Cecil Castellucci's 'Odd Duck' Makes a Perfect Fit

 We're wrapping up our Graphic Novel Summerfest with one of my favorite new books to come out this year, Odd Duck (First Second, May 2013) by Cecil Castellucci and illustrated by Sara Varon. I've gifted my kids' teachers with this title, enjoyed reading it again and again with my sprogs, and recommended it to anyone whose uniqueness is worth celebrating. In a starred review, Kirkus calls Odd Duck a "clever celebration of individuality," and it is. For anyone searching for a title to give a recent graduate, Odd Duck fits the bill.

This is the story of two ducks, Theodora and Chad. Theodora enjoys swimming in the pond with a teacup balanced on her head, and she has a yen for mango salsa. When the other ducks fly south for winter, she prefers staying north and enjoying the wonders of wintertime. But when Theodora meets newcomer Chad with his funny feathers, she realizes he is one strange bird. Thank goodness Chad has Theodora around to set him straight. But who is the odd duck after all?

Question: You have worn so many hats, from indie rocker to filmmaker to YA novelist. What made you decide to write a book for young readers?

Cecil Castellucci: I’m a big believer that you must follow where a story wants to go and how a story wants to be told. Whatever genre or medium it wants to be. Actually, this isn’t the first time I’ve written a book for younger readers. I had a picture book called Grandma’s Gloves that came out a couple of years ago. But with Odd Duck, it just seemed like ducks were more suited to the younger set, or at least framed in a story like that. I originally thought it would be an early reader, but once Sara came on board I realized it would be more fun to make a hybrid picture book/graphic novel since we both do comics.

Q: Theodora and Chad are wonderfully wacky. Who or what were you channeling when you came up with the idea for them? What was your creative process like?

CC: Thank you! Theodora sort of sprung from my head fully formed, teacup and all. I love a prim and proper duck! Chad I think falls a little bit closer to my true nature. I think I’m much more Chad than Theodora. Except when I’m being more Theodora than Chad! I think that I was channeling from all of the amazingly odd people that I know. And I know quite a lot of weirdos. Thank goodness!  

Q: There's a lot to consider when writing for early and emerging readers vs. a YA audience. How did this affect your writing? And do you prefer one genre over the other?

CC: When you are trying to do what is best for a particular story, what’s right and wrong sort of fall into place. So I don’t think that it affected my writing in any way at all. I love all the genres that I write in. I think that’s what makes it “easy” to switch around. If I want to write about something that doesn’t fit or isn’t appropriate style-wise for one kind you get to do it in another. They are all so very different and they all have their pluses and minuses. The fun thing about writing for little kids is how streamlined and simple you’ve got to be. There is an economy to the narrative that is very fun to play with.

Q: While the book is earmarked for second- to fifth-graders, it has wide enough appeal that adults can enjoy it too. Were you writing to the odd duck in all of us?

CC: Oh yes! I was writing for the Odd Duck in me! I really think that is the magic secret of books for younger readers! They are really for everyone! I give picture books to my adult friends all the time.

Q: What was the collaboration like with illustrator Sara Varon? How did you merge your storyline and writing with Sara's wonderful illustrations? And will there be more Odd Duck books in the future?

CC: Working with Sara was amazing. She’s incredibly talented. Sara broke down what was originally the early reader manuscript and then once it was thumbnailed, she and I had a lot of back and forth until we got the text and images together in a way that we wanted. She added all of her Varon flourishes (like the egg replacer and stuff like that). And I sure do hope that there will be more Odd Duck books. I already know what Book Two and Three would be. Believe me, Chad and Theodora may have worked something out in this book, but there are plenty more things to work on in their friendship.

Q: Will you write more for young readers? What can we expect to see from you next?

CC: I am quite sure that I will write more for young readers when the next right idea comes along. Meanwhile, I’ve got two YA books coming out next year. Tin Star, which is Book One in a two-book sci-fi series, and an as-yet-untitled graphic novel about hobos.

Maxwell Eaton's Fast-Paced 'Flying Beaver Brothers'

Maxwell Eaton III's first graphic novel had me at hello. Who can resist a title like The Flying Beaver Brothers and the Evil Penguin Plan? Seriously. When evil penguins are involved, I'm all over it. Both Penguin Plan and The Flying Beaver Brothers and the Fishy Business, which Kirkus Review calls "funny from the first panel," were released in January 2012 by Knopf. And for those of us eagerly anticipating his next installments, we have only a few weeks left to wait. As part of our monthlong Graphic Novel Summerfest, we're celebrating the release of his third and fourth titles, The Flying Beaver Brothers and the Mud-Slinging Moles and The Flying Beaver Brothers: Birds vs. Bunnies, which come out next month, on July 9th.

The Flying Beaver Brothers are the adorably furry siblings Ace and Bub. Ace is the active one, who loves extreme sports, surfing, and seems always up for adventure. Bub prefers nap time. But when danger lurks, the Beaver Brothers leap into action. And young readers will take the leap right along with them.

Whether it's swinging through trees, hang-gliding, or swimming deep below the waves, Ace and Bub are on the move battling the bad guys in these action-packed stories. Maxwell offers up the right dose of suspense, silly puns, and zany humor (the evil penguins are Bob and his assistant, Bob). The three-color palette that he uses is reminiscent of Jennifer Holm's wonderful Babymouse books.


My second-grader devoured the first two books and laughed out loud at the humor. "Some readers won’t make it through the most painful jokes," writes Kirkus, "but those who do will see something marvelous building itself in front of their eyes." Maxwell is also the author and illustrator of The Adventures of Max and Pinky series and Two Dumb Ducks.

Question: You've created a fast-paced, engaging story about two adventuresome brothers who save the day – and just happen to be beavers. Did the idea for this series come to you in a dream? How did you settle upon beavers as your heroes?

Maxwell Eaton III: At first they were The Flying Groundhog Brothers, but then I realized there were large rodent alternatives that made for catchier titles (plus “flying” and “ground” in the same title somehow fail to inspire). I also happened to grow up next to a swamp full of beavers and had been lucky enough to witness a lot of their skydiving and dry banter in person. After 18 years of eavesdropping, the stories basically wrote themselves.

Q: Graphic novels are a hot commodity for young readers. Did you study any other series before launching the Flying Beaver Brothers? What were your influences?

ME3: Of course I’d read Babymouse, which really broke ground for these sorts of series. But I’ve also always savored my newspaper comics. Especially the terrible ones, which really teach you the importance of timing. It can make or break things like make joke. Also or action. Too. Hi. [Editor's note: These typos are Maxwell's. Please message him directly to figure out what the heck he means or to gently point out his typing shortcomings!]

Q: There is a lot of sly humor in your stories, especially from the penguins. It seems perfectly calibrated for my second-grader, yet my older kids love the stories too. Are you writing to a particular audience or reader? Or perhaps to the reader you were back in elementary school?

ME3: I don’t really ever have a reader or audience in mind. I just write what I think is funny and what seems to work with the characters. A lot of the time my editor has to remind me that a certain joke might not work for the age group, and I remember that these are for young readers. Then I have to go back and take out all of the dirty stuff. And the reader I was back in elementary school wasn’t a reader at all. But he did manage to avoid ever getting head lice, so he couldn’t have been all bad. I do hope these books would have appealed to him and any of his modern day counterparts. Lice or not.

Q: What I love most about the Flying Beaver Brothers books is that they are hilarious without being obnoxious. Is this deliberate restraint on your part? Or are you trying to hit at a different level with your series?

ME3: Are you suggesting that I’m naturally obnoxious and have to reel it in when I’m writing? Well, you’ve done your research. But again, I just write what I think is funny. I know that sometimes it’s a little goofy, but there’s a fine line between goofy and obnoxious. And it’s straddled by a fish wearing a neck tie.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish with your writing?

ME3: A few laughs and a couple of readers to read without worrying it’s reading. I’m also on the lookout for synonyms.

Q: What will we see next from you?

ME3: Two new Beaver Brothers installments this July! In The Flying Beaver Brothers and the Mud-Slinging Moles, Ace and Bub defend their island from the diabolically pleasant Captain Jojo and his crew of near-sighted, dirt-stealing, but-basically-courteous moles. Then, in The Flying Beaver Brothers: Birds vs. Bunnies, Ace and Bub are caught in a battle between the feathers and the fuzz as they’re caged, cooped, and chased across Little Beaver Island in search of some vacation time amongst more oversized household appliances than a Claes Oldenburg retrospective. And, of course, there are further adventures in the works!

Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado Hit Big WIth 'Giants Beware'

Jorge Aguirre, GiantsBeware.com

True confession: I am a sucker for First Second Books. Publisher of the Zita the Spacegirl series, Sara Varon's beautiful titles, the award-winning American Born Chinese, and many more terrific books for young readers as well as adults, First Second is the gold standard for graphic novels. And as we celebrate week two of our Graphic Novel Summerfest over here, let's take a look at Giants Beware (First Second, 2012) by Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado as another example of how this imprint does things right. 

Scrappy Claudette is a pint-sized giant slayer who teams up with her best friend Marie (who aspires to be a princess) and her little brother Gaston (a pastry chef in the making) to venture off on a quest to rid the land of a baby-feet-eating giant. But there's one minor detail, they forgot to tell their parents. Along the way, Claudette and her sidekicks encounter plenty of challenges but ultimately realize that “monsters” often don't live up to their bad reputation.

Rafael Rosado, GiantsBeware.com

Jorge is a writer for television and documentaries, and Rafael works in the animation industry as a storyboard artist for Warner Brothers, Disney, and Cartoon Network. So trust that with these guys behind the scenes and Claudette at the helm, we're in good hands. Giants Beware has earned rave reviews, including from The New York Times, which wrote, "Claudette may be undersize, hotheaded and prone to violence and lock-picking, but she’s also loyal, brave and ambitious."

Question: Where did these characters come from?

Rafael Rosado: Claudette had been kicking around my sketchpad for years. I kept drawing this rambunctious girl with spiky hair who was looking for a fight. Later, I added Gaston and Marie and drew the three kids as French street urchins. I had a general idea about the three of them going after a giant and asked Jorge if he could flesh out the story and write the script, and he added other characters as he wrote.

Q: You both have long careers in other fields, so why children's literature? What inspired you to create books for kids?

Rafael: We’re both fans of graphic novels and comic books in general, and in a way we made the kind of book we would go out buy for ourselves. There seems to be a renaissance in children’s comics and graphic novels at the moment, and we’re very happy to be a part of it.

Jorge Aguirre: Giants Beware is our first graphic novel, and this might sound a little naive but we didn’t realize we’d written a children’s book until we were done. (Maybe it started dawning on me about three-quarters of the way through). Rafael and I have known each other for years, and our main goal was to write a story that would entertain both of us. If I wrote a gag, Rafael would take the gag a step further in the art, then when I was re-writing all the dialog when I lettered, I’d try to re-write lines to make Rafael laugh some more. There was a lot of back and forth, but our first audience was each other. Probably since our starting point was three child characters, most of the jokes and story lent themselves to a young audience. But we never made a conscious decision to write for children.

Q: The beauty of graphic novels is that they hook young kids into reading early and reading often. They are the genre of choice for many students, strong or struggling. But sometimes graphic-novel creators can forget about their audience, for example, including things like fancy typography that can distract or make the act of reading a frustrating exercise. How much do you think about young readers as you collaborate on your projects?

Jorge: As a writer of graphic novels, I try not too think about it too much. I obsess about the story and the dialog, but if I think too much about the reader, like trying to please someone else besides Rafael or me, then I get a little stilted in my writing or I’m afraid I might start talking down to our readers. For example, when it comes to vocabulary, I like to throw a word or two in there that I found in my thesaurus just because it makes Rafael and me laugh, even though kids might not know the word. I think that’s okay as long as I give the reader context so he or she is not lost or frustrated, and there is always that secret hope that the reader will learn a new word or two. Having said all that, we stay away from sex, extreme violence, cuss words, but that’s pretty easy because that doesn’t feel like a part of Claudette’s world. Now, when I write for TV, the audience is a big part of what I think about.

Rafael: Well, sometimes we knew or guessed that a particular visual gag would go over well with the kids, so we went ahead and put it in. Like all the potty humor with Valiant the dog. It’s a cheap gag, but kids love it. . .

Jorge:  And so do we!

Q: What do you hope kids take away from your books? What do you hope to accomplish?

Rafael: We hope that it gets them excited about reading in general, not just graphic novels. We hear from a lot of parents, and kids themselves, that this is a book they read over and over. That makes us happy. It means the story clicks with them, and they want to go back and re-visit the world we’ve created.

Jorge: We hope they enjoy our story. We hope it makes them laugh and that the story sticks with them after they put the book away.

Q: What will we see next from you guys?

Jorge: The story for Book 2 of Claudette is done, and Rafael is very busy drawing it. It’s going to be action-packed! We’re very excited. And we’ve just started working on the story for Book 3.

David Petersen's Mouse Guard Returns With 'Black Axe'

With schools letting out for summer vacation, we're devoting June to great summer reads. And we're putting the focus on graphic novels, simply because nothing gets the wee ones fired up about reading more than a speech bubble. Graphic novels offer adventure, drama, and thrilling storytelling while still feeling recreational. And for kids needing a break from the daily classroom grind, these books are a perfect escape. So please tune in every Monday this month for another installment of AuthorOf's Graphic Novel Summerfest!

Author-illustrator David Petersen has created his own remarkable world with his Mouse Guard series. He's been honored with multiple Eisner Awards, which are considered the Oscars of the comic book industry, for his Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 and Winter 1152 titles (both Archaia, 2009), as well as Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard (Archaia, 2010). Coming this July, the prequel to his current titles hits shelves: The Black Axe.

In David's beautifully rendered fantasy series, mice struggle for survival amid harsh conditions and dangerous predators. The Mouse Guard heroically battles bad guys, patrols the borders, and helps the residents find routes to safety through treacherous terrain. The mice are swashbuckling characters draped in vivid cloaks and wielding serious swords. And while there is a real Tolkien sensibility, this is a thoroughly 21st-century franchise. The Mouse Guard world is open for easy exploration online, allowing young readers to click on at least 35 characters from the books, five specific groups (like the weaselly Fishers), and a variety of settings and maps.

Question: You've created more than just a book series with Mouse Guard, you've built an entire world both on paper and online, including a role playing game. Can you describe the genesis of the story and where the idea originated? Did you envision an empire?

David Petersen: Mouse Guard started as a comic idea I had in high school titled 1149. It was a combination of Disney's Robin Hood and our Dungeons and Dragons adventures. There were no mice at that point; the animals were all human proportioned, but with animal heads, like the Disney film. In college I decided to revisit the idea focusing on making it less of a cartoon-ish idea and more like Aesop's' Fables. In addition to the species being their actual size and keeping their predator/prey relationships, I figured each species could get its own civilization, allowing me some fun world-building.

In planning out how I'd tell a multi-species story did I come to realize the smaller herbivore species would be hard to write in. They were hunted by all, without ever huting any species themselves. And that is how the focus came to be on the mice. After hearing a story of a mouse's plight against the world for survival, why would you ever sympathize with a fox or weasel's story?

I knew I'd set up Mouse Guard to be a place I could world-build if I wanted to, but had no idea how much of it I'd set myself up for. . . and in building that world I set up the 'real empire'. . . it's because of the depth of the world that online character and location guides and role playing games can exist.

Q: The illustrations are incredible, and with the lush drawings of the mouse characters in their colorful capes and weaponry, one can imagine Mouse Guard on the big screen as an animated film. How long do you take to illustrate each story? And what is your process like? How do you develop the storyline and the art?

DP: Thank you. It would be fun to see a Mouse Guard film! I only worry that it would be done correctly, embracing the all-ages feel of Mouse Guard and not ignoring either the old or young audience. . . something few movies achieve these days.

It takes me quite a while to finish a whole book. I'd say about a year and a half per book. We release them as comic book issues first, and I take about three months per issue, but that includes all the writing, layouts, pencils, inks, colors, and lettering. The process starts with an outline that I develop into a script as I start each issue. Then I draw and ink pages and color them digitally as I go. Lettering the pages is the last step, and it allows me a final edit to the text now that I have the final artwork to compare it against.

The storylines develop out of me thinking of the endings to each book. . . not the ending so much as "what is the last page or the last line, or the climax" but the ending as-in where I want the characters to end up emotionally or developmental wise. I also have a goal for the reader for the end of each book: "by the end of this book the reader will know X." Having those goals in mind helps me figure out how to build up to that point. Some of it is decided purely on whim of what it would be fun to draw or write about, but other times it's a more logical approach to what needs to happen for the sake of developing the characters or world.

Q: There are elements of Tolkien and other epic tales in these stories. What has influenced you most in your storytelling, both in word and in illustration style?

DP: Thank you again. When I started Mouse Guard, I hadn't fully read any Tolkien, but I had a real sense of what he did with his stories and the world he created. . . and that's certainly something I set out to do with Mouse Guard. Star Wars mythology was a big influence as well, not so much directly as the Star Wars universe, but how George Lucas was playing with the mythic ingredient list Joseph Campbell spells out in Hero With 1,000 Faces. All myth and hero journeys share the same key points and similar paths. My working vocabulary for these was with the classic Star Wars trilogy. I was also influenced by the illustrations of Rick Geary and Tom Porht and the comic pacing of Mike Mignola.

Q: This summer, the prequel The Black Axe will be published. What made you go back in time and lay in the history of the Mouse Guard? And what will you work on next?

DP: In the first book, Fall 1152, I needed to introduce the reader to the world of Mouse Guard, the concept of the Guard itself, the key players, and the historic figure of the Black Axe. The second book was all about world building, deepening character development, and a passing of the torch of who is to wield the Black Axe. I went back in time for the Black Axe prequel to give some weight to the history of the Axe and what it means to wield it. I've hinted at its past in the first two books, but I wasn't ready to show the new axe wielder without giving the reader a more full understanding of the context and history of the role.

I liked the challenge of working on a prequel story too. There is always a trap in writing past stories since the reader knows ultimately the outcome based on the other books. But I thought I could really add something with this volume, to not show the how or the outcome, but the why. Any part of the story I can add that will help deepen or even change your understanding of the existing volumes I felt was worth telling.

The next major Mouse Guard volume will be a prequel as well. The Weasel War of 1149. It's the war I've mentioned several times and is more of that added history. . . not only with the war, but also with certain characters. For example, it was in that war that Lieam joined the Guard.

Q: I can attest that the Mouse Guard books are among the most popular reads at my children's school library. What kind of reader were you like as a child? And what do you hope young readers take away from your books?

DP: I was not a very active reader as a child. I did okay, I wasn't behind my reading level or anything, but I never found reading enjoyable enough to pursue it beyond classwork. I didn't become a read-for-pleasure guy until I was an adult, and I think it's a shame. I missed out on reading some great books when I was age appropriate for them.

I hope that young readers enjoy my books and that they challenge themselves with more reading and other subjects as well. For me to create my books means doing math, and I have to research science, history, geography  physics, etc. The more well-read I am or willing to become well-read I am, the better I am at making stories and books.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish with the Mouse Guard stories and games?

DP: I really just want to tell good stories that people enjoy. I want to inspire people to enjoy my world so much, they start dreaming up their own to share.

Nancy Cavanaugh's 'This Journal Belongs to Ratchet'

Chicago's Printer's Row Lit Festival is coming up next weekend, June 8-9. It's a two-day gathering of booksellers, book writers, and book lovers from all over the Midwest to discuss and celebrate new titles. This year's "debut children's authors" panel features some changes from past festivals. Typically moderated by the inimitable Esther Hershenhorn over at Teaching Authors and held on Saturdays, the panel this year will be somewhat managed by yours truly and will take place on Sunday morning. Come hear four brand-spanking-new authors talk about their books and their journey to publication: Demitria Lunetta and her YA In The After, Eileen Meyer and her picture book Who's Faster? Animals on the Move, Tom Watson and his middle-grade Stick Dog, and Nancy Cavanaugh and her middle-grade This Journal Belongs to Ratchet.

Nancy's Ratchet (Sourcebooks, 2013), which earned a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, is a particularly enjoyable read in that it lets young readers enter her world via writing assignments the young homeschooler has to complete in her journal. Through exercises like poetry, dialogue scenes, and free writing, we see how 11-year-old Ratchet (real name Rachel) wants nothing more than to lead a normal life rather than the one she currently has fixing cars with her quirky mechanic father. She wants a friend. She wants to know about her mom. She wants her dad to stop being embarrassing.

So she sets out to make some things happen. Ratchet doesn't quite find the girlfriends she wants so desperately to make in the charms class at the community center. But she does find a kindred soul among the boys in the go-cart class that she helps her dad teach. In the end, Ratchet finds a way to accept herself and her dad and the "normal" that is their life together. Ratchet is a memorable character whose challenges can break your heart but whose triumphs can make you shout out loud.

Question: The format for This Journal Belongs to Ratchet is fresh and fun. Did you originally envision the book as told in journal format or did this idea evolve? Can you speak to that process?

Nancy Cavanaugh: The character’s voice is usually where the inspiration begins for me. From the very beginning, Ratchet’s voice came through as journal writing, but the idea for using the various types of writing assignments evolved as I began to let her story unfold. Writing the entire book this way always made it feel very creative and fun; but at the same time, writing the entire book this way was the biggest challenge. I really had to figure things out as I went along because it was something I had never done before.

Q: Where did the original idea for Ratchet’s character come from? What was the spark that made you put pen to paper?

NC: As I mentioned, my ideas almost always start with a character. I can still remember writing the very first words for the book. I was sitting outside in a lawn chair on the back porch. I had a brand new spiral notebook which I had purchased just for Ratchet because the idea of her had been percolating in my head for a while. I wrote down some of Ratchet’s thoughts. Some of those very first words I wrote, even after countless revisions, are still in the book today. After I wrote several pages in Ratchet’s notebook that day, I put the notebook away because I was working on another book at the time. I didn’t take the notebook out again for several months. By that time, Ratchet’s voice had grown even stronger. I can’t really explain that part – to me that’s the magic of writing.

Q: With all the talk about fixing cars and building go-carts, you could easily have made Ratchet a boy. What made you decide that your main character was female?

NC: Ratchet being a girl and being able to do things that most girls don’t do is one of the things that makes her so special. An important part of her story is about learning to accept her strengths, even though it’s easier for her to wish she were good at something else.  

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story? What do you want to accomplish with your writing?

NC: I love stories with heart and soul and guts; and that’s what kind of story I hope readers think Ratchet is. My wish is that anyone who reads Ratchet will be able to somehow connect emotionally with one or all of the characters. And in the end, I hope readers will be able to accept themselves and their circumstances in a more positive way, which is what Ratchet ultimately does.

Q: What will we see next from you?

NC: I’m thankful to be able to announce that my next book Always, Abigail will be coming in October 2014 from Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky. The entire story is told in lists, letters, and writing assignments, in which a girl named Abigail uses her language arts class’s Friendly Letter Project to cope with the worst school year ever – and in the process turns it into the best year ever.

Next Big Thing Blog Tour Stops for 'Cupcake Cousins'

Not the book cover, just an appetizer

This week I'm departing from my standard operating procedure of interviewing other children's authors about their books. Instead I'm participating in a sort of blogger chain letter called the Next Big Thing. It's a blog tour that bounces from one writer to the next, throwing the spotlight on our individual writing projects.

The Next Big Thing blog tour started in Australia as a way for authors and illustrators to bring awareness to their work by way of their blogs. Many thanks to the lovely and talented Brooke Boynton Hughes, illustrator for our forthcoming book Cupcake Cousins from Hyperion/Disney, for tagging me and inviting me to participate. Brooke is also awaiting the arrival of the bouncing bundle of joy Baby Love by Angela DiTerlizzi (Beach Lane Books/S&S).

Here are official the Next Big Thing blog tour questions:

Question: What is the working title of your next book?

Me: The title for the book is Cupcake Cousins, which makes me hungry every time I type that out. When I submitted my manuscript to Hyperion, the working title was The Flour Girls, because my story is about two almost-10-year-olds who have been asked to be flower girls in their aunt's wedding but would much prefer to showcase their cooking skills by baking for the reception. What makes the story a bit different is that Delia and Willow, my two budding chefs, are cousins – one African American and the other white. So Hyperion thought we should emphasize their connectedness right up front rather than on my oh-so-clever wordplay. 

Q: Where did the idea come from for the book?

Me: The story is set in a sleepy Michigan beach town called Saugatuck. I live with my husband and three children in Chicago, and every summer we escape the landscape of high-rises and crowded streets for the open stretches of Western Michigan – just like the character Willow. There are endless opportunities for old school fun like going on hikes, building sand forts, picking berries and peaches, and roasting marshmallows around a campfire. We typically rent a beach house for one week every August with the kids' three cousins from Detroit – which is where Delia's family lives.

Two things were at play when I got the idea for the book. One was watching the special relationship cousins have. There's not the tension that siblings can develop, but there's still the deep devotion. No matter how different they are, no matter how many months they go without seeing each other, they are still so close. I wanted to celebrate that a bit.

The second factor was how fast kids grow up these days. It's not uncommon to pass third-graders at my kids' school reading Hunger Games. It makes me a little sad for them, that at eight years old they are plunging into such emotionally wrenching topics. Where's the magic of childhood? So I set out to write a book where the stakes were not too high (spoiler alert: the dog in this book does NOT die), and the issues, while still very dear to the cousins' hearts, were not so enormous.

Q: What genre does your book fall under?

Me: It's early middle-grade.

Q: What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Me: The most fun would be casting the loopy adults in this book. There is a Southern chef who endures the girls' cooking aspirations, and I was completely channeling Paula Deen. She is pursued by a charming gentleman who owns the beach house, and I pictured William H. Macy with all his goofy cuteness.

My two main characters are Delia and Willow. I could see Skai Jackson play smart, assertive Delia. China Anne McClain is exactly Delia's tormenting big sister, Darlene Dees. Isabella Acres with her curls could make a great Willow, though she'd need to become a redhead. 

Q: Who is publishing your book?

Me: I couldn't be happier to type these words: Hyperion/Disney. It's been such a fun ride!

Q: How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Me: I had been writing for a while before the Cupcake Cousins story idea came to mind. And I am a slow writer who agonizes over every word. Then I went to a book talk where a friend was celebrating the release of his latest novel. He said he wrote his whole book, opening line to ending, in a matter of two months. That blew me away, so I made it my goal to get the first draft of my cousins book out in about six months. Then I revised and revised and revised over a year.

Q: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Me: I really admire Jeanne Birdsall's middle-grade series The Penderwicks. It is dense with relationships but still feels light and sweet as four sisters share hilarious summer adventures with minimal fighting. It was an instant classic when it came out. So that book was at my side as I wrote, as was Anne of Green Gables for many reasons but especially the sly humor and wonder of nature. The story also takes inspiration from Gone Away Lake, a 1958 Newbery Honor winning book by Elizabeth Enright, which also features kids experiencing nature and freedom and the joys of summertime.

Q: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Me: At the same time that all this soup was simmering in my head, I was also reading Last Child in the Woods, a book about the way we raise children to ignore if not fear being outdoors in nature. I grew up in Oklahoma, and remember my summers as being months of freedom spent outdoors. June, July, and August were for tearing around our neighborhood, splashing in the creek, eating plums from neighbors' trees, catching bugs, and playing endless games of kick-the-can and hide-and-seek until it was dark out. Then we'd start it all over again the next day.

Oh, and I recall never ever wanting to bother with bathing – it slowed me down from all my playtime. So my characters take a bit of that from me and my childhood.

Raising my kids as city folk, we take advantage of so much of what Chicago has to offer. But I do mourn their loss of freedom and connectedness with nature. We have to seek it out. And we're lucky that way – we are able to have a weeklong getaway and unplug. But many kids aren't, and they don't know the joys of spending time outside. How many kids today have actually watched the sun set? Or caught it rising in the morning? Or picked fruit from trees and bushes? I wanted to try to put these sensations into a book, to remind kids that it's all out there for them to discover. 

Q: What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

Me: There are fun recipes interspersed throughout the story! There are jokes! And there's a very large, highly irresistible dog!

Now it's time for me to tag: Check out Amy Timberlake's Next Big Thing entry on her blog. Amy is the author of the remarkable middle-grade One Came Home. Check it out if you haven't already!

And bounce on over to Liesl Shurtliff's place and learn more about what she's working on. Liesl's wonderful middle-grade Rump upends the traditional Rumpelstiltskin fairytale. (It's really hard not to get punny with Rump.)

Jessie Hartland's "Bon Appetit!" Appeals to All Tastes

Some books are clearly for kids. And others are for the kid in all of us. Author and illustrator Jessie Hartland's Bon Appetit! The Delicious Life of Julia Child (Schwartz & Wade, 2012) is for everyone, young and old, who shares an interest in the food that's on our forks.

With Bon Appetit!, which is a 2013 Amelia Bloomer Project title and earned a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, Jessie takes readers on a journey through the life of Julia Child the chef, the cookbook author, and the television star. And what material to mine. Julia Child grew up in California, but her adventures took her to Europe where she worked as a spy during WWII. We see her as a student, attending cooking classes in Paris. We see her struggle with her writing as she tries again and again to publish Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And we see her searching to find her "thing," awkward – the size of her feet are laughably long – and unsure. All are moments young readers especially can relate to. With a distinctive illustrating style and hand-written text, Jessie has created a lush book that is dense with information about this culinary and cultural icon.

You might also recognize Jessie's work from her Museum titles with Blue Apple books. How The Sphinx Got To The Museum (2010) tells how the sphinx of the Pharaoh Hatshepsut wound up in New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art. How the Dinosaur Got to the Museum (2011) explains how a Diplodocus longus landed in the Smithsonian. And coming this fall, How the Meteorite Got to the Museum (October 8, 2013), chronicles how a meteorite ended up in the American Museum of Natural History.

Question: You're one of those rare birds who can tell a delightful story in both word and picture. And you don't just touch the surface – you dig deep. With Bon Appetit! packed full of so many historical details, can you explain what inspired you to tackle such an enormous project? Why a picture book about Julia Child?

Jessie Hartland: Thanks for the kind words! The book was my idea. I love to read biographies and I wanted to do a series of “graphic biographies” for children,  my own way. I pitched Julia Child as the first in the set. This was about five or six years ago, before Nora Ephron’s film Julie & Julia. The response I got was “…no one cares about Julia Child anymore.” However the film revived interest in Julia, and I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to do the book.

Q: You clearly did your homework in researching Julia Child's life. Was it hard to decide what you wanted to include in the story and what you had to leave out? Did you feel that you had any constraints?

JH: Well, I had a limited number of pages to work with: 48. More than the typical picture book of 32 pages, but not so many to cover the life of a busy person like Julia Child! I knew I wanted to spend plenty of time on the long and laborious process of getting the first cookbook published and to show how complicated and accomplished her cooking was, hence the 32-step galantine recipe.

The part I miss cutting most is a page when Julia has just moved to Germany and hasn’t yet mastered the language. She’s working on the poultry chapter of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and must visit a German butcher to buy ingredients. She flaps her “wings” and honks and quacks to communicate. The butcher responds, “Ach! Das Gans.” “Ya! Das Huhn!”

Q: Most people think of picture books as geared for a young audience, but Bon Appetit! appeals to the chef in all of us – at any age. Were you writing the story with a particular reader in mind, or with a broad audience of anyone who appreciates good food?

JH: Well, I started out writing this book for kids but then it got more and more complicated. I hope there is something for everyone in there.

Q: Do you like to cook?

JH: Yes, I love to cook. I grew up watching The French Chef on TV. My mother did not like to cook, and it was fun to watch someone cooking who enjoyed it. At home we ate frozen vegetables, canned fruit, and dreadful things made with soup mixes and such. As a teenager, I got an after-school job in my town’s only fancy-foods shop, where I had my first croissants, baklava, and French cheese.

While in art school I worked weekends and summers as a restaurant cook. Nowadays our family eats a lot of seafood caught by my 21-year-old son, Sam: tuna, sea bass, bluefish, porgies, mahi-mahi, and cherrystone clams. I grow tomatoes, cucumbers, and raspberries and have a thriving herb garden.

Q: What do you hope readers take away from your books? 

JH: For the Julia book, I want readers to get a sense of Julia’s perseverance and all the hard work and years it took to get her first cookbook published. I also like how she was a free spirit,  a rebellious soul,  a late-bloomer, and was a feminist before there was such a word.

Q: Can you talk about what we'll see next from you?

JH: I’m in the middle of another biography, this one of Steve Jobs. It is targeted to older kids, though, and will be even more of a middle grade/adult crossover. It will have a  smaller format,  with many more pages and printed in black and white. It’s now at 186 pages and will be coming out in 2014. More focus on the writing and line drawings—and I’m up for the challenge! He’s another fascinating character: rebellious, intuitive, ingenious. . .

But next coming out is the third in my Museum series of books — How the Meteorite Got to the Museum. It’s about the Peekskill meteorite and the amazing story of a rock that fell from space and landed on a parked car in the town of Peekskill, New York. And in this same series, for the fourth book I’ll be working with MoMA, NYC’s Museum of Modern Art, exploring the provenance of an object in their design collection.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish in your writing and illustrating life? 

JH: Having done picture books for some years now, I’ve been saying I’ve wanted the challenge of doing both a book without pictures, just words—and a book with no words, just pictures. So I have just taken a stab at writing a chapter book. We’ll see if someone will publish it!