It is incredibly rare that you will find a picture book that is blatantly science fiction. Well, hold onto your hats! Today’s picture book has time travel. It doesn’t get much more science fiction than that!
Please note: I received a copy of this book from Simon and Schuster to review, but the opinions, as always, are my own.
Welcome Jessie!
Me: I can’t imagine that anyone isn’t familiar with your work by this point in your career, but just in case, can you share about your journey? When did you start creating art and/or writing? How did that bring you to where you are now as an author-illustrator?
Jessie: I was drawing all the time as a kid. It’s a very regulating activity for me, so it was always there in the background as something I was doing. I also grew up enjoying stories (books, movies, theater, etc) but I didn’t do much creative writing. I wrote poetry in high school (as many of us did), and I think that has translated well into the scarcity of text I try to bring to my books. It wasn’t until I was out of college that I rediscovered picture books and started considering how my love of drawing and interest in stories could be brought together through that medium. Picture books are the perfect combination of words and images for my brain. I think of my books as being “illustration forward,” and by that I mean that I’m always looking for places where the art can do the heavy lifting, and I can cut as much text as possible. I try to strike a balance between telling and showing, and there is a lot of fun to be had in the dance of getting that right.
Me: I cannot believe you found a way to make time travel in a picture book possible! I love this! What gave you the idea for this story?
Jessie: I’m a big fan of science fiction in general, and time travel in particular, so it’s a genre I knew I wanted to try at some point. For me, inspiration comes from everywhere, and I do a lot of creative thinking while taking walks with my dogs. The idea of a story where all of the action takes place between the time cookies are put in the oven and the time they are finished baking is one I had been playing with for a while. Cookies only take like 10 minutes to bake, so there was something funny about stuffing a whole big adventure into such a short window of time. The idea for Cookie Time came from a moment, while walking my dogs, when I realized that I could combine this cookie baking idea with my desire to write a time travel book. Then there would be an extra level of humor to that fact that there are characters who are so desperate to skip over 10 minutes that they would build a whole time machine for it. From there it became about finding the emotional heart of the book, and making sure that having the characters move through time didn’t become too confusing or cumbersome. It was a fun challenge.
Me: What did your illustration process for this book look like? Are you a traditional or a digital artist? Or do you use a blend of both?
Jessie: I work digitally, pretty much from start to finish. My book ideas start out in composition notebooks (the black and white kind you may have had in elementary school), so there are a few small sketches in those, but as soon as I’m really working on the story and pacing I start sketching digitally. Everyone has their own methods, but when I’m dummying out my books (a dummy is what we call a sketchy rough draft of a picture book) I work on words and art at the same time. For me, the interplay between the two is so important that I can’t write a whole manuscript and then go back and figure out the illustrations. I try to create my dummies fairly quickly, so I have something to look at and edit. Once the rough draft is fairly solid, I usually do some color samples.
For Cookie Time this step was very important because each “time” that the main characters, Ari and Kat, find themselves in has a different color palette so that they feel visually distinct. I find color very challenging, so I’m always eager to talk to my amazing art director, Lizzy Bromley, about whether everything is looking good. Once my editor, art director, and I all agree that the story and art samples are ready, I move to doing the final art. Again, that is all digital, and I work rather methodically. Because I do most of the character line art first and then go back in to do backgrounds and color, I often describe the process as creating a coloring book for myself and then coloring it in.
Me: I love that. This story flies by so quickly (no pun intended) with an incredibly succinct text. Yet the book is actually 56 pages long and you illustrate some of the story on the end papers. Did you get any push back on the length of the book? What was the final word count (do you know)? Did this undergo any revisions to shorten it?
Jessie: I think I tend to be more concerned with length than my editor, Justin Chanda. If anything, I feel like my books tend to get longer as we work on them together, because we find places where the art needs more “breathing room” or where the page turns would work better if they were spaced out more. When it comes to editing, our conversations tend to be more about emotional resonance of the story, or the pacing, and less about word or page count. I don’t know what the final word count for this book is, but I’m glad to hear it flew by!
Me: You have now published a stack of incredible picture books. Are you still surprised as you create? Were there any surprises as you created this book, either in the writing or the illustrating?
Jessie: Thank you. Yes, the process of making picture books is full of surprises for me! I’m surprised by all of the random places that inspiration comes from, I’m surprised by some of the things I learn about myself as I ‘m working out a story, and I’m surprised by how well the final colors turn out even though I feel like I’m floundering every time I’m putting together a palette! For Cookie Time specifically, I found the most surprises while trying to illustrate the future, but I’ll talk about that more in a bit.
Me: Any advice for other aspiring picture book writers and/or illustrators?
Jessie: It’s difficult to give blanket advice, but something that I think applies whether you are writing, illustrating, or both, is to let yourself be playful with your words and/or art. Obviously, learning the basic “rules” about formatting, word count, etc, is useful, but having fun and using your own unique voice in your work is what I think makes the biggest difference.
Me: I’m so impressed by this story and its flight of imagination, including the scenes in the far distant future (no spoilers). I spent quite a bit of time pouring over the details in those illustrations. You included SO many fun aspects of a future world. What do you hope is included in the world in the future?
Jessie: This is such a big question. Going back to the question about what surprised me, I was surprised by how difficult it was to portray the far future in a way that felt like it balanced whimsy and realism. I won’t talk about the specifics too much so that people can look at the images on their own, but I felt a deep responsibility to depict a hopeful future that included elements like renewable energy sources and walkable communities, while not getting too bogged down in the practical (potentially boring) details. So there are many fun science fiction and entirely fantastical pieces to the future in the book, but I also included real things that I hope are not out of reach, like a flourishing natural world, thriving libraries, and equitable, accessible communities. Those are the sorts of things I’m aiming for in real life. And I also hope there are plenty of cookies.
Ha! I love that. Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today Jessie.
Dear readers, this book is released into the world TODAY. Happy book birthday Jessie! It’s full of hijinks, humor, and the love of science fiction. Trust me when I say that this is a book you won’t want to miss!