If you happen to be in the Sherman Oaks area then why not head down to the Sherman Oaks Elementary School at 6PM this Friday to hear me read books, give a presentation, and sign a few books? I guarantee you'll have a cracking good time.
Speaking of cracking good times. I'm having fun working on my new picture book. Here, take yet another gander...
I find myself in sort of a steady pattern in between projects right now so I'm managing to put quite a bit of love into this book, which, I might add, is also a lot of fun. Here's a scene of a science fair which made me think back to all the fun I had in 5th and 6th grade. Here you can see various experiments which I know you all must have seen at your own science fairs. There's the soda bottle tornado experiment, a volcano, the piece on the solar system, and even for you slackers who woke up that morning on the day of the science fair realizing you had nothing there is the "cup of dirt".
When I generally start a new book project I tend to give myself a little goal so that each new book I do I try to make it better than the previous one. Looking back, I've suddenly realized that I don't push the humor in my books as much as I know I can, and so for this project I have made an emphasis on being funny. I like to think I'm a funny person. Heck, if people laugh at Howie Mandel then I KNOW I'm a funny person.
The beauty of this current manuscript is the simplicity. (I believe the text is literally 120 words or so) For some reason, that helped it became more apparent to me how much the illustrator plays a role in helping with the storytelling and how much an illustrator can even ADD to the story. It's all well and good when an illustrator can illustrate the text given, but I believe there is an place where you can transcend just dictating the text and adding more personality and heart to a tale with use of the visual medium (I've been reading a lot of David Weisner to my son lately so it has been somewhat of an education to me in terms of the illustrated picture book)
We'll see if this is a hit or miss for me. I'm sure many of the jokes will go over the heads children, but I'm sure the parents who read the book will get them, and perhaps even more jokes will be seen by my fellow nerdlings (especially the connoisseurs of Godzilla movies)
"Just Hamsters" OMG! That was ME! I detetmined that hamsters loved cauliflower over all other veggies. haha Well done!
Posted by: Nina | February 25, 2009 at 04:57 PM