If you are a fan of funny and irreverent stories that are also somehow deeply insightful, then today’s picture book is for you.

Drew Beckmeyer is an author-illustrator and schoolteacher based in Los Angeles. He is the author-illustrator of I Am a Tornado, The First Week of School, Stalactite & Stalagmite, and The Long Island, which was long-listed for the Klaus Flugge Prize, and the illustrator of Dear Wild Child. You can learn more about him at his website or follow him on Instagram.

STALACTITE & STALAGMITE is a picture book about two little nubs in a cave who become friends the instant they meet. They watch millennia pass by, creatures come and go, but they are still there in their cave. An animal might meet them on one page and the next page they’re reminiscing “remember when we met that thing?” The story somehow manages to capture the speed of time which must pass quickly for something that exists that long, as well as how slowly that same time can pass ALL with a sense of humor. These little nubs are characters I won’t soon forget and their fate just might surprise you.

Welcome Drew!

Me: Can you share about your artistic journey? When did you start creating art and/or picture books?  How did that bring you to where you are now as the author and illustrator of this book?

Drew: I was always drawing. For a long time, it felt like drawing was really the only thing I was good at. I read comic books as a kid and would try to make my own. For a while, in high school, I thought I wanted to be a musician, but what I secretly liked most was making posters and flyers for the shows. I ended up going to art school and getting my degree in illustration. Narrative art has been a constant in my life, but I didn’t really consider working in picture books until I was in my mid 30’s. I had the idea that the format was too restrictive, or too conservative, or too unsophisticated. Long story short, I was really ignorant about the medium and the possibilities for an unfortunately long period of time. 

Me: You have such a unique approach to this subject matter.  I can honestly say I’ve never seen anyone talk about cave formations with personalities and a friendship that spans millennia.  Where did the idea for this story come from?

Drew: I have a running list of possible titles. It’s probably 500 titles long and goes back 10 years. I kind of just write down any word pairing or phrase that feels interesting to me. At some point, I wrote down “Stalactite and Stalagmite”, and some months or years later I found it on that list and it jumped out to me. I like to feel like I’m solving a problem when I work on a story. This one had a lot of fun problems to solve- How do you write an interesting story about 2 characters that can’t move. How do you write a picture book that covers a huge amount of time? How do you basically introduce and then kill off characters one page later in a way that doesn’t feel mean? 

Me: Well you definitely solved the problem. It’s a great story. Can you tell us a bit about your research process?  How long did it take you to research all the different facts and tidbits that went into this story?

Drew: Honestly, I didn’t do any research until the book had sold. Then I had to kind of work backwards to make sure everything I was saying was more or less accurate. I’m still waiting for a geologist or someone to point out that stalactites and stalagmites don’t actually take all that long to grow. The backmatter and visual ticker at the bottom of each page was suggested by the publisher and that required some extra research, but nothing too crazy. 

Me: I love that visual ticker! It took me a beat to realize that’s what it was. What media do you use to illustrate?  Are you a traditional artist or a digital artist?  Or do you use a blend of both?  What did you use for this book?

Drew: I’m pretty firmly in the traditional camp. This book is mostly cut paper. I was trying to make it look like the set of a play where you have several layers of 2d objects and then a flat painted backdrop. Usually the outside of the cave is just a gouache painting and the inside is stacked up cut paper. I do edit digitally, add the type and little tricks etc, but I want the books to have a tactile sense to them, and it’s hard to get that in a convincing way off an ipad or computer…or at least it’s hard for me. 

Me: I’m always fascinated when I see an author illustrator who is also a teacher (like myself).  How did you find time for writing AND illustrating around the job of teaching?  What routines do you have in place that allow you to create regularly and successfully?

Drew: Haha, I’m not sure “routines” and “successfully” apply to me. I haven’t really figured out routines and success always feels distant. I work in bursts. If I’m lucky, the bursts align with summer vacations. Art school and working in editorial illustration made me work very fast. So I can crank out and revise sketches and book dummies very quickly. For now, that seems to be taking the place of a healthy routine. 

Me: What is one thing that surprised you in creating this book?

Drew: Hmm. I think that even though I knew basic facts like that the dinosaurs lived 165 million years, my mind had sort of minimized those truly staggering facts of time. That many famous species of dinosaurs that we commonly think of never even lived at the same time because…. 165 million years is a really, really long time. I really wanted to have a stegosaurus in the book because that was always my favorite, but they were long extinct before whatever cataclysmic event fully wiped out the dinosaurs, so I had to use a triceratops. And once you start to think that way, you can’t really help but see humanity as a tiny little blip… which is scary and somehow hopeful. 

Me: Fascinating. Any advice for other aspiring picture book writers and/or illustrators?

Drew: I would advise mostly against following my advice. I can only speak for myself but I think there are enough picture books about almost every subject that have already been made. For any subject there are already like 10 good quality books that have been published. So the only thing that can really separate your work is your point of view. I think you develop your point of view by writing a lot, not being precious with your own stories, understanding that maybe 0-5% of what you write will make it’s way into the world. Write for yourself first and feel lucky if something resonates with another human.

That is good advice Drew. Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Dear readers, this book was published just this week. If you haven’t had a chance yet to track it down, I highly recommend it. The text is both funny and insightful with characters that somehow become endearing. Trust me when I say you won’t want to miss this one.