July 2010 Hedge a gram
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June 2010 Hedge a gram
Posted by Jan Brett in Jan Brett Posts on June 6, 2010
| Happy June! I’m Jan Brett, and this is my June Hedge-a- gram, the time I stopped everything to give you a time capsule of this month in my life as a children’s book writer and illustrator. In the last two weeks, I’ve seen my new book for the fall, THE THREE LITTLE DASSIE for the first time, and I’ve completed the dummy for my 2011 book, HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. My husband and I traveled to the Book Expo the US’s premier book festival held every year in May. This year it was in New York City. Although THE THREE LITTLE DASSIES won’t be sold in bookstores until next fall, the early copies were flown in to give away at the book signings at BOOK EXPO. It is the first time I’ve seen the book put together. I spent two weeks painting end papers, the usually solid colored paper that glues the body of the book onto the covers. In this book the end papers are decorative. We changed the jacket art just as the book was going to press which involve a lot of fast readjustments in Penguins professional and dedicated art department. The jacket has embossed or raised type face and I saw that for the first time. The goal is for the book to become greater than a semblance of its parts. We all want it to become a future classic with characters, setting, and plot all in balance, with an intriguing but warm and friendly jacket to welcome and entice readers. It was difficult to scratch weeks and weeks of work off by canceling the first jacket, but our goal is a jacket with the right tones, and a design by one of Penguin’s designers, Ed Scully, leapt up off the page and compelled the change. Marikka Tamura , the Penguin designer who chooses the typeface and colors that grace the jacket hit all the perfect notes as well. It is a privilege to work with such a talented team. |  |
| The dummy is all in my court, and after discussions about the basic plot of the story of HOME FOR CHRISTMAS and then an okay of the basic draft, I presented my dummy to Margaret Frith my editor of 20 years. I’ve just come back from a week and a half in Sweden, shepherded by our Swedish friends, Elof and Gudrun Eriksson. We were able to spend time on a farm abundant with wildlife in southwest Sweden and go on a guided trip above the Arctic circle. My book dummy reflected much of the impressions I got from the austere and elegant landscapes and encounters with wildlife in Sweden. |  |
| The major achievement of our trip was encounters with habituated Moose in Kiruna, the jumping off place to Sweden’s Arctic North. We met an attractive and knowledgeable Swedish moose aficionado. He had five adult Moose and one calf that lived on a huge tract of land. When we called him to arrange our Moose experience he promised to wait and feed them when we arrived. To his word, the moose ambled toward the feeding station at the sound of his whistle. They have ample grazing, so they were quite relaxed about joining us. The bulls are not approachable during breeding season in the fall, but this was spring, and they were as affectionate as horses. The antlers, which were velvety knobs, because they had just started growing, were kind of itchy and they have learned that tourists will rub them. One of the moose gave our guide a trained kiss on the cheek and I managed to get a big kiss onto their velvety cushiony noses. It made me miss having a horse. Their eyes were very intelligent and once one adjusted to their bodies not being horselike, a person can appreciate the majestic presence of this animal, with its long brindled northern fur coat, its black cloven hooves and elegant palmated antlers. On the day we left Sweden, traveling over a vast stretch of land with melting snow drifts revealing lichen, mosses and endless shining lingonberry bushes, we found a huge moose antler shed last winter. Hefting its heavy weight, it really felt like a fitting crown for the majestic King of the North! In my book, the troll boy encounters an antlered animal, and I had to decide between a moose and reindeer. After my visit to Arctic Sweden the answer was obvious. This month I’ll work on the first finished spread, I’ll design the borders and nail down the characters – father troll, mother troll, sister troll, and my main character Rollo Troll. It’s always a wild ride in my imagination, and the best part of creating a children’s book – is all so hopeful. If you’re going on a trip this summer, close or far, familiar or unfamiliar, think of it as an expedition for getting ideas for your own book. Your experience may take you to an unexpected place! Happy reading, your friend, Jan Brett |
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May 2010 Hedge a gram
Thanks for stopping by: Here’s the podcast version of this month’s Hedge a gram:
May 2010 Hedge a gram
Posted by Jan Brett in Jan Brett Posts on May 26, 2010
Happy May! This is Jan Brett and this is my May hedge a gram, the time I take every month to go over what I’m doing in my work as a children’s book author and illustrator.
A curious thing happened with my just finished book, THE THREE LITTLE DASSIES as it was on its way to the printer. Every year my publisher prints a poster of the new book to promote it, and one of the designers at Penguin works with me. This year Ed Scully took my artwork from the title page to feature on the poster. When the poster came in the mail we love its sunny, buoyant feel of the three Dassie sisters in close-up. We liked it so much that we decided to use it for the jacket of the book, and not to use the other piece of art I created. It’s always hard to not use artwork that I’ve spent weeks working on, like the first jacket, but in book publishing the jacket is extremely important. It is an invitation to open the book and read it. It helps if it awakens a lively curiosity in the viewer, and it needs to reflect the feeling of the book inside. I can’t give away the ending either. I’m counting on the adorableness of the Dassie, and their unusual outfits to make kids think, “I want to read about their adventures!” That’s the way I felt when I first saw the Dassies in the wild. I wanted to imagine what their lives were like as they sunbathed on rocks around our camp in Namibia, Africa, and then disappeared down their little caves in the rock crevices when an eagle flew overhead. My first jacket pictured one of the Dassie sisters being carried away by an enormous eagle. Even though I wanted adventure and drama in my book, the jacket looked a little sinister, and the little Dassie looked pretty helpless. All in all, I’m glad that designer Ed Scully’s poster idea initiated a big change for the look of my book. Joe and I have a motto, “There is no arguing with a great idea”.
I just finished the news notes for THE THREE LITTLE DASSIES. There are four African animals are illustrated in the book so in my news notes I tell little about each one, the Dassie, the Agama lizard, the Verreaux’s Eagle, and the Tent Tortoise. There are so many startling things to discover in Namibia that I couldn’t put in my book, but I wanted kids to know about, so I described them in my news notes. Twyfelfontain, the Rocky Mountain where my story takes place, is the site of ancient petroglyphs. Petroglyphs are carvings in the rock. There is also a very rare plant, found nowhere else in the world that looks like a rosette of raggedy leaves about the size of a truck tire. It is low to the ground, and when you look closely you can see small orange red cones in its center. The plants are 1000 years old, that is the amazing thing. It is the Welwichita plant.
Now that I’ve finished the news notes, I will give them away at my book signings next fall in output them up on my website starting this May 20.
I’m on my way to Sweden to get ideas for HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, my book about a runaway troll. I started the book dummy — a simple roadmap of the future book. It is done with quick sketches and it will help me find the materials I need in Sweden to make their books authentic.
I’m planning to ask everyone about any troll stories they might have heard as children. I would also like to visit an open-air museum where a farm from the olden days has been reconstructed, so I can envision the trolls homestead. I’ll have to rough it up a bit because the characters are trolls after all!
I have to find out how Christmas is celebrated in Sweden, and what special foods are enjoyed. At the beginning of a book there is a lot of excitement about spending a year with my new subject, but I’m a little nervous too, just like at the start of any adventure.
Happy reading,
Your friend,
Jan Brett
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