ABC Gulls (Signed Edition)

Beth Rand is a self-taught illustrator who has published her own line of greeting cards and a poster calendar featuring Maine imagery. Her first children's picture book, ABC Gulls, came out in March 2017 from Islandport Press, as well as her 2018 desktop calendar, "Sun Salt Happy." She also wrote and illustrated 123 Gulls.

Born in Pittsburgh, PA, having a Navy dentist for a dad meant that Rand had an itinerant childhood, moving from Maryland to Rhode Island to South Carolina and even Sicily. Since graduating from the University of Maine, she has made Maine her home. For twenty years, she and her husband lived in Cape Elizabeth, where they successfully raised three children. Then they hopped on the ferry to Peaks Island and never looked back. Rand now lives on the island with her husband and dog, in a home surrounded by seagulls, sunshine, and salt air. When foul weather keeps her inside, illustration becomes the focus.

Author photo by Kevin Bennett for Islandport Press.

"Take a seaside location, add a colony of gulls and the alphabet, and the result is a clever abecedary." 
Kirkus Reviews

'Debut author-illustrator Rand casts dozens of seagulls in a variety of roles in this alphabetic (and highly alliterative) outing, working in a crisp-edged style that resembles cut-paper artwork. Whether “having an afternoon adventure in an airplane” or taking “a trip around town in a tugboat,” the lanky seagulls, who look at readers with deadpan expressions, are an active bunch (“Vail and Varney value their vacation playing volleyball”). An author’s note explains that the seagulls are named after islands in Maine (except for the Q, U, and X entries), where the author lives, a detail that her fellow Mainers are likely to appreciate.'
—Publishers Weekly