I’ve been a fan of Nikki McClure for some time. Her exquisite paper cuttings are simply wondrous in their detail. She uses an exacto knife to create her beautiful images, each from a single sheet of paper. The painstaking detail. The complexity. I find her work enchanting and perfected suited to children’s illustrations. Her collection of books are available at Buy Olympia, along with a lovely assortment of notecards, gift tags and other paper beauties.

Mama Is It Summer Yet? is a heartwarming tale of a little boy who asks the same question of his mother, again and again; a theme familiar to mothers who try to satisfy the curiosity and eagerness of their little ones, and to children for whom waiting a few weeks might as well be a few decades.

The First 1000 Days is a baby journal unlike most. Parents have long enjoyed chronicling their children’s early days of life, but Nikki’s illustrations elevate the experience to a creating a work of art that will be eventually passed on to your child. There’s lots of room for notes and such, and tons of her beautiful work to inspire to more than a record of the order that solid foods were introduced. This journal makes you want to write something wise and eternal. My children are six and three and I’m thinking about buying two of these, just because they are so beautiful and poetic.

“The Great Chicken Escape is a true story, or as close to truth as I could ascertain from the chickens themselves.” These are Nikki’s own words about this book. And judging by her illustrations of nuns wrangling chickens, this will probably be one of those books that your child requests over and over.

Nikki is a self-taught artist who has been making paper cuts since 1996 and who produces her own merchandise. You can find Nikki’s books, t-shirts, notecards and other merchandise, as well as her original paper cuts on Buy Olympia.