If there’s one thing we Alaskans know, it’s how to survive in the cold.  But today’s picture book makes it seem beautiful, peaceful, and lyrical.

Tim McCanna is the author of Bitty Bot’s Big Beach Getaway, an ALA Golden Duck Notable Picture Book; Watersong, a New York Public Library Best Book for Kids; and In a Garden, a Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year. Peach and Plum: Here We Come!, the first book in the early graphic novel series, was his author-illustrator debut. When Tim isn’t creating books for kids, he enjoys visiting schools, speaking at writing conferences, and mentoring upcoming authors for Storyteller Academy. Tim lives with his family in San Jose, California. You can learn more about him at his website or follow him on Instagram or on Bluesky.

COLD is a lyrical picture book that could easily be read at bedtime.  It’s so peaceful and calm and the illustrations are soft and inviting.  The book looks at a variety of habitats and creatures living in the cold and end with humans who might be shivering in winter.  It also includes incredible back matter digging into what cold really means in winter as well as climate change (which isn’t mentioned anywhere else in the book, surprisingly enough).

Please note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher to review, but the opinions, as always, are my own.

Welcome Tim!

Me: Can you tell us a little bit about your writing journey?  How has that brought you to writing this picture book?

Tim: Thanks so much, Jena! Gosh, it all started by reading picture books to my kids when they were younger. I just fell in love with children’s literature and wanted to give it a try. So, I joined SCBWI, formed critique groups, attended workshops, and wrote lots of unpublishable manuscripts until my craft started to click in. Along the way, I discovered I had a voice for writing concept-driven, lyrical, non-fiction picture books. It started with Watersong and Dinosong, which are both written in rhyming onomatopoeia. Then I took on the challenge of an editor’s request for a book about “the symbiotic relationship between bugs and plants,” which led to In a Garden. And now, we have Cold!

Me: Living in Alaska, I’ve learned to live with the cold.  I’m not sure I have appreciated it as much as this book does.  The imagery of both text and image is so lovely!  What gave you the idea to focus on the cold for this story?

Tim: I can’t compete with Alaska, but I grew up in rural Missouri and we had plenty of ice storms and snow blizzards each winter! Now that I live in California with my family, my skin isn’t so tough anymore! Part of the inspiration was just the “hook” of the word COLD. That single word is so evocative, offering a wide range of places and feelings to explore. I chose to construct a sort of ode to cold around the framework of the natural world—cold places and the animals that thrive in them—which I figured both kids and adults would enjoy.

Me: I knew from the very first stanza on that first page that I was going to love reading this book out loud.  The alliteration of cold, dappled, and dew is glorious and the rhyming was somehow both fresh and reassuringly familiar.  Please tell me it took many drafts to get to this amazing poetic opening!  The book is so lyrical!  How many revisions did it take to get to this polished and beautifully sparse text?

Tim: That’s so nice to hear! Before I got into books for kids, I had a music and theatre background. As a songwriter and lyricist, I’ve always enjoyed wordplay and puzzling out good rhymes, so that experience definitely informs how I approach writing picture books. But even more than finding rhyming pairs, for me it’s about the rhythm and musicality of the words. Reading a picture book aloud to kids is like a performance. If the phrasing feels clunky or unnatural, that’s a big problem. So, when I got the idea for Cold, I first experimented with ways to describe cold. Once I landed on a rhythm I liked with Cold is a morning/dappled in dew/a canvas of sky painted yellow and blue, the trick was to sustain that pattern through the whole book. And yes, I went through a number of drafts trying to work out the best opening and closing stanzas, which places and animals to include, how to describe them, and what order they came in.

Me: The illustrations by Ramona Kaulitzki are a perfectly soft and alluring accompaniment to your writing!  The textures and colors are so appealing.  Were there any illustration surprises for you?  Any favorites?

Tim: Aren’t they wonderful? One of my absolute favorites is the bobcat. It’s so rare to see a bobcat in the wild, but my kids and I encountered one on a trail in Yosemite years ago. Ramona gave the bobcat in the book such big, piercing eyes that look straight at the reader. I love turning to that page. What surprised me most was how even though each spread and stanza are their own contained moment, the book feels like a single journey because Ramona’s style weaves so beautifully and cohesively from mountains and caves to oceans and deserts. All the animals feel like they share a world together… which they do!

Me: You have published several picture books as an author over the years, as well as early graphic novels now as both the author and illustrator.  What does your creative process look like?  What habits have you created that help you to continue publishing books?

Tim: That’s such a good question because over the course of writing children’s books for 15 years, my process is always evolving. And, now that I say that, maybe having a fluid process is part of what has helped me continue to sell manuscripts. Sometimes I am struck with an idea and I just blurt out a stream of consciousness draft to get all my first ideas onto the page before I lose them. Other times, I meticulously outline and organize every beat beforehand. With my graphic novels, I write all the text before I do even a single sketch, like they’re two separate jobs. It just depends on the nature of the work. The style and subject dictate how I approach them, which makes each project feel fresh for me. If my creative process was the same for every book, I’d probably get bored!

Me: I loved that you included back matter about climate change that didn’t have to be squished into the text of the book.  Was that your idea?  How much of the back matter did you originally create to include with your sparse text?

Tim: Yes, that was a big part for me, and the back matter was built into my plan for the book. Most of that content you see at the end of the book was a part of the manuscript my agent and I submitted to editors. We take the seasons and cold weather for granted, assuming they will just automatically happen every year. But the reality of climate change caused by human activity is that we are steadily losing cold environments and the cold seasons that humans and animals depend on for so many reasons. Cold was partly motivated by the constant stream of distressing news I see about climate change. My hope is that the inspirational text, the beautiful illustrations,  and the information we provide will encourage readers young and old to take part in efforts that support, protect, and sustain cold in the natural world.

Me: Any advice for new or aspiring picture book writers?

Tim: Yep. READ picture books. Lots of them. All of them! If you really want to write picture books, go to your local library and check out a dozen picture books right now. Sure, study the classics. But especially focus on the new releases and books that published in the past five years or so. Analyze the plots and characters. Listen to the language. Take note of the word count. Observe how much storytelling the illustrations are doing. The deeper you immerse yourself in this wonderfully diverse art form, the better equipped you’ll be to create your own stories.

That’s great advice.  Thank you for stopping by my blog today Tim.

Dear readers, this book is a loving ode to winter and cold environments all over the world.  It soars and swims, flies and shimmies with grace and delight through forests and mountains, caves and seas.  Trust me when I say that this is one you won’t want to miss!