Every time I think I have a new favorite book by Mirka Hokkanen, she creates a new favorite and I’m every bit as blown away as I was the first time.

Mirka Hokkanen has visited my blog several times before.  She is a good friend of mine, as well as the author-illustrator of today’s book and the illustrator of several books for children. She is a Finnish-American author-illustrator who loves to work with animal characters. She loves to add a hint of humor when ever possible and create illustrations with various media from traditional watercolor to digital to linocuts. Her head is always bubbling with ideas that she scribbles down on scraps of paper around the house. Mirka has worked on several books, most recently on Kitty and Cat concept picture books, Mossy and Tweed early reader graphic novels, and the Little Seasons nonfiction book series. You can learn more about her at her website or follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

LITTLE SEASONS: SPRING SEEDS is an amazing take on the life cycle of plants.  On the one hand the text is completely factual.  On the other hand, the illustrations are hilarious.  I’m not kidding.  There are SO many jokes in the pictures that I cannot wait to get a copy for my classroom.  And the back matter has a wondrously stunning array of activities for kids to do.  Plus the actual book comes with a memory card game!  What’s not to love about that?

Welcome back Mirka!

Me: I love this book!  Your sense of humor is once again given a chance to shine in every single illustration, while the text does nothing but give facts.  What gave you the idea for this book?

Mirka: I’ve always loved exploring the backyard and woods around me. Nature is full of fascinating facts and finds that still catch me by surprise, and I wanted to make a book for young kids that was full of interesting information, delivered in a way that was entertaining for all audiences. Many of the books that I found about nature cycles, seemed too complicated, dated, or tedious for my then 3 year old, and I found there was a gap in what I was looking for, so I decided to create it. I write funny in general, and felt that humor, especially in nonfiction, helps with engagement and information retention.  

Me: I absolutely agree!  There are so many funny moments in your illustrations.  Was it my imagination or were there a few easter eggs in the book nodding to other illustrators?  Did I see a Cool Bean in one of the pictures (and a possible nod to Pete Oswald)? 

Mirka: I didn’t add intentional easter eggs, and understand that there are similarities between Pete and my illustrations. There’s only so many ways you can illustrate a cute oval, but I have my own way of rendering, and drawing backgrounds, that differs from Pete’s style.

For inspiration for cool beans, raspberries blowing raspberries, and peachy cheeks, I did lots of internet searches for food and plant idioms and puns, and kept a list of what I came up with to sprinkle in the illustrations. 

Me: I can’t imagine a classroom teacher not wanting this book on their shelves.  You have an incredible amount of back matter with educational activities that could be incorporated!  Were those all your ideas?  Or did your editor suggest some of those?

Mirka: I had a ton of ideas for the back matter when we pitched the book! It was a bit of a rabbit hole I went down as I procrastinated some harder parts of the manuscript/illustrations… We ended up cutting about half of the back matter out for lack of space. 

I also asked a few friends of mine, who teach or have small kids, what activities they thought were the best, which also helped me guide the end result. My plan is to type some of those extra things up into proper activity sheets or guides, that will be available on my website for free sometime late March-early April. (I already have around 10 free activity pages uploaded and ready for you to print on my site.)    

Me: As this is a series (with another one due out this fall), can you talk a little bit about how this was pitched?  Did you pitch it as a series about seasons?  Or did you only pitch the first book and later needed to come up with other possible titles?

Mirka: We pitched this as a nature-cycles book series. I had already written the seed book, and the other books proposed in the series were actually tadpoles and butterflies. The editor saw more potential in the series if it was tied to seasons, and they suggested leaves for the second book for autumn, which then left room for the series to expand. 

All of us spent a lot of time brainstorming the series title after that. Since we pivoted a bit from the original idea, the title needed to change too. I wanted something simple, cute and reflective of my little readers, and wanted to have a word like “little” or “tiny” in the title. After much list making and back and forth between myself, my agent, editor, and the Odd Dot marketing and publishing teams we ended with “Little Seasons”, and I think it’s perfect. We decided to add the season name to the title to carry the theme through, so instead of “Little Seasons: Seeds”, it became “Little Seasons: Spring Seeds”, and the second book will be “Little Seasons: Autumn Leaves”.     

Me: Great idea.  I am so glad to sense your sense of humor coming through again so far in this series.  There are so many hilarious little bits here that I was giggling all throughout the book as I read it.  Was this always a part of the story or did it come about in revision?  Have you ever had feedback to curb your sense of humor? 

Mirka: Humor was a big part of the book from the very start. I like to write funny, because that’s what I like to read with my kids. It helps me enjoy reading, keeps up our interest in the book and when one of us can point out something funny on a page that we can laugh about, it feels almost like an inside joke, or a special moment that strengthens the bond between us. So far editors have not asked to curb my humor, and I’m thankful that people can relate to the things I find funny. 

As far as the creation, I first look for the (serious) information, that I want to convey, and then second look for how I can add humor to that. Sometimes I might have a funny scene in my head, that I find a fact to fit, but in general I’ll have the fact for the page first and then think of the illustration second. As mentioned earlier, I also spent time in the beginning Googling seed related puns, idioms, sayings and jokes for inspiration. Sometimes seeing one funny thing will then ping an idea on a related thing, and sometimes I’ll pull humor from parenting experiences.    

Me: I adore the end papers!  What a great idea!  Seeds on one side, and the resulting fruits or vegetables from those same seeds on the other!  Was that your idea or someone else’s suggestion?  Was that a last minute inspiration?

Mirka: The end pages were my ideas from the start. I like to think of them as extra space to add fun or educational details to my book that wouldn’t fit elsewhere. For this topic it was a fun way to teach kids what the seeds turn into when they grow, and encourage them take a closer look at the world around them. Finding seeds in veggies or fruits in the kitchen is a fun way to engage kids, and once you start looking, you end up finding all kinds of seeds in- and outside of the house!    

Me: What is one thing that surprised you in writing and/or illustrating this story?

Mirka: This was the first nonfiction text that I had written and what surprised me the most was the editorial process. We had a subject matter expert pick through every word and illustration, and there were a lot of little tweaks that needed to be made to make everything as accurate as possible within my style of illustrations. We did several rounds like this and words were sometimes picked very carefully to balance the line of easy enough for little kids to understand, keeping things funny, but also scientifically accurate.

Interesting!  Thank you for stopping by my blog again today Mirka.

Dear readers, if you haven’t had a chance to read this book, you simply must check it out.  It came out last week.  But wait! There’s more!

Mirka has agreed to giveaway one copy to a winner in the US.  You can enter the rafflecopter here.  Good luck!