January 26, 2010

Author Interviews @ Pickle Me This: Patricia Storms (for Family Literacy Week!)

I first encountered Patricia Storms through her blog Booklust, and I think I’ve only ever met her two or three times in person, but I feel as though I know her much better than two or three times would allow. She is a generous spirit who radiates such warmth and energy, she has a delightful sense of humour, and she’s a talented illustrator (of books including The 13 Ghosts of Halloween, Edward and the Eureka Lucky Wish Company, and Good Granny Bad Granny) and now author/ illustrator (of her latest book The Pirate and the Penguin). I love her books, I think she’s fabulous, and I’m so pleased that she’s answered some of my questions about writing and illustrating picture books, and also about family literacy.

I: Funny, we call them “picture books”, but then the pictures themselves are so often regarded as secondary (that an illustrator might not receive the same credit as an author of the text, for example). What role do you think illustrations play in children’s books? And why do the illustrations get less respect?

PS: In my Utopian world, the writer and the artist would get equal-billing, since they are both so dependent on each other. Ideally, the artist (I would hope) would be more than just a hired hand doing grunt work and translating literal images onto the page from the words provided. In a good picture book, I see the illustrator as someone who takes the story to another level of delight, imagination and entertainment. The illustrator should be just as much of a story-teller as the author. But they should not be competing with each other. It makes me think of a couple in love, walking in the forest holding hands, each pointing to the different things they both see on their travels. Each person has a unique perspective, but they are still connected, and are grounded in the same environment (the story).

Perhaps ‘get less respect’ is a tad dramatic. (I know, I know ­ I’m the one who used this phrase in a previous email conversation. Heaven knows, I can be a tad dramatic at times). That being said, I have on occasion encountered a certain lack of appreciation for what illustrators (and might I add, especially cartoonists) do for picture books. It can be small annoying things like every time I illustrate a book I have to send a special request to Amazon so that they will add my name at the top of the book entry, following the author. Or really shocking situations like when Madonna ‘wrote’ all those kid’s books, and the illustrators didn’t have their names on the cover of the book at all (of course that is a unique and hopefully never-to-be-repeated situation by any other author). Usually it just seems to me that in terms of promotion, the writer’s name gets more coverage than that of the illustrator. And yet it is called a ‘picture’ book. But I have to be fair, here. It’s the writer who comes up with the idea for the story, and yes, the words are usually crafted long before any pictures appear. As much as I would like equal billing, I must concede that the writer is steering the ship (am I using too much cheesy imagery here? This is the wannabe hack writer coming out in me). So perhaps it is assumed that since the writer is the one who has thought of the original idea and the story, then the illustrator will never be as ‘creative’ as the author, and is simply following the author’s lead. I would rather not see the relationship of author and illustrator in this manner. And I am starting to ramble. Next question.

I: Over the course of your career, what have you learned about the art of illustrating children’s books that would have surprised you in the beginning?

PS: I had always assumed that when an illustrator was hired to draw the pictures for a picture book manuscript, that the story was completely polished and finished at this point. But this is not always the case, and the artist may go off in some interesting directions, while editors are still actually doing last-minute edits on the story. Sometimes art can change at the last minute because of this.

I was also very surprised to find out how much control the Marketing Department (in some publishing houses) has in terms of which artist is chosen for specific projects. But I do have to remind myself that as much as I may just want to create silly, adorable pictures for kids, it is, in the end, a commercial product, and well, publishers do appreciate making money (as do I).

One aspect of this industry which really surprised me was when I was told that some big box bookstores even have editorial control over potential manuscripts and art. They are consulted by publishers and can say yea nor nay on a project, if they think it will or will not sell. They can also recommend creative changes on book covers. Frightening.

I: You’ve recently made the leap from illustrator to author too, of your most recent book The Pirate and the Penguin. Would this be a natural extension for any illustrator? Was it a natural extension for you, and why?

PS: I don’t think making the leap from illustrator to author is for every artist. Not every illustrator has a gift of the written word. Some just have no interest in doing it at all (and really, why would one willingly enter into another career that has the potential to do more serious damage to one’s already delicate ego?)

Becoming a picture book author was a natural extension for me, though. I have always loved words just as much as art, and I think this has a lot to do with my enduring love of cartoons and comics. In fact, that’s how I learned to read ­ through cartoons, comic strips and comic books, in conjunction with picture books, of course. As a kid I wrote and drew countless comic strips, and as I got older, I enjoyed writing stories and poems and my own one-panel gag cartoons. Any chance I could get to not write a standard dull essay in high school English, and instead do something creative, I took it. (For example, in my grade 13 Canadian English course, I opted to write a musical based on Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz).

As much as I enjoy illustrating the words of others, I do have my own ideas that I would love to see come alive in a book. I sometimes have to pinch myself when I look at The Pirate and the Penguin, ­ I can’t believe I’ve managed to get this far with my dreams. I hope I may be allowed to write and illustrate more stories in the future. But I gotta be truthful ­ for me, it’s very hard, writing picture book stories. The writing is much harder to do than the art. So really, just ignore everything I was kvetching about in question one. What the hell do I know? (more…)

January 25, 2010

Our Favourite Family Reads

We’re starting simple in our celebration of Family Literacy Day/Week. To kick it off, I bring you a list of our favourite books to read to our eight month-old daughter.

Though first, I’ll have you know that she now has two favourite books of her own and they are Rainbow Fun and All About Me: A Baby’s Guide to Babies. Sometimes she will only not cry if she is holding/eating/being read Rainbow Fun, and no other book will do. She laughs hysterically throughout A Baby’s Guide to Babies. This absolutely kills me. Text is not foremost in either of these books though, so the books we like best to read to her are a little different. And they are as follows:

1) Peepo by Janet & Allan Ahlberg: I love the rhythm, I love the rhymes. I love bedroom mirror with its rainbow rim, and a mother with a baby just like him. And you could find something new hidden in the illustrations with every reread.

2) Where is the Green Sheep by Mem Fox: We’ve started banging on a drum during story time, and this book has the best beat poet vibe. I have given this book to every child I know. My favourite is the moon sheep and the star sheep, and Stuart loves the near and far sheep. It never gets old, or at least it hasn’t yet.

3) I Kissed the Baby by Mary Murphy: It’s short with strong drawings in black and white, which made it ideal for when Harriet was smaller. It’s question/answer structure makes it fun to read in dialogue. I love to say, “Of course, I kissed the baby. My own amazing baby.” Indeed.

4) Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers: Harriet always laughs at the “Every day, everywhere, babies make noise” page. We kind of like the book because it has same-sex families, and we get to feel liberal and superior to those who gave it one-star ratings on amazon for that same reason. It also has a wonderful sing-song rhythm to it, adorable pictures, and an ending that makes me cry, crediting baby-people for “for trying so hard, for travelling so far, for being so wonderful, just as they are.”

5) Ten Little Fingers Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox: Though I fear that this book might alienate readers with six toes on one foot, or with three thumbs, anyone with twenty digits will find this Mem Fox/Helen Oxenbury collaboration completely adorable. Page breaks in all the right places allow for optimum emphasis, narrative underlines that babies are delicious the world over, and babies learn about fingers, toes, and then receive three little kisses on their noses.

5) The Paperbag Princess by Robert Munsch: We have an abridged, indestructable board book version that is perfect for story time. Hoping our daughter takes home the message of one enterprising princess, and how she “didn’t get married after all.”

6) Night Cars by Teddy Jam: We love this story of an urban baby who wouldn’t go to sleep, and is the reason I can often be found warning garbagemen to “be careful near that dream.” Stuart particularly likes that Dad is the primary parent in this one, and that it ends with Baby asleep in his arms, albeit in the morning.

7) Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown: This is the mommy version of Night Cars at our house. I love reading it, making the “shhh” sounds (though I am often frightened by the eerie lights on in the dollhouse). And the cow jumping over the moon picture, because that was Harriet’s first nursery rhyme.

8) The Lady with the Alligator Purse by Nadine Bernard Westcott: A hilarious story of three-tiered healthcare, with pizza as the best medicine. It’s weird and joyful, and we read it like a song.

9) Kisses Kisses Baby-O by Sheree Fitch: I love the “Shhh, hush time. Snuggle huggle…” page the best, which features a beautiful picture of a baby breastfeeding (though unlike my baby, that one doesn’t appear to be biting). Fitch manipulates language in her signature style, and the result is sheer delight. Part lullaby, part poem, and all love song.

10) On the Day You Were Born by Debra Frasier: Because of the illustrations with strong contrast and bright colours, because everything in it is true, and because it puts Baby at the centre of the universe. My favourite is the promise from gravity “that you would never float away.”

So those are mine. What are yours, for babies or kids that are bigger?

January 19, 2010

Family Literacy ALL WEEK LONG

Next Wednesday (January 27th) is Family Literacy Day, but we’re turning it into a week-long celebration here at Pickle Me This. Stay tuned for lots of children’s literature love, including an interview, a party and a fieldtrip. Check out their website to find an event where you can take part, or register your own.

January 13, 2010

The library is doing nothing

The library is doing nothing to relieve me of my obsessive compulsive bookbuying ways. Instead, the library is widening my exposure to books I will DIE if I do not own. Lately, in this way, the following books have made their way into my library and into Harriet’s: Kiss the Joy as It Flies by Sheree Fitch (about which more is to come), 365 Activities You and Your Baby Will Love,
Baby Sign Language Basics, Ten Little Fingers Ten Little Toes by our beloved Mem Fox, Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers, and How Happy to Be by Katrina Onstad. And now I also really think I need a copy of The Sleeping Life by Kerry Ryan. I’m not going to mention the two novels I picked up at the used bookstore this morning (Small Ceremonies and Muriella Pent, borrowed from libraries year ago; how did I live this long without them?) because I don’t want my husband to find out about them. (If he happened to, however, read this far in this entry, he’d be relieved to know at least that I’ve read both of them already so the to-be-read shelf has not grown at all.)

Anyway, that is it. I am cut off. No book buying until March.

January 11, 2010

Tricks of Perspective

It’s a strange trick of perspective, and I can never quite figure it out: is Harriet tiny or enormous? It changes from moment to moment, day to day. And I do like this picture, because I so rarely get to see her from a distance, for the individual person she is and will grow to be, as opposed to my forever appendage. She truly is one of the funniest and most interesting people I have ever met, through her staying-asleep skills are appalling. But how I admire her excellent posture and her perfectly round head.

Bookishly, my books to-be-read seem much less overwhelming today, mostly because I cleaned my house this week. I am not sure why there is a link between the two, but I’ll take ease wherever I can find it. And in a similar trick of perspective to the paragraph above, I am now reading Kiss the Joy as it Flies by Sheree Fitch, because I’m altogether intrigued about what a novel would be were it written by the author of Kisses Kisses Baby-O (one of our favourite bedtime board books). And so far, it’s as marvelous as expected.

I discovered Fitch had written an adult novel when it made the longlist for Canada Also Reads, The Afterword‘s response to CBC Canada Reads. It’s an intriguing list, packed with many books I’ve loved before, including The Incident Report, Stunt, Come Thou, Tortoise, Girls Fall Down, Coventry, February, Cloud of Bone, Too Much Happiness, The Killing Circle, Bang Crunch, and Yellowknife. Looking forward to seeing the shortlist.

December 21, 2009

On The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Though I suspect my aversion to all things science-fiction/ fantasy might be genetic, I can also trace it to having to watch a cartoon version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe during one rainy indoor recess back in grade one. That witch, the way one character spoke about “strangers in these woods”, what a strangely terrifying thing is whatever is “turkish delight”, and then when they cut the lion’s mane off! I remember it all vividly, and with such a frisson of horror (and don’t even get me started on the indoor recess where we watched The Neverending Story and the horse drowning in the quicksand).

I’ve had a copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe sitting on my shelf for a while now, and this weekend I finally got around to reading it. Because it’s a children’s classic, and you can’t judge a book based upon a cartoon adaptation you watched when you were six (as the adage goes). And I can see why I was creeped out all those years ago, but I did enjoy it and will pass it along to Harriet to read when she is bigger. Christian allegory or not, it was an absorbing story, I loved the role of the Professor who confirms that Narnia is not just the children’s fantasy, the obtrusive narrator, the complicating nature of Edmund’s treachery, connections to Lewis Carroll and Wonderland, and idea of a world where it is always winter and never Christmas (which sounds a little like February).

It was an absorbing story indeed. If I were ever to give advice on how to start a novel, I’d advise a writer to have a character discover a secret world (“ok, I’m intrigued), explore it, and very quickly return back and then discover the world’s portal has shut (“ok, I’m reading this book to the end now just to figure out what this is all about”). It’s a double-bait, and it’s excellent.

I’m also now thinking much about book titles that are itemized lists of what the book contains. There are plenty with one item, many with two, but how many others with three items? (Off the top of my head, I can only think of an old YA book called Maudie, Me and the Dirty Book.) Such a title would hardly be inspired, would it? Though alliteration certainly works in its favour here.

I don’t imagine I’ll be reading further chronicles of Narnia, because not being a small child, I’ve come to these books much too late. But I’m glad I finally read this one, particularly in order to discover that (SPOILER ALERT) Aslan doesn’t die!! Or he is reincarnated, or… something. I don’t know how I missed that during Indoor Recess. Perhaps I was so traumatized by him being shorn of his mane that I missed the rest of the film? Nevertheless, I was much relieved by this happy ending.

December 17, 2009

Our Menagerie

This morning at the library, I was excited to find a book called Animals in My House. “Finally,” I thought, “a book that Harriet will be able to relate to.” How disappointed was I then, when I discovered the book was about domestic animals, exclusively pets? And does anybody know a book we can use to help explain to our daughter the mice under the floors, the squirrel in the wall, spiders on the bathroom ceiling and that family of raccoons outside the door? Or is this just a board book begging to be written?

December 10, 2009

Pathos and other things

If I look tired here, it’s because I am! It’s been a hard, hard, hard few weeks. I think I’m blaming it on teeth, as there are two teeth apparent but remarkably sloooow at coming in (it’s been two weeks now, and they’re just creeping past the gums). There’s been a lot of screaming all the livelong day, and a lot of not sleeping all the deadlong night, and now I’ve just learned the joy of pushing a stroller along snowy sidewalks that people don’t shovel. Today I was a lesson in pathos as I shoved my stroller up over snowy curbs, the rain cover ripped and flew up in my face, my boots were leaking, buttons dripping off my coat, and I got splashed by a taxi-cab. The whole thing was very sad. And I won’t even get started on the middle of last night, when the baby would only stop crying when she was throwing up in my bed.

Motherhood is not always as romantic as I dreamed it would be.

There are good things: wonderful books to read, of course. I’ve been doing ongoing Christmas baking. I’m knitting Harriet a Christmas stocking. I finally completed a short story for the first time since Harriet’s birth. My short story contest win. Friends to spend afternoons with. Yesterday’s visit to the Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books. That Harriet’s intensive lessons in waving hello and goodbye are starting to pay off. Advent calendar fun at every turn.

Speaking of, I’m loving The Advent Books Blog. I love reading the recommendations for books I have no intention of reading even, I love that different kinds of books that readers are so passionate about, and I like the linky places the recommenders’ biographies are taking me.

I love this post about Christmas shopping at the library. DoveGreyReader on readers vs. critics. Maureen Corrigan on passionate books for the holidays. Rebecca (delightfully) on names and naming. And I found this old interview with Allan Ahlberg, which was interesting. (Peepo is a favourite around our house.)

Now must go eat… something. And begin reading An Education by Lynn Barber.

UPDATE: For those who care, the second tooth is finally in, and we’ve got a bit of peace around here. Hurrah! I’ve also found a cheap second-hand jogging stroller online that will make my pedestrian life a little less pathetic this winter.

November 22, 2009

The only proper way to breastfeed

It’s strange, I think, that while breastfeeding is so ridiculously revered in our society to the point where bottle-feeding can raise eyebrows, the image of breastfeeding itself might raise those brows even higher. Mostly because we never see it, in real life or in the media, which perpetuates breastfeeding imagery as taboo, and so it goes. So I’ve been eagerly keeping track of breastfeeding imagery during this last while, on television (Being Erica) and in children’s books (lately, Busy Pandas).

But I especially like this picture, from Susan Meyer’s Everywhere Babies (which acknowledges breastfeeding as being just one of many ways that babies everywhere are fed).

While we don’t see enough breastfeeding imagery, even rarer is imagery of the only proper way to breastfeed– with a book in hand.

It is telling, however, that the mother has fallen asleep. Some days are just too much for multi-tasking.

November 13, 2009

Virginia Wolf on Louise Fitzhugh (seriously)

A very exciting parcel came to our house today! Finally, my long-awaited copy of Louise Fitzhugh— a biography by the carefully named Virginia L. Wolf– has arrived from BetterWorldBooks. There are not a lot of resources on Fitzhugh around, though the Purple Socks Tribute Site is pretty cool. But I was eager to learn more about this author (who wrote Harriet the Spy, for those of you not in the know), and this book had been lost in the depths of Robarts library, and the one copy in the Public Library system was not for circulation. So, obviously, another book purchase was necessary. I can’t wait to read it.