What better way to celebrate the holidays than with DINOSAURS?!

Bridget Heos is the prolific author of Stegothesaurus; Mustache Baby; Mustache Baby Meets His Match; I, Fly; and more than one hundred other children’s books. She lives in Kansas. You can learn more about her at her website or follow her on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

SANTA CLAWS is a brilliant mashup of Christmas AND dinosaurs! There’s a rollicking rhyme with lots of clever word play. There are brilliant illustrations of dinos and Santa. This is bound to be a classic holiday favorite that is read and re-read over and over again. It’s hilarious and still manages to hit all the right traditional holiday notes. Brilliant!

Welcome Bridget!

Me: I can’t imagine that anyone isn’t familiar with your work, but just in case, can you tell us a little bit about your writing journey? When did you start writing picture books? How has that brought you to writing this picture book?

Bridget: My writing journey began with writing for newspapers and magazines. I then transitioned to children’s nonfiction books. That led to nonfiction picture books, and finally fiction picture books, my first being MUSTACHE BABY. I now write primarily fiction books. In fact, I no longer have the worldview I had when I wrote most of my nonfiction books. Back then, I trusted mainstream narratives wholeheartedly. I didn’t know what I didn’t know (and still don’t know, but now know that.)

Me: I love the play on Santa Claus’ name that also brilliantly includes the evergreen topic of dinosaurs! What gave you the idea?

Bridget: My oldest son was obsessed with dinosaurs when he was growing up. His enthusiasm was contagious. I always wanted to write a dinosaur book, and with the greenlight to write a sequel to SANTA JAWS, I thought SANTA CLAWS would be the perfect follow up. I was also excited to see illustrator Galia Bernstein depict dinosaurs—I loved her sharks! 

Me: Your text is short and deceptively simple (not to mention that killer rhyme!). Did it undergo a ton of revisions to get to its finished state? Or was this story a gift from the muse that was good from the first draft? 

Bridget: With rhyming books, they come to me pretty quickly. It feels more like channeling than writing. In fact, some days, the rhyming is a bit overwhelming!

Me: SANTA JAWS was published in 2021 and seems to follow a similar plot line. Is it fair to say that this is a sequel to that book then? How did that come about? Were the two books sold together? (Can we expect any more in this “series”?)

Bridget: I sold SANTA JAWS first, and then later SANTA CLAWS, but it is the sequel. There may be more, although the rhyming titles will run out at some point. There could be a mammalian SANTA PAWS. Perhaps a SANTA GNAWS, about an animal known for its chewing? A sequel is always good news, and hope springs eternal!

Me:  The illustrations by Galia Bernstein are absolutely perfect! I mean, those end pages alone are fantastic! Any illustration surprises for you? Any favorites?

Bridget: I love Galia’s illustrations! It struck me how perfectly she balanced Santa Claws’ ornery and ferocious nature with his sense of fatherliness and fun. He’s not too scary for little ones but also not too tame to shame the name. He is the Tyrant Lizard King, after all! But as Santa, he needed to be sweet, too. I think she struck the perfect balance! My favorite example of this is when he is roaring the leaves off the trees on the left hand page, and then beholds the milk and cookies on the right hand side.

Me: What is one thing that surprised you in writing this story?

Bridget: I worried that dinosaur names would be ill-fit for rhythm and rhyme, but they actually measured up quite nicely for this!

Me: Any advice for new picture book writers?

Bridget: My friend, children’s book author Ann Ingalls, taught me to make a dummy of 32 pages by folding over 8 pages. Then she said to start on page 3 and lay the words from the manuscript out on those pages, to see how the book flows. Each page or spread should be a new scene. To me, that is still the best advice for picture book authors that I can think of.

That IS great advice. Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today Bridget!

Dear readers, this book was published in September. If you haven’t had a chance to track it down yet and holiday books are your jam, then you should definitely give this one a read. It’s a mashup of concepts that’s sure to appeal to young readers and quickly become a holiday favorite. You won’t want to miss it.