Wooberry Dolls

pOppy's pants is named "Children's Book of the Year" by the largest

meeting and discussing book club in the United States, the Pulpwood Queens!

(they have good taste)

Welcome to woOberry!

This is my virtual showroom. I started making woOberry dolls for my daughter to give her one of her drawings to hold. Now I make custom dolls from children's drawings or from photographs of real people. I've also created many of my own characters. The best thing to come from this adventure is my first picture book, "Poppy's Pants". My name is Melissa Conroy.

Art for Le Bonheur Children's Hospital

Le Bonheur Children's Hospital will open a new facility in June and adorning the walls of the O.R. corridor will be a dozen plus prints featuring woOberry dolls. I ran a workshop at the hospital in January and have included a bit of the text and imagery from the workshop in some of the prints. Photography credit goes to Michelle East. Click on the thumbnails below to see the other images.

Meet Dee Dee

She really knows how to throw a birthday party and wait till you try her fabulous peanut brickle. She's been hard at work compiling an art collection for Le Bonheur Children's Hospital in Memphis, TN. Her hard work is about to pay off. The opening will be June 15th.

Meet Zaza the Cat

She's done well. She enjoys a good strip of sunshine. The sound of the can opener is music to her ears. Her life began as a street cat. Now, at age 17 she lives with a loving family.

You can now become a woOberry fan on Facebook. Here is the link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/woOberry/330401181499?ref=ts

Coming Soon, The Mt. Airy Kid's Literary Festival at Big Blue Marble Bookstore in Philadelphia, PA

Come down to the Big Blue Marble Bookstore in Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, April 9th-11th. Melissa will present Poppy's Pants on April 10th at 11:00 a.m. Call Big Blue Marble at 215-844-1870 for more information.

poppy

Photo: Steve Leimberg Photo/UnSeenImages

The Amelia Island Book Festival hosted a "Night with Poppy" and what a night it was. One of the attendees, Anne Entriken wrote a short essay about her family's experience watching Dad and I. She has graciously allowed me to post it below. Enjoy!

ODE TO ‘A NIGHT WITH POPPY’

What is it about those Conroy’s?

Little did I know, when the opportunity came my way to do some biography research on the thirty-eight authors coming to the Amelia Island Book Festival, that there would be a stand-out for my three young granddaughters, ages nine, six and two. Of course, the precious link for them is ‘Poppy’s Pants’ by Melissa Conroy.

Thinking they might be amused by the light banter in the new, colorful book filled with characters they may like—a gift from ‘Grandma’ – I had no idea this would turn out to be a lifetime experience for them. Christmas gifts of the book, ‘Poppy’s Pants,’ and the handmade character doll of Penelope, their favorite, came to be more than the average book and doll.

Turns out that ‘Poppy’s Pants,’ in all its simplicity, explodes with heart. Like the characters in the book, where closeness of family is an absolute dominant factor, and the heroine was able to accomplish her daunting task, the two older girls were very excited and primed to attend ‘A Night With Poppy.’ All of the girls have grown to love and appreciate books and their reading time and have become quite voracious readers.

They were definitely the youngest in the assembly at the historic First Baptist Church that night, but they took away something that will live with them forever. We relived the experience many times the next day. By chance, they even had a brief face-to-face encounter with Pat Conroy himself outside of the church, and they quickly recognized him knowing the featured entourage was arriving to a sequestered place readying for their own presentations. (Penelope was hanging out of the six-year-old’s backpack.)

The six and nine-year-olds will share this with their classmates at home in North Carolina and will always remember this as one of those moments in life for the love of books and being able to see and hear such accomplished artists. Our two-year-old is such a fan that I actually had to purchase another book for Melissa to sign. Seems our little one had read her Christmas gift book so often that several pages needed to be repaired with tape. Both copies will be very precious to her in years to come, and Penelope is one of her best friends.

We look forward to Melissa’s future books, and my granddaughters are looking forward to more of her precious doll characters with that wonderful Conroy caricature, wit and total personality.

Anne Entriken
2/19/10

Dr. Dave

Photo: Michelle East

Dr. Dave

Do you remember dAve? The guy who wore those great pants with the black and white damask print? The one who enjoys gardening and has a particular affection for sunflowers? Well, you can call him Dr. Dave now, because that is what he is. Dave went to medical school to fulfill his dream of becoming a Pediatrician and is currently a Resident at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital in Memphis, TN. Dave is one of several dolls I made for Le Bonheur when they asked for a troop of woOberry models to photograph and adorn the walls of the new hospital. The grand opening is slated for June. I plan to post sneak peaks of the photos in the coming months.

dAve

The Pulpwood Queen Shares pOppy's Pants

Kathy L. Patrick, founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Club, Author, beauty salon/bookstore owner and proud owner of Poppy and Penelope dolls recently read pOppy's Pants at Cypress Assisted Living in her her home town, Jefferson, TX. In addition to pOppy's Pants, she read from South of Broad, and her own book,The Pulpwood Queen's Tiara Wearing, BookSharing Guide to Life. Click here to see what she had to say about her visit.

Amelia Island Book Festival - February 12th-13th

The Amelia Island book festival is coming soon, and I will be there to participate in several events. See the list below:

Friday February 12th:

9:00-11:30 Visit to the Amelia Island Montessori School

2:15-3:00 The ABC's of Writing and Publishing for Children and Young Adults, A panel discussion with three other children's book authors.

Saturday February 13th:

3:00 Booksigning in the courtyard with my friend Janis Owens and stepmom, Cassandra King

7:00 p.m. A Night With Poppy- at the Old First Baptist Church

I will be with my dad who is the inspiration for pOppy of pOppy's Pants, and the larger than life author of many novels, my favorite being The Great Santini.

Le Bonheur Children's Hospital

I just returned from Memphis, TN where a very rare ice storm foiled several of my planned events. My grandmother braved the weather and drove one and a half hours to my booksigning at Davis-Kidd Booksellers on Thursday, the 28th. On the 29th, in the thick of the storm, I was honored to be invited by Le Bonheur Children's Hospital to do a writing and drawing workshop. With a large cast of woOberry dolls in tow, the kids, and some parents picked out dolls they identified with, played with them and wrote memory poems. The dolls were later photographed. I will incorporate their writing and drawings in the final images to be installed on the hospital walls.

A Television Appearance

If you were in the Memphis area on the morning of January 30th, you might have seen me on on Live @ 9 on Channel 3. The two very gracious hosts, Marybeth and Alex gave me an opportunity to tell the woOberry doll story with the Poppy doll and an original Mama doll as audio visual aids. This was while the city was becoming covered in ice. I met a lot of great people in Memphis and had a wonderful time even while most of the city was vacant and the trees bent over from the weight of ice.

A Special thank you to Dianne Papasan for making all the plans necessary to bring me down to Memphis. Read about the visit on Le Bonheur's Child Life Services blog .

woOberry is a registered trademark of Melissa Conroy

woOberry is a registered trademark