I’m obsessed with children’s books, particularly picture books. Every fall-to-winter, I curate a list for Powell’s Books of our favorite kids’ and young adult titles of the year, including my favorites and some from my kids’-book-obsessed colleagues. Here are the lists for 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015. I’m also just getting started shopping around my own picture book, which I’ve been tinkering with in my spare time around my design projects.
Some kids’ book covers I’ve designed include I Don’t Believe in Popular Kids (middle grade), Mythwakers (forthcoming, early reader), Brownie’s Big PDXmas (picture book), Sparky’s Big Choice (forthcoming, picture book), Can You See Me Now? (middle grade), and A Dog Named Bronco (picture book series). I also do design work for the kids’ program OK You, including the summer series Journal On, sponsored by OK You and the Portland Art Museum.
I have two published picture books from years past, both out of print, which I wrote and illustrated, and which were published under an old name.
Wright Vs. Wrong: The True and Not-so-True Story of the Airplane (Greene Bark Press, 1997)
Wright Vs. Wrong tells the story of the contest between the Wright Brothers and the Wrong Brothers over who would be the first to invent the airplane.
When I started submitting the book to publishers (actually publisher, singular; the first place I sent it to accepted it), I really had no experience doing so. I sent out simple black and white line drawings because I figured publishers like to tinker with things before you lay down the final full-color artwork.
However, when I received my contract on February 1st of that year, it announced that I would submit final art by the end of the month. The shortest month of the year. No, it wasn’t even a leap year.
And I was just heading out on the road with the circus.
I spent that February clowning all day, painting most of the night, and sleeping on jumps from town to town. I really am not sure how I finished it.
The Magical Trunk: a Book of Colors (Greene Bark Press, 2001)
That’s me as a clown on the cover. The storyline follows me as I transform from a regular girl to a clown, color by color. With each new color, a magical transformation happens around me. As I tap the red on my nose, something red starts to happen. As I put on my orange wig, something orange starts to happen.
The Magical Trunk was selected as the singular book for the 2001 First Day program in Bridgeport, Connecticut. On the first day of school, every first grader in the city was presented with a copy of my book, and I was flown in to visit the schools and share my book with the kids.