Book Turns Create Interactive Stories

by Sue Heavenrich

A Book turn is exactly what you think it is: the use of images that require a reader to turn the book as they engage with the story.  If you’ve read Stretch to the Sun: From a Tiny Sprout to the Tallest Tree on Earth (by Carrie A. Pearson; illustrated by Susan Swan) you’ve noticed that as the tree grows it gets taller. To emphasize that, the illustration of the redwood tree requires that you turn the book 90-degrees. What makes this book fun is how readers need to unfold one of the illustrations to capture the height of “the tallest of the tall” in the redwood forest.

Flying Deep (by Michelle Cusolito; illustrated by Nicole Wong) also uses book turns to great advantage. The book takes readers on an adventure down, down, down into the ocean to investigate a site where underwater volcanoes erupted. To give more depth to this journey, the illustration uses the longest spread – again, a 90-degree turn to capture the extent of this journey into the deep and dark unknown. Then, after checking out the ghost crabs and six-foot tall tube worms, and toggling the controls of the well-named Slurp Gun, it’s time to turn the book and return up, up, up to the surface.

But the book that made me pay attention to the whole idea of turning the book is  Hey-Ho, to Mars We'll Go! A Space-Age Version of "The Farmer in the Dell" (by Susan Lendroth; illustrated by Bob Kolar). The artwork on the title page shows a van driving to a rocket on the launch pad. But flip the page and … you’ve got to turn the book. Because rockets are SO tall that we need a vertical view of the gantry. A couple pages later we’re in space and diving through a hatch. Without gravity, the text slides to a corner and you’ve got to turn the book 45-degrees to read it. 

 

  ... And keep turning the book as we flip to the next page, and the next until the book is completely upside down for a couple spreads.

  

 Then a 90 degree clockwise turn and …

                  whew! … back to “normal”. Like the space voyage it portrays, this book design defies gravity!

It just so happens that all three books were published by Charlesbridge in 2018, so I was thrilled when Diane Earley, art director at Charlesbridge, agreed to a phone chat about book design. She’s responsible for the design department and has four designers working with her. And she designed Flying Deep and Stretch to the Sun.

The designers work closely with editors. “We discuss how we want the art to look,” says Diane. “Should it be serious or stylized? Whimsical or realistic? A lot depends on whether it is fiction or nonfiction.”

Once an illustrator is chosen, Diane gives them the manuscript pages and lets them have at it. “I let them use their creative brains to sketch out what they want on the page.” For Charlesbridge, publishing children’s books is a collaboration. The illustrator should have a say about what’s on the page.

“We’re a team,” says Diane. In some cases she’ll suggest to the illustrator that they do a vertical spread. Other times the author or editor may suggest that. And the design team is always open to art notes and comments from the illustrator, as those generate conversation.

Creating a vertical spread sounds simple: turn the spread 90-degrees. But which way? In Flying Deep the top of that vertical spread is the left hand edge because you can see that you are diving deep into the ocean. But for Stretch to the Sun, she wanted to use the gate-fold to reveal the tree, so that unfolds on the right side.

As for that trip to Mars … illustrator Bob Kolar remembers working with the creative director, Susan Sherman. “We were talking about space, when Susan mentioned that there was no gravity, and suggested we play with that concept.” As he began to lay out the illustration, the idea of turning the book took hold.

“The lack of gravity is a hard concept for kids to grasp,” Bob said. “Turning the book helps reinforce the idea of no gravity in space.” Bob also loves playing around with end pages. “They are one of my favorite parts of doing a book, so I think about how they could help frame the story.” He does that well with Hey-Ho: the front endpaper shows a view of Mars from Earth; the back shows a view of Earth from Mars. And sandwiched in between is the adventure.

A huge Thank You to Diane Earley and Bob Kolar for answering my questions! You can find out more about Charlesbridge books here and Bob Kolar's books here. 

Full disclosure: While I do have a book forthcoming from Charlesbridge, that did not play a role in my decision to blog about these books. The truth is, I fell in love with the interactive nature of Hey-Ho and wanted to share my delight. Review copies provided by the publisher.

Building an Artist's Collective

by Sue Heavenrich

Annie Z ~Night (self portrait)

Annie Zygarowicz and Johanna van Der Sterre were successful illustrators when life - and the economy - pushed them off course. Annie delved into graphic design, developing brochures, websites, and providing a range of publicity services. Johanna managed to carve out some time for painting and began sharing her love of art through a series of art workshops at the local library.

Last summer, both decided they were ready to dive back into children's book illustration. While chatting one day, they wondered whether they could collaborate on marketing - maybe share a website or do some local art shows.

Johanna ~ Day

"But our artwork is so different," said Johanna. She paints animals and scenery with a bright, lively watercolor palette and then digitally refines them. Annie focuses mainly on digital character design and scenes using dark, muted colors.  Johanna's art embraces picture books; Annie's tends towards the middle grade readers. Their work is as different, and as complementary, as night and day - a description that captures the mood of their work as well. Annie's paintings are dark and mysterious while Johanna's tend toward the sunny.

So, in July, they established the Night and Day art collective. Since then, they've added two new members: Marie Sanderson and Jennifer Gibson, whom Annie and Johanna had met in 2016 as part of an art gallery tour. Marie’s serene farm scenes and animals are painted with loose pastel watercolors, with the gentle feeling of "dawn". Jennifer paints plein aire landscapes with gouche and watercolor, garnering her the nickname "dusk".

Jennifer ~ Dusk

Between them, they've illustrated traditionally published and indie-published picture books and are busy working on new projects. As a collective, their goal is to support each other and promote each other's art. Some artist collectives form to share work space and materials. At this point, the Night and Day collective is more oriented to support.  They plan to get together on a monthly basis, like a critique group.

"We want to fit our skills together to collaborate on projects and also explore ways that illustrators can help each other," Johanna said.  To that end, she and Marie are working on holiday cards for a local show.

Marie ~ Dawn

The Night and Day Art Collective website, nightanddayartcollective.com is currently under construction and should be ready to unveil next month. And you can find out more about each illustrator, and check out their online art galleries, at their individual websites:

• Annie Zygarowicz
• Johanna van Der Sterre
• Marie Sanderson 
• Jennifer Gibson

Explore What Illustrators Know & Do: Another Picture Book Writer's Tool - by Kathy Halsey

Last Monday we learned to use storytelling techniques thanks to author Lindsay Bonilla. Today we explore more in the second part of my series on new ways to see craft and story. We'll unpack the knowledge that illustrators employ in telling their story. Thinking like an illustrator is a great way to open up our writing even if we've never dabbled in art. 
I always leave room in my professional development playbook for an illustrator workshop to help me see with new eyes. Last Saturday the Ohio South Central SCBWI hosted a great 4 hour workshop with author/illustrator Lindsay Ward entitled "Write, Draw, Read, Repeat: How to Create Successful Picture books in Today's Children's Book Market." 

Author/ Illustrator Lindsay Ward

Lindsay began as an illustrator before she became an author; she works in cut paper, a very hands-on, painstaking process. Her first book, WHEN BLUE MET EGG, took her four years of work. She shared illustration "drafts" of cover designs, dummy pages, and most importantly for us writers-only folks, how she "sees" stories she creates. What follows are the takeaways I added to my writer's toolbox.

From the Illustrator's Mind

1. See the whole. Lindsay tapes/strings up her illustrations across her office to get a sense the organic whole of the story. Writers need to see tone, voice, and imagine pagination after a few drafts to get a sense of the true feel for the work.

2. Pagination and reading aloud. This is where Lindsay starts with a draft. We need to hear/feel page turns. Take your TBR stack and read aloud. Get to the point where you know the page turn because...
3. The page turn is the most powerful narrative tool. Treat it with respect. Use page turns to hide and reveal plot. They can set up the pacing, another big consideration in crafting a masterful picture book. Lindsay concentrates on keeping  a "visual pacing" going in her work.

See the personality reflected in each brother?

4. Characters need defining characteristic. Using BROBARIANS as a mentor text, Lindsay showed us several cover illustrations. She couldn't quite nail the cover until she saw the brothers per their defining characteristic. If you can't "get" your character while drafting or revising, amp up their defining characteristic ( just one, it is a PB) and follow that through the text. Lindsay suggests writing dialogue w/that defining trait to explore the character.

"Ahem, art notes??? Yes? No?

5. But what about art notes? Writers always want to know about the advisability of their inclusion. Our expert advised us that nine times out of ten, art notes are not necessary especially if they are descriptive. 
6. Finally, we received a list on what tools successful illustrators use: composition, perspective, color, line, action, focal point, gutter. Read some PB favorites and see how those elements are employed. And... how might we as writers use these tools to our benefit? 

Read this as a mentor text for action

So as we segue into summer, splash into new ways of writing thanks to Lindsay Ward. She has a fabulous web site, too.

Read this as a mentor text on composition

Researching the illustrations

~by Sue Heavenrich 

Susan Stockdale writes and illustrates wonderfully fun books for kids. They’ve got the look and feel of picture books but are filled with fun facts and amazing illustrations. You’ve probably seen her books: Spectacular Spots, Bring on the Birds, Fabulous Fishes. So you know her style is bold and bright.

But did you know that it’s 100 percent accurate?  Yup, a lot of research goes into each illustration before the paint hits the Bristol paper. And sometimes after.

 

Her new book, Fantastic Flowers, was just released, so I figured this would be the perfect excuse to give Susan a call and learn her research secrets.

“Nature is my muse,” Susan says. About seven years ago she was visiting the US Botanic Garden and saw monkey orchids. “I knew the minute I saw them that I had a book idea!” After finishing up other projects she began combing through botanical archives, talking with botanists, and thinking about what kinds of comparisons would be the most fun for kids. She looked at lots of photos and even consulted calendars to make sure that the seven kinds of flowers shown together on the last spread actually bloom at the same time.

Before she gets down to painting, Susan does a pencil drawing. “I send it to the botanists to make sure it’s accurate,” she says. The text may be imaginative (“Upside down pants” for Dutchman’s breeches) but the illustrations provide important factual information.

Then she traces the drawing on two-ply Bristol paper. Susan’s medium of choice is water-based acrylics because the paint dries quickly and she can work in layers. For her painting of “spiraling spoons” (African daisy) she started with the dark background. Then came the light lines “to outline,” she explains, and then she filled in the leaves with greens.

She mixes each color, saving them in small canisters labeled so she’ll know what page, what plant they go to. “At one point I had about 25 labeled canisters!”  

Illustrations get revised. The original drawing of daisies had included three butterflies, but Susan worried that they cluttered up the illustration. She took another illustration to her critique group (three wonderful author/illustrators) and one of them noticed that a petal looked like it could be a lifted leg. Susan incorporated that idea into her revised drawing.

“And sometimes I get something wrong,” she admits – though, given her careful research, it rarely happens. That happened with the spider flowers. When she sent a copy of the painting to the botanist-expert, he pointed out a few things that needed to be fixed for this particular species. So it was – literally – back to the drawing board.

Another technical thing Susan considers when she paints: placement of the text and the gutter – the part of the illustration that gets sucked into the binding. “I make sure nothing critical is near the center of a spread,” she says. “I might tilt a flower to one side or the other so the important parts show.”

Fantastic Flowers was released last month by Peachtree.

Lynne Avril, Illustrator Extraordinaire: The Illustrator's Side of the Process by Kathy Halsey

Make friends with illustrators, picture book writers. OK, yes, I tracked illustrator Lynne Avril down at Changing Hands Bookstore.  BUT, when you find the illustrator of over 80 books, including the new Amelia Bedelia series doing story time on a Saturday, what would YOU do? 

Kathy, Lynne and a spontaneous Lily McBloom in background

We chatted over lattes and shared mutual experiences. Authors and illustrators have LOTS in common, and Lynne graciously let us in on the illustrator's side of the picture book process. I hope you learn as much as I did from her thoughtful answers! 

KH: Can you explain how you begin to tackle the art for a manuscript?

LA: First, I want to say how awed I am by the writers I work with, and the wonderful stories they give me to work with. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do, than illustrate these creative works of imagination.

The ideas start flowing with the first read of the manuscript. The author’s words create the scene in my imagination, and I go from there to bring it into “reality”. Because what I create is truly a reality for me. Sometimes, and I’m sure I share this experience with authors, I come out of “the zone” and hours have passed, and I feel like I’ve been somewhere else – in whatever storyland I’m working on at the moment!

There are so many things to think about at first. It is a lot like directing a movie, where a book is turned into film. There are characters to create (casting), background scenes to create (on location, props etc), clothes to design (costume department), and especially and most importantly, the ACTING, as you feel and describe the emotions of the characters.

You don’t want all your books to look the same, in fact it’s impossible, as each story is special, and each has a feeling that comes with the first reading from the impressions you pick up of the author’s style. So you may choose from a variety of techniques – maybe watercolor, gouache, pastel, outline, no outline. Even if you work digitally, there are many choices. You may approach the story realistically or whimsically. The colors may be wildly glorious, or darkly somber. But it all has to come together to tell the story.

To make a long story short, then come piles and piles of sketches, overviews and corrections by the editor and art director (and sometimes the author if he/she has clout), and then on to the final artwork – all this takes months and months. And after that, a LONG year until the book is printed, bound, and released. Lots of work!

KH: What suggestions do you have for writers in making sure we leave ample room for illustrators and their magic?

LA: Well, if you are a picture book writer, you already know the mantra, “less is more”. That is not only good for your writing, but gives us illustrators something to add! A picture book is known as a marriage between words and pictures. Each side adds a dimension to the story.

KH: Many writers I know debate about adding illustration notes in their work. Your opinion, please…

LA: There are instances where I receive certain short notes from the author in the manuscript, which can be very helpful. But if you have written a strong story, and you have a good illustrator on board, your work is done. Sit back and hand over the reins. You are the word person, and the illustrator is the visual person. You may be pleasantly surprised!

KH: You’ve illustrated scores of picture books, including the Nellie Sue “Every Cowgirl” series by Rebecca Janni, the new Amelia Bedelia picture books, I Can Read books & chapter books. Is your approach to picture books different than early chapter books? Do you have less work in telling the story in a chapter book?

LA: Believe it or not, the Amelia Bedelia chapter books are as much work, or more, than the picture books. The picture books are 32 pages, and the chapter books are about 140 pages with multiple pictures on each page (more in mine than the normal chapter books!). The art is in black and white, and ranges from spots to full scenes.  I do them in black line, and paint them with ink washes. There is so much to do – so many details to figure out, like the floor plan of the house, the decoration of a room, the furniture, street scenes with architecture. The chapter books I did several years ago for Random House (Starvation Lake) had one scene per chapter, and that was a piece of cake. But I love these, with all the art – the books have a LOT of energy!

KH: I love your newest books, I’M GONNA CLIMB A MOUNTAIN IN MY PATENT LEATHER SHOES and UNDERPANTS DANCE. Does the tone of the story play a part in which medium you choose for illustration?

LA: Yes, I use different mediums for different stories. Amelia Bedelia is painted in gouache with black pencil outline.  UNDERPANTS DANCE was also done in gouache, but outlined with my favorite ink pen, which has a very fluid and thin line, to express her movement. I wanted to show a lot of white spaced in that book. CLIMB A MOUNTAIN is actually done in chalk pastel, rubbed into the paper, and mixed with matte medium, because I was more interested in double page spreads with full bleed and large areas of color and texture.

KH: You really engaged the kids at your presentation the Saturday we met. How does a writer/illustrator make that happen?

LA: Well, I think they always like to watch somebody draw – I know I do! It’s almost like a magic show. And most kids at that age still like to draw too. It’s kind of sad when that disappears in most people. And if you, as a writer or illustrator, are excited about what you do, the kids catch on to that and respond enthusiastically!

KH: We discussed deadlines and edits for illustrators and authors. I don’t think we writers maybe appreciate what all goes on from the artist’s perspective. Can you enlighten us?

LA: My art director, Sylvie LeFloch, at Greenwillow (Amelia Bedelia books) is a GREAT partner! She is often my second set of eyes, and much like an editor is to a writer. We have great teamwork and do everything we have to do to get the work done on time. And I have never been late for a deadline. It can get pretty intense, but I thrive on that.

KH: How do feed your creative side? I know you travel yearly to Paris and play bass in a blues band.

LA: Travelling to Paris is very important to me, to recharge my artistic energy. I find when I’m there, I can’t stop drawing. I’ll work all day, and then I go out to relax, and I’ll find myself at a sidewalk restaurant, with my sketchbook out, DRAWING. There is so much culture there – all kinds of art expositions, beautiful architecture, bookstores everywhere. As far as the music, living and working alone is very important to me, but I need to get out and be with friends too. Music is very energizing and healing.

I was thrilled to meet Lynne and hope you have a better idea of how a master illustrator works! THANK YOU, Lynne!!!! Now go out there and climb a mountain in your patent leather shoes!