When a pufferfish is in a playful mood, chaos ensues!

Charlotte Offsay has visited my blog several times. She is the author of several children’s books including The Quiet Forest; A Grandma’s Magic; Challah Day!; Eight Sweet Nights, A Festival of Lights; The Big Beach Cleanup; and more. When she is having a particularly loud day, she can always count on her two loving children and husband to bring comfort and quiet back to their home in Los Angeles, California.  You can learn more about her at her website or follow her on Instagram.

Abi Cushman has also visited my blog several times. She is is the author-illustrator of Soaked!, Animals Go Vroom!, and Flamingos Are Pretty Funky. She’s also the illustrator of The Quiet Forest by Charlotte Offsay. She lives on the Connecticut shoreline with her husband, two kids, a bunny, and quite possibly a bike-riding dolphin. You can learn more about her at her website or follow her on Instagram or BlueSky.

THE QUIET OCEAN is a picture book sequel to THE QUIET FOREST by both creators who are teaming up again for this project. This time it’s a pufferfish who is at the root of all the chaos caused deep in the ocean depths. Once again Charlotte has used the cumulative format to great effect and Abi has brought it to hilarious life in rich detail. 

Welcome back Charlotte and Abi!

Me: Charlotte, once again I see your fun cumulative chaos at work here, which isn’t surprising as this is a sequel. What gave you the idea for this story? Was it because THE QUIET FOREST was such a success?

Charlotte: Thank you for your kind words and for having me back on your blog, Jena! I had a blast solving the writing puzzle behind The Quiet Forest, and had been itching to write a follow-up since handing in a final draft of the first book to my editor, Catherine Laudone. It wasn’t until we saw some sales momentum behind the first book, however, that Catherine and I sat down to seriously discuss potential series options. I came to that meeting with a few different ideas, but found that we were both most drawn to an ocean-themed sequel – inspired by a particularly noisy beach day in one of my favorite family vacation spots on Coronado Island in San Diego, California. 

Me: Abi, this is the second book of Charlotte’s that you’ve illustrated (and your second sequel). You once again nailed the chaos and humor with so many delightful details. Were there any challenges to illustrating a sequel in a new setting in this world? Any push back on some of the background elements (like bathtubs or sandwiches) that you put under water?

Abi: Thank you, Jena! It was so fun getting to illustrate another book in The Quiet Series. I think with sequels, the challenge is finding that balance between preserving the same tone as the first book while still making it different enough to stand on its own. 

I knew we wanted to keep the visual story kind of silly and surprising, just like in The Quiet Forest. It was going to have a bit of a different look to it simply because the setting and the ocean animals were so different to the first book, so I thought that was really fun. I hadn’t really ever drawn a squid or a pufferfish before, so I was curious how they’d turn out!

In terms of the background elements, I brainstormed a bunch of different activities the ocean animals could be doing when they got disrupted and sent my favorite ideas to Catherine Laudone (editor) and Krista Vossen (art director). Fortunately, we were all on the same page and everyone was on board with squids in bathtubs and sandwich-eating dolphins.

Me: Charlotte, I love that you have a playful pufferfish as the main character. He mimics your mouse in the first book so well! In fact, there are so many elements here that are beautifully mirrored in the story too (no spoilers given!). How hard was it to write this story? Was it easier than the first book because now you had a framework to rely on? Or was it harder?

Charlotte: While picture books are never easy to write, having a pre-determined structure, tone and theme certainly made the puzzle of this book far easier to solve than the first. I had set parameters that I wanted to mirror from the first, for example I knew I wanted alliteration for each character and for them to grow in size throughout the book. I also knew that I wanted a calming turning point and to leave a lot of room for Abi’s fantastic humorous illustrations.

The challenges I faced however were trying to find ocean animals that could realistically co-habitate and grow in size, and not repeating alliteration that would work in the second half of the book as well as the first. The alliteration is used to build up the chaos in the beginning and then used to unwind it toward the end. It was also challenging to balance making sure the book was different enough from the first book while still mirroring enough of our favorite elements from the first. 

Me:  Abi, let’s talk about the details involved in the story. The text is simple and the illustrations are filled with such fun details that really bring the text to life. Were there art notes to explain scenes, like about what caused the squid to ink? Who invented what parts? How did you choose what the animals were doing before chaos ensued? 

Abi: When I was thinking about the visual storyline, I thought it would be really funny to put sea animals in situations that would be normal/typical to humans on land, but would be fairly absurd for animals in the ocean. I thought about calming activities that a person might do to relax, like soaking in a bubble bath, knitting, or going for a nice bike ride, and then I applied those activities to sea creatures.

It was actually Catherine and Krista who came up with the idea of the pufferfish playing with the bubble that then pops and causes the squid to ink. I thought that worked really well to lead into the bubble bath scene!

Me: This is the second book both of you have been able to work on together. Have you met in real life? Have you communicated at all during the process? Have you gotten to know each other at all through these books’ creation?

Charlotte: I feel very lucky to get to work with Abi as I was a fan of her work even before her name was suggested for The Quiet Forest by our editor, Catherine Laudone. It is fairly uncommon for an author and illustrator to communicate directly while creating a book together though, so we didn’t communicate until beginning the marketing process together.

Abi, being an author herself, has been a delight to market this series with as she pours her talents not only into the book’s creation but also into its subsequent success via creative marketing ideas. She has created a signed print for us to use in a pre-order campaign for The Quiet Ocean for example. We got the chance to meet in person during NCTE in Boston shortly after the publication of The Quiet Forest and since I regularly visit my family on the East Coast near where Abi is located, I hope we will get to meet up again sometime soon! 

Abi: I knew Charlotte through social media over the years, and I was thrilled to meet up with her in person at NCTE in Boston in 2024 after The Quiet Forest came out. Though we didn’t communicate directly during the process of creating the books, it’s been really fun talking about marketing the books!

Me: This is a sequel that I knew I would love when I first heard the title and concept. Dare we hope for any more books pairing your talents together in this series? Perhaps there can be many different ones set in lots of different habitats? Would you both be willing to make more sequels together?

Charlotte: It is certainly my hope to create many more books in this series with Abi! Fingers crossed that the marketing numbers enable us to do so!

Abi: I would love to illustrate more in this series. And I’ve shared both The Quiet Forest and The Quiet Ocean with kids at school visits, and the kids really want Charlotte to keep writing more.

Me: Both of you have published numerous books for kids at this point in your careers. In these difficult publishing times, what keeps you both creating them? What encouragement would you give to other creators who are trying to publish picture books in this market?

Charlotte: My honest answer is that I don’t seem to be able not to! My best story ideas crawl under my skin and won’t leave me alone until I write them down. Publishing can be a challenging industry but creating is a necessary outlet for me and the feeling of turning an abstract idea into a tangible book that creates enjoyment for littles is too rewarding to ever abandon! The advice I would give to other creators is to just keep doing what you love – when your ideas feel important to you, eventually they will find their forever home. I have had numerous ideas that couldn’t find a home when I wrote them, but that have later either sold or been reimagined into something even better. 

Abi: I agree with everything Charlotte said. And to add that, I think what’s been helpful to me is that when the publishing trends are against you, try to pivot a little bit. So for example, if editors aren’t picking up your nonfiction books, try a silly fiction book. Or try for an early reader instead of a picture book. 

It helps keep things fresh anyway and provides a fun challenge. And because I did that, I now have a range of fiction and nonfiction picture books plus an early reader series coming out in 2028.

That’s great advice ladies! Thank you both for stopping by my blog again today.

Dear readers, this book publishes next week. It combines the Charlotte’s alliterative cumulative formula with Abi’s hilarious animals up to hijinks. Trust me when I say, you won’t want to miss it!