Maisie Chan is the winner of the 2022 Branford Boase award with her brilliantly funny and thoughtful Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths.  We were delighted to talk with Maisie about her writing and about the award.

What was your journey to becoming an author?

It’s been a long journey!

I guess I had an epiphany when my mum passed away in 2003. I remember telling someone I wanted to ‘write books!’ but I had no idea where to begin. Three years later, I began with short stories and flash fiction for adults. I felt that was a good place to begin as the form is short and I could then move onto novels. I have to say that I was immensely scared of writing a novel and didn’t try to write one for years. I felt it was too big a hurdle and that I was not ready for the task. I also wanted to write a memoir, however, I remember someone telling me that I was ‘too young’ to write a memoir. At the time, I didn’t agree, I felt I had a lot to say about my life. Yet, they were right in terms of my writing ability. I was still very much learning to become a writer. I had support from Writing West Midlands.

I had some short stories published and lead creative writing workshops for adults and children, but I still didn’t write a novel until I became a mentee on the inaugural Megaphone scheme with mentor Leila Rasheed back in 2016. I’d had some time away to have children and had hardly written a thing for five years but felt that this was a great opportunity for me to get back to what mattered to me, which was writing. I had wanted to try writing for children after a librarian had told me my ‘voice’ suited children’s and Y.A. I thought I would give it a go. The year I spent as a Megaphone mentee was brilliant. We had masterclasses from Patrice Lawrence (just before Orange Boy was published!), Catherine Johnson, Candy Gourlay, Alex Wheatle and more. We got to speak to editors and agents, and we had a showcase at the London Book Fair. I wrote a novel for teens called Looking For Lily Wong and landed my first agent soon after I finished writing it.

During the time I was editing my teen novel, I felt something just wasn’t working and put it aside. My agent asked me if I had any middle grade ideas and I pitched her Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths (which was then called Lychees and Bingo Balls). She liked the idea, and I wrote it. A year later we went on submission, and it was picked up by Piccadilly Press in a two-book deal and it was bought by Amulet in the States a few weeks later. I thought Danny Chung might do better in the States than in the U.K. because there hadn’t been many (or any) titles published here for that age group by or for British Chinese people. I wasn’t sure there was going to be a readership. But I’m glad to say I was wrong!

Can you introduce us to Danny Chung please?

Danny is eleven-years-old and is a young artist. He loves drawing comics and getting his friend Ravi to help with the speech bubbles. It’s an activity that makes them laugh and one where they can be truly themselves. He also uses drawing to vent his frustrations and to work out things going on in his life.

Danny lives above a Chinese takeaway with his parents. They want him to do well at school, and in their eyes that means being good at maths and other subjects. His mum’s best friend, Auntie Yee is always comparing him to Amelia Yee who is good at everything. This makes Danny feel bad.

Danny also wants to be part of a ‘cool’ group of boys who play physical games (scooting and shooting their foam pellet guns around the park) rather than the more imaginative activities that he and Ravi partake in. And to make things worse, he’s got a math presentation and his gran from China moves in. No-one has told him this is going to happen, so it’s the worse surprise he can think of getting. Danny has a lot of personal challenges to overcome in the book.

He's a regular boy on one hand. But he’s also a British Chinese boy too and so there are things about his family’s situation and lifestyle which are uniquely British Chinese. My main concern when writing him was making him relatable. He’s got wants and desires like any eleven-year-old boy whose parents hope they’ll to be a certain way, but he has his own path to follow.

The relationship between Danny and his grandmother, Nai Nai, is beautifully realised and is often very funny, was it challenging creating the dynamic between the pair when language is a barrier for them?

Well, yes and no. My concern for Nai Nai was that I wanted her to inhabit the space in the book without speaking much and so she is very physical in how she moves, and her actions speak volumes. I wanted readers to ‘see’ her in their minds clearly when they read the book and she is by far the most beloved character. I have a lot of experience in real life of staying with people or communicating with others who don’t speak the same language as me. I lived in Taipei for a while and I was the one who was the outsider, who couldn’t speak the language and would smile and point at things. You find that you can use your body, your expressions and your hands for communication when language is a barrier, so I put all of that into the novel. There may be the occasional blip too and you can see that in the scene were Danny takes Nai Nai to the bowling green and there is an incident with a large fruit. It made me laugh to write those kinds of scenes and I think people have enjoyed the humour of the book, but it was hard not to make Nai Nai into a caricature. She is based on a few older women that I know, grandmothers and mothers who do spit out lychee seeds into buckets, or who bash watermelons with their palms. Women who want to show their love by feeding you and feeding you some more.

The book is written in first person, so we see things form Danny’s point of view and I think he was meaner to her in the earlier drafts.  My editor helped me to bring out Danny’s feelings about his grandmother more, but to have him less stroppy. She said he also needed to be likeable! I think the tricky part was making him dislike her for taking up space in his life, rather than disliking her for being ‘foreign’ – I didn’t want readers to see her to ‘other’ even though she is newly-arrived, so that was a challenge and I hope it worked. In the scene with the chicken feet this came to the forefront – I didn’t want Danny to be embarrassed by the food, he loves the food she brought to school. He wanted to eat it. He’s embarrassed that she’s shown up to school. Little things like that were important for me. I’ve seen books where Chinese food is posited as ‘disgusting’. It’s about showing the relationship between them as a bridge between generations and cultures. I had a lot of worries about representation when writing it. I wanted to centre a British Chinese character, he’s from the diaspora and so it’s almost a third space. Non-Chinese people might see him as an outsider even though he’s British, Chinese from Asia don’t see him as fully Chinese because he can’t speak the language. It’s a precarious place to be.

Danny finds self-expression through his art, did you have any means for release when you were growing up?

I used to like drawing when I was a child. I won a couple of art competitions when I was in reception class. My painting of Little Red Riding Hood was put up in my local library (the now closed Selly Oak Library in South Birmingham) and I used to like music. I was a fan of Shakin’ Stevens and Adam and the Ants and put masking tape on my face to replicate the Adam Ant stripes that he used to have on his face. I liked to read and to go to the library. I had a few of those Ladybird fairytale books at home but we weren’t a family who read. My parents would read the local newspaper and my dad would buy the Angling Times, as she was a fisherman, but that was it. I liked to make up games and play out on the streets and in the local park, which was called Graffiti Park by the kids, you can guess why!

There's a lot of thoughtful comment around the fusion of different cultures and traditions but there is also a lot of humour, were you conscious of creating a balance between the two and is humour a useful means for exploring complex ideas?

I think the humour comes from my family background. I think humour can be used to break down barriers between people. It can also create divides if you are using it to bully or make fun of someone. How can I centre this person’s experience and add nuance to their character? I think was one question I looked at when writing the characters. For example, Auntie Yee is a tiger mom. She is like a lot of parents I’ve met (Chinese and also non-Chinese) who are pushy, they’re competitive and think about their child as the sum of their academic achievements. I presented that stereotype (because there are people like that I know), but I also added a layer of empathy where we can see that Auntie Yee, also strives to belong in a culture that does not accept her fully so then she thinks that by having certain things or having a daughter who is the best is the way to make friends of be accepted.

The Branford Boase recognises both a debut author and also their editor, can you tell us a little about the relationship you had with your editor Georgia Murray at Piccadilly Press?

Georgia loved my writing from the beginning. When we met for the first time, I was sure this was the right editor for my book. I could tell she loved the characters and she said it was in ‘good shape’ which made me feel like I wasn’t a total novice.

Georgia sends me notes about the big things like structure, characters, plot and then there are notes on the actual manuscript. I must say that each time I’ve had editor notes from Georgia, they have been kind (which is very important for first time writers), the tone is not condescending, or demanding either. She offers gentle suggestions and so far, there hasn’t been a note which I’ve disagreed on or had to dispute. I think there is a now an inherent trust between us. She knows how I work, which can be disorganised, as I have a rough plan when I start writing but I like to see what will appear as I’m writing. I have to delete a lot of words sometimes as I try things and they may not always work but I accept that as part of the process of writing.

It was interesting for me to have Georgia there from the idea stage with my second novel - Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu and I would say her input into the shaping of Lizzie Chu was a lot more than with Danny Chung as I had her support all the way through. She was particularly helpful when I was stuck. I think sometimes I want someone else to come up with the answers for me, but Georgia is good at encouraging me to stick with the process. Parts of the novel appear in the writing of it and some of it feels unconscious and magical almost, I don’t know where some of it comes from.

I value Georgia’s measured nature and if I have any concerns (I am a worrier!) then I feel I can always go to her and tell her what’s on my mind. I trust Georgia (and her team) to know about the market and so when they came up with Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths as the title of the book, I wasn’t sure, but then I told myself, I have to trust her and the team to know what is best for the book.

Your latest book is 'Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu,' can you tell us anything about it please?

Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu is about a young carer whose grandad, Wai Gong is acting a little strange. They’re huge Strictly Come Dancing fans and Lizzie gets tickets to the Blackpool Tower (the home of Ballroom and Latin dancing) and she wants to take him there for a special day out but she’s twelve-years-old and needs help. It’s got a road trip, cosplay and of course, dancing. But there are also intermissions of Chinese myths and legends about the goddess Guan Yin who features in the book. She is the goddess of compassion and mercy. The book is influenced and was written during the pandemic. It was hard going! It’s really a homage to popular culture which was our escape during a tough time, and also, it’s a book about joy and kindness. It’s quite different from Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths, the themes are a little bit older, as is the voice. The writing was also different as the story isn’t as layered as Danny Chung either and there isn’t an antagonist as such, the obstacles are linear. But it is emotive, so I’ve been told and there is humour in there too and a lively cast of characters. I hope readers like it!

The winner of the Branford Boase traditionally goes on to judge the award, is there anything you will be particularly keen to see next year?

Ohhhh, what an interesting question! I don’t know! I loved seeing a highly illustrated book on this year’s shortlist. I think graphic novels are highly sophisticated and so perhaps I’d like to see one of those do well – a YA graphic novel maybe? They’re becoming increasingly popular for all age ranges. Also, funny books are hard to write but often don’t get the kudos that they should in children’s literature. If you can make a children smile, laugh or giggle that is no mean feat and I think children need joy now as they’ve been through so much. So maybe a funny book where you learn something new too? Who knows what we are going to get next year!

A big thank you to Maisie for the interview and to Andrea Reece for the opportunity.

We are excited to welcome Alison Brumwell, Chair of the Youth Libraries Group, to reflect on the work of illustrator Jon Agee, whose The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau publishes today (4 February 2021).  

One of my personal highlights of In the Frame: Putting Readers in the Picture, YLG’s virtual conference in November 2020, was the opportunity to host a live Q & A session with acclaimed U.S. author and illustrator Jon Agee from his home base in San Francisco. While I have admired Jon’s work for several years - and he has won several awards during his substantial career - he has been less well-known in the UK until recently, courtesy of independent publisher Scallywag Press.

Scallywag Press, founded in 2018 by Sarah Pakenham, has introduced five of Jon Agee’s works to UK readers, including the publication of The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau. This witty, inventive picture book was originally published in 1988 and was named a New York Times Book Review Notable Children’s Book of the Year. It features Jon’s trademark visual humour and word play, with the reader definitely privy to the joke and able to fully interact with the narrative. As Sarah says, “[Jon’s] is masterful storytelling with very simple words and pictures, full of the surreal, the hilarious and the poignant.”

I first encountered the magic and artistry of Jon Agee at Mabel’s Fables, an independent bookseller in Toronto, and was immediately hooked by his humour, sense of the absurd and impeccable visual timing. Art has always been a central part of Jon’s life; as a young student he loved drawing cartoons and comic strips and was heavily influenced by the English illustrator and poet Edward Lear. This passion is clearly evident in his books for children. He has an ability to convey emotion and cleverly pace his stories through drawing clear, bold lines. There’s also a very clever use of comic book layout (the panels, spotlight effect and speech bubbles in Lion Lessons are one example of this). 

Sarah’s own relationship with Jon’s books began when she met Charlene Lai, a Taiwanese bookseller and blogger, who had invited Jon to the Taipei BookFair. After investigating them all, Sarah says “each was more of a delight than the last!” As only two of Jon’s picture books had ever been published in the UK (coincidentally by Sarah’s editor, Janice Thompson, who was Children’s Book Editor at Faber in the 1980’s) she soon acquired the rights to Lion Lessons and made an offer on The Wall in the Middle of the Book on the basis of a half-finished book. In the latter, there is an inventive exploration of the fourth wall – the space which separates Jon’s characters from their reader – and a strong sense of the three-dimensional, which is what also makes Felix Clousseau such a timeless, remarkable picture book. The reader is in the front row of the audience, watching the narrative unfold and experiencing a thoroughly satisfying (if unexpected) ending. A twist to the tale is something at which Jon Agee excels!

Prior to interviewing Jon last year, I re-read American writer Paul Auster’s novel The Book of Illusions, in which he describes one of his character’s silent film performances: “It wasn’t slapstick and anarchy so much as character and pace, a smoothly orchestrated mixture of objects, bodies and minds.” The same could be said of Jon Agee, which is what makes him such a remarkable writer and illustrator. His illustrated narratives are entertaining, nuanced and perfectly balanced, with a visual challenge in every spread.

Thank you to Alison Brumwell for the blog.  Why not check out the YLG interview with Jon Agee here?

We are delighted to welcome Wibke Brueggemann to the blog on Blue Monday to talk about writing humour in young adult fiction.  Wibke grew up in northern Germany and the United States but lives in London.  She studied acting before deciding to become a writer.  Wibke’s debut novel Love is for Losers publishes on 21 January.

I believe humour is a force to be reckoned with as we write and read and live.  It can open the door to uncomfortable conversations, it can diffuse difficult situations, and it will illuminate and magnify the truth.

Humans seek laughter. It makes us feel good, physically as well as emotionally. It’s also a language we all understand, and it therefore connects us on a very honest and deeply emotional level.

When you read up on the effects of laughter on the body, you’ll find that it is proven to boost the immune system, that it can lower blood pressure, and even relieve pain from chronic illness.

The origins of the saying about laughter being the best medicine apparently go back to the Bible, to the book of Proverbs, chapter 17, verse 22 which reads "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine". It’s no wonder that we crave it, that we turn to it in times of peril.

An article on the website theconversation.com suggests that the origins of human laughter can be traces back to between ten and sixteen million years ago, and that its main purpose was to tighten social bonds which, in turn, enhanced chances of survival.

 And isn’t it interesting how millions of years later, laughter still feels so vital? I can only speak for myself, but I certainly feel its ancient pull as I go through my life and choose my friends and acquaintances.

When I wrote Love is for Losers, I never consciously planned for it to be a funny book. All I wanted was to write a story about a girl who volunteers at a charity shop, falls in love with another girl, and freaks out about it for the most bizarre reasons.

I also wanted to write about the importance of family and community, and it’s very interesting to me that humour snuck in so naturally and became the glue that held everything together.

The facilitator of this humour is my fifteen-year-old protagonist, Phoebe. She’s intelligent, she’s observant, and she’s hilarious, which enables me, the author, to very easily, openly, and honestly talk about the big subjects I want to talk about in the context of this book: sex, love, death.

When I thought: I really want to talk about the importance of young women being able to have positive and satisfying sexual experiences, all I needed to do was for Phoebe to browse the internet, and then tell her best friend Polly: “You need to talk to your boyfriend about the clitoris, because he’s clearly literally missing it.”

It’s amazing what a pinch of humour can achieve.

One of my favourite YA books of all time, and a masterclass in humour as a rhetorical device, is The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.

I’ve never read anything that’s as LOL funny and gut-wrenchingly heart-breaking at the same time. Alexie’s protagonist has to deal with unimaginable issues, and the fact that he makes us laugh so very much almost feels wrong.

It’s the same with Phoebe, although the stakes aren’t quite as high for her, but underneath her bravado and hilarity, there’s a very normal and lonely and insecure human being, but we’re not uncomfortable seeing that.

I think from an audience’s point of view, it’s a lot easier to look at difficult subjects through humour than through drama, and we’re more inclined to let humour take us to those dark places. And I don’t think this is anything that applies specifically to the YA genre, although you may argue that it is applied easier here because young people live in emotional extremes that can certainly heighten highs and lows.

I’m very grateful Love is for Losers turned out to be such a funny read, and that we’re sending it into the world during what is a very difficult time for all of us.

I hope that Phoebe will bring you much needed hope, courage, and laughter.

Love Is For Losers by Wibke Brueggemann, is out on 21^st January 2021, published by Macmillan Children’s Books.  Thank you to Wibke Brueggemann for the blog article and to Macmillan Children’s Books for the opportunity.

The Youth Libraries Group are excited not only to feature on Thiago de Moraes's blog tour, but to be the first stop on this.  Thiago has written a compelling feature onf how 'it's easier to write for kids if you haven't stopped thinking like one.'

When I began writing A Mummy Ate my Homework I didn’t know it would end up being the first in a series of books about an 11-year old boy, neither did I deliberately aim it at an audience of kids around that age. Like a lot of authors, I started writing a story and it turned out to be the way that it is.

It was immensely fun to write, mostly because everyone involved understood the type of humour I was attempting to create. They were trusting enough to believe it would work and very generous with their effort to make it work. That sounds obvious, but not everyone in publishing would have such faith in the mind and heart of an 11 year old reader (or writer, in this particular case) to go along with all that ended up in this book.

11 is a funny age. You know enough to understand stuff, but not so much that you look at the world too objectively. Everything still has the potential to be wonderful and slightly baffling. Although I’m not a child by any valid statistic (in Middle Age Britain I’d be some sort of crumbling village elder or, more likely, a corpse), I haven’t been able to abandon the state of mind of an 11-year old since, well… since I was 11.

I am still fascinated by all sorts of things, all of the time. Creatures I can see in the grass, the way someone stands in a queue, the wingspan of the Andean condor, the ways the sausages on the left side of our oven burn quicker than the ones on the right... I regularly wake my wife up at night to tell her some random and (I am told) totally useless fact I just read but didn’t understand particularly well. Last week it was something on the domestication of horses during the late Neolithic. Lucky lady.

Looking at everything with some sense of wonder also means you’re bound to find most things funny. When writing as Henry I have tried to see the world as he sees it (which is inevitably not that far from the way I do), and the ancient Egyptian world is already full of strangeness and wonder to anyone living today. But because Henry is Henry, and not anybody else, the things he finds odd, moving, difficult or funny might not be the things most of us would.

Here’s what’s going through his mind right at the beginning of the story, while he is trying to figure out where (and when) he landed after his time travel mishap (see attached illustration!)

Some of my favourite books as a child were Asterix and Le Petit Nicolas (Little Nicholas in English), both written by Albert Goscinny. They are still some of my favourite books, and I suspect that’s because they’re not trying to be funny or interesting just for people who are a certain age, or who live in a specific place, time, etc. They just aim to be funny and interesting for everyone (and have been extraordinarily successful at that). Their universality doesn’t come from careful tailoring, but from finding the common things that all of us can enjoy in moments that might seem, superficially, to be very individual.

These common things, the stuff that really matters, don’t change whether you’re eight or eighty. Kids are intelligent, incredibly resourceful intellectually and have an amazing ability to fill the gaps when they don’t understand something immediately. They’re also quick and unforgiving when it comes to spotting things that don’t make sense or aren’t funny enough. Respecting their sensibility and abilities and not seeing their age as a limitation will always leads to better, more interesting stuff.

That’s it. I’m off to play some Minecraft now.

A huge thank you to Thiago de Moraes for the blog feature and to Scholastic for including us on the tour!

Jon Agee is the author and illustrator of numerous picture books.  Milo's Hat Trick and Little Santa have both beenrecognised as American Library Association Notable Books.  The brilliantly witty and timely The Wall in the Middle of the Book is published by Scallywag Press as is Life on Mars.  We were delighted to have the opportunity to interview Jon for the blog.  

Were you interested in illustration as a child and if so, which illustrators made a particular impact upon you and why?

I was always drawing.  Mom, an artist, encouraged that.  I grew up with Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense.  The limericks – of grown-ups doing silly things to themselves and others – were particularly liberating, along with his lively pen and ink drawings.  Garth Williams was another favorite.  His pen and ink illustrations – for Charlotte’s Web and many other books – exuded warmth and had a tactile, sculptural feel.  There was also a well-thumbed album of New Yorker cartoons from the 1950’s, filled with material by Charles Addams, Peter Arno, James Stevenson, Saul Steinberg – all the greats.  It no doubt helped shape my sense of humor. 

In your work, comedy is often derived through what the pictures show but the text does not, is this an important way of helping pre-readers to feel empowered and to begin inferring meaning?

Yes, the pictures often show you something that the text deliberately leaves out.  This may be for comedic effect, as in Life on Mars, where the text never mentions the very large Martian creature following the little astronaut.  The hope is to create an inviting  tension between text and picture, which draws the reader in.

More often, picture book text is spare because the pictures do most of the work.  Years ago I wrote a book about a grown-up astronaut, named Dmitri.  When Dmitri returns to Earth from a two-year stay on the moon, nobody remembers him.  So, he goes to the Museum of Space Exploration to get an idea of what happened while he was away.  It turns out, a lot has happened.  A vast exhibit hall shows the exotic discoveries of more recent astronauts: a fragment from the ring of Saturn, a Plutonian Asteroid, a Venusian Splurge, part of a crater from Mars, even a small planet called Zoltrop.  The illustration is elaborate, so the text is brief: “The main exhibition had changed while he was gone.  Dmitri was impressed.”

Life on Mars really encourages us to look, how important do you think this skill is for young people in the modern world and what role can illustration play in helping to develop this?

Looking is a big part of picture books.  There is a joy to discovering things that are never mentioned in the text.  The picture/text dynamic encourages us to use our intellect, to see beyond the surface of things, to expect the unexpected. 

 In some ways, Life on Mars feels almost an allegory for how picture books can widen our understanding as young children, the world can feel a very unfamiliar and alien place.  You showcase emotions very clearly in your work, are picture books a useful way of helping to make sense of these and even of the world?

When I work on ideas for stories, I’m trying to make sense out of something, even if it’s absolute nonsense.  There is always a clear logic to my stories, no matter how implausible or ridiculous-sounding the plot.  In Life on Mars, a little astronaut misses the biggest find of his life simply because he doesn’t look behind him.  Children can follow his missteps, and empathize with his up and down journey.  And maybe they can laugh along the way.   

The Wall in the Middle of the Book is a masterpiece of minimalism.  It is also a very timely book with so much discussion around borders and movement.  Do you feel picture books can be an effective way to explore often sophisticated issues affecting society and can you think of examples where this happens?  Were you conscious of this when creating the book?  How does it feel to have the book endorsed by Amnesty International?

The idea for Wall was sparked by the architecture of a book; thinking about the opposing rectangular pages as unique places, separated by the binding in the middle.  Many months later, a story emerged from this.  The concept of a protective wall seemed ripe for parody.  So I turned it on its head.  It was simply a coincidence that the book was published at a time when a controversial wall was being discussed here in the States.

Many picture books explore important issues that affect society.  Among Dr Seuss’s books, he covered racism, environmentalism, and nuclear war.  Maurice Sendak’s We’re All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy was inspired by a photograph of homeless children in Brazil.  John Burningham’s Aldo seems to be about a girl whose parents have separated.  In William Steig’s Amos and Boris, a mouse, fearing he’s about to drown in the ocean, talks candidly about mortality.

The Amnesty International endorsement was a first.  I was delighted!   

 The book makes clever use of the gutter to create a physical barrier, how conscious of the format of the book are you when creating the layout and composition of your illustrations and how does this affect them?

Part of writing and illustrating a picture book involves figuring out the way you want to physically (graphically) present your story.  Will it be the standard 32 pages?  Does it need to be longer?  Will it rely on a few big page turns, or many?  Will it utilize single page spreads and double page spreads (where the picture crosses the gutter) or simply double page spreads throughout?  Will the story break the fourth wall?  Will it ask the reader to interact?  Will it incorporate text in the picture?

It’s not enough to simply be a good illustrator, writer or designer.  A picture book is about sequential images, the play of words and pictures, pacing, timing, scale, perspective, point-of-view, etc.  Left and right page (verso and recto) can have distinct roles.  Page turns can set up punch lines and surprises.  There are a lot of things to consider, which is part of the reason I enjoy what I do.   

 The Youth Libraries Group supports libraries and librarians, how important have libraries been to you during your life? 

 As a kid, stepping into the local public library was like walking into a church, because it was so quiet, and – being a kid – I was inevitably told to be quiet, which was awkward, but then I found my book, settled in, and it all made sense.

 I loved my college library.  A beautiful, modern space.  The chairs, though, were too comfortable.  A fair amount of unintentional napping took place in that library.  After college, I used the great New York Public Library.  It was an important resource for rare children’s books, obscure books of wordplay, and the main reading room, with it’s vaulted ceilings, was a beautiful place to be.  Across the street, there was the picture library, where I could find photographs and images of pretty much anything I was researching. 

More recently, I visit schools and libraries across the country, talking and reading to children, and meeting smart, passionate librarians.  

 Picture books can sometimes be overlooked in promotions and activities, have you encountered any best practice that you could share?

I promote my books by talking at schools, libraries and bookstores.  Publishers are always finding new ways to publicize books.  These days many books are previewed with a book trailer – a short video –which readers can access on social media, before the book is published.  

What challenges do you think exist in the field of illustrations and how do you feel these are affecting – or likely to affect – the market?

The challenge for illustrations would seem the same as always.  The difference might be that illustration is moving more to digital art.   There are new technical challenges, I suppose.  But, for now, publishers are just as happy with hand-painted artwork as they are with art that arrives via the internet. 

What is next for you in your work?

I’m working on picture book projects, as usual, and a graphic novel where everybody speaks in palindrome, which is to say, everything that’s said In the book, will read the same forward and backward.  It’s been a longer project than I’d imagined.  

We are grateful to Scallywag Press and to Jon Agee for their time and support with this interview.