Dress Me! By Sarah Frances Hardy (Plus A Giveaway!)

DRESS ME! No, not me. I’m quite  capable of dressing myself, thankyouverymuch. Although I often remain in my pajamas. It’s a comfortable life! I’m talking about the  new book by author-illustrator Sarah Frances Hardy, and it’s a dress-up delight for little readers. What child doesn’t love pretend play, imagining themselves as anything they  long to  be? Sarah Frances, how did DRESS ME! come to be? I knew I wanted to do a companion book for PAINT ME! which released last year from Sky Pony Press, and I had written a manuscript for a dress up book a few years ago that never quite worked. My agent and I talked through it, and she suggested I take the dress-up idea and do another “me!” book with that. So did you play dress up as a child?  What was your favorite thing to be? Were any of your childhood choices reflected in the book? Did I ever! The best Christmas gift I ever received was from my grandmother when I was about eight-years-old. She gave me an antique trunk full of the most fabulous dress up clothes everâ€"shoes, gloves, funky hats, bridal veil, aprons. Over the years, I added to the collection with anything I could find. My dad was a doctor and he gave me a real stethoscope as well as a set of his scrubs …so those definitely found their way into my book. I don’t remember what my favorite thing to be was, but there are lots of pictures of me wearing a mish-mash of gloves, sparkly dress, high heels and a bridal veil with a hat over it. I can only describe the look as “eccentric hippie bag lady”. And no, that look didn’t make it into the book.