Humphrey's Page -

HUMPHREY'S FIRST PALM SUNDAY
Written and Illustrated by Carol Heyer

A new follow-up to the popular Humphrey's First Christmas that finds Humphrey in the midst of Jesus' triumphal entry. The delightfully goofy camel we met in Humphrey's First Christmas is back, three decades older and not much wiser. He wants nothing more than to be the lead camel in the caravan, so he can improve his view. When the caravan leads him to Jerusalem, he crosses paths with Jesus making his triumphal entry. Humphrey is delighted to see Jesus, now a grown man, and remembers the Child to whom he gave his coveted blanket all those years ago in Bethlehem.

HUMPHREY'S FIRST PALM SUNDAY the sequel to HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS is on bookshelves now. The Book Launch will be at Mrs. Fig's Bookworm.

March 24, 2012
11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

MRS. FIGS' BOOKWORM
93 East Daily Drive
Camarillo, CA 93010
805 482-1384
Hope to see you there!!

HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS
Written and Illustrated by Carol Heyer

"I am drowning in a sea of lovely Christmas picture books...And I'm not sure I can resist the divinely silly HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS by Carol Heyer — a story about a camel's journey to the stable and the surprise he finds waiting there."

~ Ann Cannon DESERET NEWS ~

Marionette Show

Here are slides of a wonderful marionette show adapted from HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS by Rabon Johnson and his wife Karen. They wrote a script, built a stage and dressed the camels in their finery! They also purchased copies of HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS to give to the children! The show was attended by family for a "Jesus' Birthday Celebration"!
Photos are of the: Program created with HFC cover on the front, behind the scenes with the script pasted up and camels waiting for their cues, the play in progress, and pictures of the children's beautiful faces as they watched and participated in the production. Thanks Rabon and family for such a wonderful treat!

TRAILER DEBUT HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS

Recently YELLOW TRUCK PRODUCTIONS shot a trailer for Humphrey. It was written and edited by the talented Writer-Producer-Editor Juli Juteau, who has just released the final product. Claude Budin-Juteau the Director of Photography-Editor did an amazing job filming the trailer. Here it is!

Here are a few pictures that Claude took with his still camera. I think they are about as perfect as photos can get!! He captured this sequence of me showing Humphrey his portrait on the cover of HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS!

As you can see Humphrey was quite impressed with his book! He took several moments to admire himself, then couldn't resist kissing his likeness. Finally he decided it looked good enough to eat. That was the last official shot!

However, I did take the liberty of adding one more to the series.

I was so excited to receive this audio of HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS read by the Kimbrell family and beautifully edited by Adam Kimbrell.

I'm also including the wonderful e-mail he wrote which explains the tradition:

Ms. Heyer,

Several years ago my mom asked me to help her make a recording of her reading a story to give to my young niece and nephew for a Christmas surprise. She chose "How The Grinch Stole Christmas". After we recorded her voice, I went back and added sound effects and an original score. This past Christmas we completed our third story. I wanted to do something really special this year. I thought of writing our own story and Illustrating it ourselves. To begin, I went to the internet to research the Christmas story in hopes to find some inspiration to get us started. What I found were illustrations from your book, "Humphrey's First Christmas". I stopped searching at that moment. Your pictures were perfect for what we wanted to create. I loved the personality you gave Humphrey, and the new and fresh way you told such an old story.     I am e-mailing you to thank you for your talent, and I have attached our recording to show you what we did with your art. I hope you don't mind what we did. It was not for commercial gain, just a home made present for my sister's kids.

Thanks Again,
Adam Kimbrell

HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS is my first original story. I've done retellings of other stories, EXCALIBUR, SLEEPING BEAUTY etc., but this was entirely my own book, writing and illustrating. It was as exciting to me as the release of my first picture book A STAR IN THE PASTURE.

FRANKENINCENSE AND MIRTH: HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS
Here is one of the first reviews I received on HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS. It was from JUST ONE MORE BOOK the wonderful blog site by Andrea Ross & Mark Blevis and it is still my favorite review. Humphrey was also number one on their Wintry Reading list!

THE HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS REVIEW

The launch of HUMPHREY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS at Moorpark College Zoo was a lot of fun. We watched a wonderful animal show and the highlight of the day was seeing Humphrey, who made a special surprise appearance!

Humphrey's full time home is at the Lazy JV Ranch in Kentucky! Valerie, a friend of mine, takes wonderful care of him and she sends me updates on how he's doing. Here are a few recent photos that Val sent me! I LOVE his funny face!

You can see more of Humphrey's antics at Val's website:

Humphrey's personal page!

HUMPHREY'S PALM SUNDAY

I have just completed work on HUMPHREY'S PALM SUNDAY! My art is at the publishers now and the book is scheduled to be released in spring 2012!!!!! This book will be my third original story. (THE LITTLE SHEPHERD'S CHRISTMAS is the second.) This sequel takes place many years after the nativity, but his attitude hasn't changed. Humphrey is not happy about being the last camel in the caravan, but everything changes dramatically when he spots a familiar blanket.

I had a wonderful time working on this new book and I hope you'll love it as much as I do. Here is a sneak preview.