Do you remember the joys of that first fall of snow?

Katherine Pryor has visited my blog once before. She is an award-winning children’s book author who loves writing about the natural world. She grew up playing in the snowy mountains of California and Arizona but now awaits rare snow days on an island near Seattle. You can learn more about her at her website or follow her on Instagram or BlueSky.

Rose Soini is an award-winning illustrator who lives in rural Washington, where it rarely snows. When it does it’s such a fun winter treat! Her favorite part is that the snow records all the activities of the wild animals with the tracks they leave behind. You can learn more about her at her website or follow her on Instagram.

HELLO, SNOW! is the fourth board book in a series that explores outside themes (i.e., garden, rain, and beach). Each one of these exquisite little masterpieces embrace the joy of nature in a variety of settings. Both the text and the watercolor illustrations are deceptively simple, with glorious turns of phrases or delightful washes of color. The main characters explore and play with abandon in an exuberance that is fleeting to catch and yet both author and illustrator have managed to successfully do so in every single book.

Welcome Katherine and Rose!

Me: Katherine, I adore this whole board book series! From Gardens and Rain to the Beach and now Snow, it feels as if every season might be covered (though I’m quite sure there’s room for other themes to be explored here!). What gave you the idea for this newest book?

Katherine: Thank you! I got the initial idea for “Hello, Snow!” watching my kids play at their grandparents’ house in the Cascade mountains. I loved that as long as they were dressed warmly enough, they could play outside for hours. Then we had a fluke snowstorm and snow day at our home on Whidbey Island, and my kids rushed outside. I watched them through a window, scribbling everything they did, from flopping to sledding to building a snow friend. I basically built the book around what my kids like to do in the snow. 

Me: Rose, I love all of the details you include in your illustrations: from loving parents in the background to close-ups of those little hands and feet! And every creature, whether worm or squirrel, is adorable! Can you talk about the medium you used to create these illustrations? Are you a traditional or digital illustrator (or a blend of both)?

Rose: Thank you! It was so fun to come up with what was going on on the page. Because pretty much everything not described in the text came from my imagination. There were a few exceptions when Katherine had suggestions of what might be going on but with such few words I had a lot of room to explore!

I used watercolor for the illustrations in the series. I use many different traditional media but watercolor is what I have the most confidence with. I don’t do digital art at all. I can’t stand computers. HA! I started with pencil drawings and then everything after that is watercolor. All the lines, outlines, etc. are watercolor with a small brush.

Me:  These board books are so full of joie de vivre! The child-like enthusiasm is in every phrase and in every illustrated scene. Why did each of you become involved in these books?

Katherine: I wanted to write a garden book for younger kids and sent “Hello, Garden!” to the editor who had worked on “Bea’s Bees” at Schiffer Kids. A writer friend had introduced me to Rose’s work, and I loved it immediately, so when my editor asked if I had an illustrator in mind, I suggested Rose and she invited a sample art submission. It was perfect, so we signed the contract and got to work.

Then two things happened: a global pandemic forced many families (including mine) outside to play, and “Hello, Garden!” won a national award. When the book launched in spring 2021, it hadn’t gotten much attention, but that changed when it won the IBPA award. I pitched an idea for “Hello, Rain!” as a follow-up book, and our editor said the magic words: “Why don’t we make it a four-book series?” I’d been following twin toddlers around woods and beaches and farms for two years at that point, so I had a lot of material!

Rose: I’m glad the enthusiasm comes across! I have a childlike enthusiasm for art, nature, animals, and well lots of things, so I just had to channel that into my drawings. I’ve drawn ever since I could hold a crayon, and have wanted to be an illustrator of picture books for as long as I can remember. I love visual story telling!

It was such a thrill and the fulfillment of lifelong dreams to be picked to do “Hello, Garden!” And I’m so thrilled we got to do the four book series.

Me: The text and  illustrations work so wonderfully together in this story. How many revisions did each of you have to make to get this story to the final product?

Katherine: My process for writing these books was completely different than anything else I’ve done. The books are written almost entirely in nouns and verbs, in very short sentences. It took me MANY drafts to find the right pattern for “Hello, Garden!”, but that got progressively easier as I wrote the rest of the books. For each book of the series, I created lists of coupled nouns and verbs, cut them out, and arranged them like puzzle pieces to get the right flow and sequence. I always waited to send them to Rose until they were pretty much done, although we certainly made some tweaks after adding the words to the final art.

Rose: The illustrations start as story boards, tiny drawings laid out on a sheet of paper, so that I can get a loose plan of how the words are going to be divided up on the pages and brainstorm what the illustrations are going to be. Story boards are great because you can do a lot of experimenting and get a good feel for the layout with the least amount of time spent drawing. I would do several storyboards on my own before sharing them with Kathrine to get her feedback and make changes until we were happy with it. Then the story boards would go to the publisher for approval and see if they had any changes they wanted to make. Once the storyboards are approved I would start sketching full size and really working out the details of the illustrations.

Same process with the full size drawings of sending them around for feedback and approval. Then the drawings would get traced onto watercolor paper for the final fine tuning of the pencil drawings. It messes up watercolor to erase on it, so I like to do all the messing around sketching before the watercolor paper comes into play. When the watercolor paintings are done I do the feedback and approval process again. So as you can see there are a lot of revisions that happen along the way. It’s a normal part of the process. It is unusual however for the illustrator and author to work on the illustrations together. Usually a publisher has the illustrator only work with an in-house art director and the author isn’t involved at all. Luckily Katherine and I work really well together so it was a fantastic process to go through with her!

Me: You each bring something to the story that only you can bring. Katherine, you write an amazingly succinct rhyme that can be interpreted in many ways, yet manages to be so specific at the same time. Rose, your soft art and beautiful color palettes make this story feel warm and inviting for the very youngest of readers. Each of you has incredible work to share, and it’s obvious that there was such passion in the creation of it. Why share these particular books with the world? What would you hope to leave in readers’ minds? 

Katherine: I want more kids to play outside! Being outdoors is such an incredible template for creativity and imagination, and I’ve seen firsthand how free my kids feel when we’re out in nature. I worry that a lot of families have become sort of distanced from the natural world, and have noticed that some kids in my sons’ classes seem afraid of being outdoors. My goal for these books has always been to pass on my love for the natural world and to encourage more families to go outside, even if it’s just to explore the backyard or a nearby park.

Rose: I hope that the books encourage a love and curiosity for nature, animals, gardening, and simple, no tech play. Go outside, breathe deeply, and connect to the world around us. There is a bit of nature to be found anywhere. And maybe the books will also inspire some to create art themselves! Pick up a pencil! Grab some paint! Make some art!

Me: This has been a beautiful series with tons of elements carried through each one to make them feel like a full set together. Any hope for more in the series? Would either of you be opposed to creating more books like this?

Katherine: I feel like we did exactly what we wanted to with this series, which was to sort of create books for different seasons. I also really wanted them to be a nice gift set for baby showers and things like that, so I’m fine keeping it at four. But I would love to work with Rose again! It really did become true collaboration as the series continued. In fact, “Hello, Beach!” only exists because Rose happened to say, “I have an idea for an image of a clam spitting if you ever want to write a beach book.” How could I resist?!?

Rose: The planned “Hello” series is completed, but I would love to do more board books for young readers and visual story telling for all ages. I hope I get to work with Kathrine more. She is an awesome writer, creator, and human being.

Me: As this is the fourth book in the series, what is something that surprised each of you in the creation of this latest story?

Katherine: I was surprised how interesting the illustrations of snow could be! I was a little worried in pitching the book that I wasn’t giving Rose much to work with, but it’s so compelling! All the little swirls and shades of gray and hints of color made the snow feel alive. You really feel the motion and unpredictability of it.

On a more personal note, I was surprised how sentimental I’ve been wrapping up the series. “Hello, Garden!” came out shortly after my twins’ fourth birthday, and the following books are really a celebration of all the time we spent outdoors doing little kid stuff, like splashing in puddles, turning driftwood into drumsticks, and listening to frozen puddles crack beneath our feet. The books were based on things I watched my kids do outdoors, and captured those years of our life beautifully. I’ll always treasure them as a reminder of that chapter of our family life.

Rose: I’m not sure if I was surprised by anything. It was really fun painting snow. I loved adding all the color to a mostly “white” landscape. I also felt very sentimental as I was drawing the “Hello” family and their adventures for the last time. I started drawing them in 2019 and so much life has happened in that time. I will forever be grateful to Katherine and Schiffer for picking me for these books! Lifelong goal realized to be a published illustrator!

We recently found out that “Hello, Snow!” was honored in the Mom’s Choice Awards! It’s wonderful that the first and last of the series got awards. They are very popular with their target age group. I’m sent a lot of pictures from friends of their little ones enthralled by the books, and it’s awesome that critics like them too.

That’s wonderful! Thank you both, Katherine and Rose, for stopping by my blog today.

Dear readers, this last book in the series published in September. If you haven’t yet had a chance to read it (or any of the books in the series), I highly recommend tracking it down. They seem simple, but they surprisingly accomplish so much. Trust me when I say, you won’t want to miss them.