The Magic of Sketches
LIta Judge brings such personality (monkey-nality?) to LIttle Monkey, the heroine of Sarah L. Thomson’s new picture book, Quick, Little Monkey!
There is no moment of the picture book process that I love more than the first glimpse of the illustrator’s sketches. This is the moment in time, for me, that a story or a manuscript–a bunch of words on a page–turns into a real live book.
A picture book is always a melding of art and text, and a good one takes art and text to a new level–each expanding the other, bringing something to the combination that neither had alone. So when you see the words and the pictures together for the first time, well, nothing quite compares.
Picture book writing is an odd craft. I’m thinking visually the whole time, from the moment the idea floats into my head. I’m thinking of page count (the magic number is 32; that’s the number of pages in a picture book), I’m thinking of how the text will spread out over those 32 pages (or actually the 23 that I really get to write on), I’m thinking of the balance between text and art on a page, and of course I’m thinking of the art. How will it look? Have I given the illustrator something to draw here? I haven’t stuck her with landscape for three spreads in a row, have I? Or created a dialog that he’ll only be able to illustrate with two talking heads?
And yet I don’t know what the art will look like. I don’t know how the illustrator will seize my ideas and run with them; I don’t even know who the illustrator will be, most of the time, when I’m working on a picture book text. So there’s this big empty space in my head that will eventually be filled up with glorious, imaginative, energetic full-color artwork. And then the sketches arrive in my e-mail in-box–and BOOM. What was once an idea, and then a sequence of words on a page, has suddenly become an genuine book, something readers will pore over and take delight in.
It’s amazing. Not even the delivery of a full-color bound book can compare with the exhilaration packed into a set of black-and-white rough sketches.
Yesterday I got my first look at Lita Judge’s sketches for QUICK, LITTLE MONKEY. And…wow. I mean…wow. I mean…gosh. There’s Little Monkey herself, in all her glee and courage and pluck and daring, and there’s the ocelot (oh, that ocelot!) who stalks her through the undergrowth, and there’s…well. I’m sorry you all don’t get to see Lita’s brillance until the book is actually out. But here’s one tiny sketch to give you a taste.
Read MoreAround the Neighborhood in the Garden
Author Sarah L. Thomson (that’s me!) reads her picture book Around the Neighborhood.
Such fun visiting the Friends School of Portland to share Around the Neighborhood for their Stories by the Garden program! If you’re in the Portland area with little ones, do check out this program. What’s nicer than a visit to sweet, scenic Mackworth Island, a story to hear, and maybe a picnic lunch to enjoy afterward on the trail that goes all around the island?
The kiddos were energetic and delightful. We read the book (in the gym rather than the garden, due to weather), sang the song, and then scattered outside for a scavenger hunt.
This is such a happy, adventurous book for a summery activity or story hour. Check out the fun and free Activity Kit if you’d like to recreate our scavenger hunt. We had a great time!
Read MoreHappy Birthday E.B. White
Happy Birthday to E.B. White, a fellow Maine author and an inspiration, who once wrote to a young correspondent who asked when he’d have his next book out:
Read More“I would like to write another book for children but I spend all my spare time just answering the letters I get from children about the books I have already written. So it looks like a hopeless situation unless you can start a movement in America called ‘Don’t write to E. B. White until he produces another book.'”
Cub’s Big Read
Two readers doing what readers should do, at a book fair at Chenery Middle School. Kudos to super-librarian Karen Duff for pulling off a magnificent event, and may there be many more!
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Tea & Celebrity
Just back from a three-day visit to Biddeford Intermediate School. Oh, my, my, my! The kids lined up to clap and cheer when I arrived. They sang me a song with fabulous percussion accompaniment at the assembly. And the Life Skills class baked me lemon-poppyseed cake and chocolate chip muffins and brought me tea every single day.
Now, while it’s nice (and I won’t deny it) to be treated like a rock star for three days, the really amazing thing was the way all of this enthusiasm and energy from the teachers and staff was transmitted to the students. They came into my writing workshops with wide eyes, bubbling over with glee, convinced that a middle-aged, mid-list children’s writer is a celebrity, that books and writing and the people who create them are the coolest things ever. That was way more than I could have done on my own in three days of one-hour writing workshops. My writer pals, if you ever get invited to Biddeford Intermediate–go. And not just for the muffins.
Quick Little Cuteness
Wonderful news! The outrageously talented Lita Judge will be illustrating my forthcoming Quick, Little Monkey! (Boyds Mill Press). Warning: pygmy marmosets featured. Cuteness overload possible. Proceed with caution.
Monumental Mysteries
By Mercy’s gravestone.
It is remarkably surreal to see yourself on television–I must report that. I mean, there I was, sitting in the living room, watching myself talk. When you think about it, it’s not supposed to work like that!
But it was actually quite exciting to see what the producers of Monumental Mysteries have done with the story of Mercy Brown. Shot partly at her gravesite in the Chestnut Hill Cemetery and partly at a nearby historical site, this premiere episode (nobody told me I was going to be on the premiere; I’m much relieved that they didn’t, or I would have been even more nervous) does an excellent job of reporting on Mercy’s life, her tragic and macabre death–and what came after.
(I do wish to state for the record that I never said Mercy had turned over in her grave! This tidbit later became part of the legend, but it’s not part of the contemporary accounts.)
MediaLife Magazine called stories covered by the series “briskly presented and usually interesting” and that Mercy’s stories, in particular, has “a satisfyingly gruesome ending, a plausible scientific explanation and a possible connection to the writing of the novel ‘Dracula.'”
Here’s the host, Don Wildman, chatting about his new show and Mercy.
Read MoreSarah L. Thomson
A children’s book author publishing award-winning nonfiction, poetry, picture books and novels including…
“Thomson focuses on newfound connection, magic, and suspense to conjure a fast-paced, heartwarming mystery. Thomson’s world is populated by resourceful protagonists, fanciful creatures, and quirky supporting characters.”
—Publishers Weekly