This past weekend Larry and I spoke at the NY State SLMS Conference for school library media specialists. We ate a delicious lunch, then spoke for a little while about writing Benjamin Franklinstein Lives! and screened our new video.
Wow, what nice people those librarians are. Turns out I even had some food on my jacket and no one said a thing.
Also, we’ve launched a new website for the book. If you get a chance, check it out…
A few weeks ago I had a wonderful visit out to Buffalo, NY to visit Windom Elementary. I hadn’t been back to Buffalo in almost seventeen years, and it was comforting to see how many of my favorite sites were still just as I remembered them. It even snowed for me on the last day – just a little bit, but enough to remind me of the old days.
Mrs. Pruneface! Diet Smith! Pearshape! Vitamin Flintheart! They’re all here.
Chester Gould was a maniac illustrator. What an imagination.
Big Think has a terrific video interview with the legendary Jules Feiffer, author, political cartoonist, and children’s book illustrator.
In the children’s book world, Feiffer is probably best known for his work on Norton Juster’s classic The Phantom Tollbooth. Earlier in my career I got a job illustrating a version of Tollbooth for a textbook series, and working in Feiffer’s shadow was an impossible mission. Not only didn’t I have his talent, but I also didn’t know his secret of drawing with a pointed stick he got from the butcher. (Not that it would have helped.)
In his eighties now, Feiffer is still going strong, and it sounds like he and Juster have a new book out this fall. I’ll be the first in line to pick it up.
Lately, I’ve been playing around with these two cool online drawing tools that have been wasting far too much of my time. Flame wins in terms of bells and whistles, but I think Harmony is still my favorite. There’s something about the way that it automatically sketches in the corners and darkens the lines that’s fascinating. I’d love to do a whole book in this style.
Last week, while on the road, I had the chance to drop by and visit my friends Tedd and Carol Arnold. Tedd, of course, is the author of about a zillion books including the Green Wilma and award-winning Fly Guy series.
Tedd has a new exhibit of his work at the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, NY, and he graciously gave me a sneak peak of the show last week. It’s phenomenal. If you find yourself anywhere in the neighborhood of New York’s Southern Tier in the next month or so, do yourself a favor and check it out. It’s a master class in illustration.
(As a bonus, the Arnot is also running a great show on fairy tale illustration upstairs. Two for one!)
Drawn! has a nice write-up about Ronald Searle turning 90. Searle has always been one of my favorite illustrators ever since I saw his work in a collection of Tom Lehrer songs years ago. Searle has a way with his line that’s truly magnificent, and it’s heartening to see he’s still going strong.
Searle is among a proud tradition of illustrators who continued to work well into their tenth decade including Al Hirschfeld (99) and William Steig (95). These guys are my heroes.
Be sure to check out the video…
Working on the Benjamin Franklinstein books with Larry over the past year or so, inventors have been on my mind a lot. That’s why it was so interesting to come across these samples of letterhead from two of history’s greatest, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. The two were not great friends, and it’s interesting to see how their personalities came across in the way they chose to correspond with the public. (I know which one I’d rather receive a letter from.)
A deckle edge is when the pages of a book are cut in a ragged way so that they seem to be trimmed by hand. Turns out the tradition of creating those edges is pretty interesting:
The deckle edge dates back to a time when you used to need a knife to read a book. Those rough edges simulate the look of pages that have been sliced open by the reader. The printing happened on large sheets of paper which were then folded into rectangles the size of the finished pages and bound. The reader then sliced open the folds.
There’s a great article on this tradition at:
Yesterday I visited Malta Avenue Elementary and caught up with my longtime friend, librarian Colleen Leclaire. We did a full day, then an evening reading program that drew over two hundred people – a great turnout for a Friday night. Kudos to the Malta Avenue parents and everyone who worked so hard to make it all happen.
Below are a just a few of the pirate designs for Backbeard’s crew made by the kids at Malta Avenue…
I visited Division Street Elementary School in Saratoga yesterday, where the kids had done some really funny pictures of what Backbeard’s costume might have looked like had he been shopping for clothes in other parts of the world. Here are just a few of my favorites:
Hawaii...
Just finished a grand day at Slingerlands Elementary. It’s a wonderful school, and the teachers and students all made me feel right at home. (Thanks especially to Mrs. Collen for being such a wonderful host.)
One project the Slingerlands kids worked on was to write a pages recommending ideas for what my next book should be. They were, by and large, genius. Here are a few of my favorites.
The next book should be about…
…the pig’s F.B.I. motorcycle.
…two jelly beans that talk and almost get eaten
…a special seed that can turn into a tree that can move and can change into anything.
…dinosaurs vs. Backbeard.
(and my favorite)
…Backbeard sells donuts.
I’m happy to report that the Lion’s Share DVD is now available from Nutmeg Media, perfect for school libraries everywhere. The people at Nutmeg did a great job with this, and I’m really pleased with the results.
Back to Farnsworth Middle School to do another series of presentations with Larry Tuxbury about Benjamin Franklinstein. Larry’s a language arts teacher at Farnsworth, and we’ve been working together on writing the book for the past couple years. It’s finally just about complete (due this September from Putnam) and we were able to share the whole process of writing and illustrating with the students.
In spite of the fact that we presented on the three days before Christmas vacation, everything went great. The kids had terrific questions, and Larry was on his best behavior. To top it all off, they fed us the most amazing sandwiches for lunch. A grand way to end 2009!
People ask me all the time where I get the ideas for my books, and I don’t have a good answer. A good idea isn’t something that can be conjured up at a moment’s notice. It has to be stumbled upon.
Here’s an example: Last week I woke up in my hotel in Corning, NY, half asleep, one eye pinned shut by the pillow, and noticed this unusual knob on middle of the wall. It was old, no doubt left over from a previous incarnation of the hotel, and it was labeled the McQuay Seasonmaker. What a beautiful name! And what possibilities it suggested!
Needless to say, I didn’t turn the knob, or you, and the entire east coast, would have noticed. But what if I had?
Now there’s a good idea for a story.
I was in Corning to visit two schools, H. Gregg Elementary and Kent Phillips Elementary. It was a great trip, and my two hosts, Mrs. Robarge and Mrs. Wukovitz, took terrific care of me while I was there. The kids were amazing, well-prepared and full of good questions, and the walls of the school were lined with really fun artwork. There were digital paintings, a line of pinch-pots each containing precisely thirteen miniature beans, and drawings and paintings inspired by Andy Warhol and Wayne Thiebaud.
It was an absolute treat from beginning to end, and I thank everyone, especially Mrs. Robarge and Mrs. Wukovitz, for all the hard work they put in to make it happen.