for the making of the illustrations for Spike, Ugliest Dog in the Universe.
Debra Frasier Facebook Debra Frasier's website Debra Frasier's Studio Journal
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Born in Vero Beach, Florida, Debra Frasier's family has been living on the Atlantic Ocean for generations. Even when she was young, she loved to create all kinds of artworks. She graduated with a degree in design from Florida State University and later attended Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. At Penland, she created costume puppets, the largest of which was sixty feet long. Eight people climbed inside to make the puppet move. Debra also created wind sculptures for various cities around America. She married in 1984 and moved with her husband to Minnesota, which was a brand new experience for this East Coast resident.

Her first book, On the Day You Were Born, is a perennial bestseller, considered a modern-day classic. Miss Alaineus: a Vocabulary Disaster garnered a great deal of attention for its design, inventive story, and word play. When Debra created The Fabulous Fair Alphabet, she had the unique state fair letters in mind, but she didn't anticipate the enthusiastic reception of her Alphabet Forest at the Minnesota State Fair or the alphabet fairs that have become essential events at schools across the country.

Debra and her husband live in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Representative Illustrations
A Fabulous Fair Alphabet
Beach Lane Books / Simon & Schuster, 2010
ISBN 978-1416998174
ages 4 and up

Alphabet letters of all sorts of shapes and sizes and styles—from blinking neon ones, to unusual old-style graphic ones to rustic hand-painted ones have been photographed and collaged together into an exuberant, eye-popping, letter-and-word-finding tour of the glories of the state fair. Bursting with with bright, bold illustrations of favorite fair elements like dill pickles and Ferris wheels and midway games, here is an alphabet-exploring adventure like no other!

Host Your Own Alphabet Fair Instruction Guide

Fabulous Fair Banner Letters

Fabulous Fair Storytime Kit and Bibliography

Slideshow: How the Book Was Made

A Fabulous Fair Alphabet
A Birthday Cake is No Ordinary Cake
Harcourt, September 2006
ISBN 978-0152057428
ages 4 and up

Welcome aboard our spinning Earth as it travels on its immense journey around the Sun. Bring a bowl—and come along! Help collect the ingredients for a cake as big as a year, and see how every circle around the Sun equals one. One what? One birthday cake!

For fifteen years, On the Day You Were Born has been the classic book to welcome new babies into the world. Now, this jubilant companion celebrates every year thereafter in the life of a child—and of our great green planet Earth.

Includes delicious cake and frosting recipes, explanations of how the years are marked in nature, and a section called "How many days to your birthday?" so kids can actually find their own special day.

3D Paper Birthday Cakes

Storytelling Props

Donate Cake Food Shelf Project

  Birthday Cake is No Ordinary Cake
The Incredible Water Show
Harcourt, September 2004
ISBN 0-1521-6287-9
ages 4 and up

The kids from Debra Frasier's Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster are back! This time they're putting on a neighborhood play starring the world's most astounding combination of atoms—H20! Filled to the brim with scientifically accurate facts about water and water conservation, here is one wet-and-wild celebration you won't want to miss.

Stage a Play

Stick Puppets

Books about Water Bibliography

  Incredible Water Show
In the Space of the Sky
written by Richard Lewis
Harcourt, 2002
ISBN 978-0152531508
ages 4 and up

These poetic words convey "space"—both intimate and immense—yet remind us that we are able to bridge the largest and the smallest spaces in our infinite imagination. In this book Debra collaborates with the noted educator, Richard Lewis, who is devoted to strengthening the imaginative life of the child.
  In the Space of the Sky

Miss Alaineus: a Vocabulary Disaster
Harcourt, 2000
ISBN 978-0152060534
ages 4 and up

Miss Alaineus, A Vocabulary Disaster is a hilarious romp through the usually not-so-funny world of vocabulary. Sage misses school due to a cold and from there the misunderstanding begins. But "miscellaneous" is finally revealed for the word it truly is, and Sage manages to redeem herself in a marvelous and inspiring creative leap.

Host Your Own Vocabulary Parade Kit

Slideshow: Vocabulary Parades around the USA

  Miss Alaineus:a VocabularyDisaster
Out of the Ocean
Harcourt, 1998
ISBN 978-0152588496
ages 4 and up

Out of the Ocean is Debra's tribute to growing up in the small seaside town of Vero Beach, Florida, where she and her family walked the edge of the Atlantic Ocean looking for treasures. A comprehensive glossary describes each of the sea discoveries found in this book.

Classroom Project:
Collecting Outside/Writing Inside

Classroom Photo Booth

  Out of the Ocean
We Got Here Together
written by Kim R. Stafford
Harcourt, 1994
ISBN 0-1529-4891-0
ages 4 and up

A bubble rises and a raindrop falls. They meet at "the exact same moment in time," in this lovely tribute to our journey together where we find that we are safe and secure "in the silver light, right where we belong."
  Broken Blade
Animal That Drank Up Sound
written by William Stafford
Harcourt, 1992, out of print
ISBN: 978-0152035631
ages 4 and up

Animates the seasons as winter drinks up summer's green sounds and silences them with a cold blanket of white until springtime returns.
  Animal That Drank UpSound

On the Day You Were Born
Harcourt, 1991
ISBN 978-0547790459
ages 4 and up

On the DayYou Were Born is considered a modern children's classic. The lyric text welcomes each child to the every day miracles of planet Earth—sun, moon, rain, tides, North Star, and the circle of people awaiting each child.

Write and Create Your Own Cut Paper Picture Book

Stage a Play

  On the DayYou Were Born
 

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