How to Tell a Story Week: Interview with Illustrator Brian Won

This week Jen Vincent from Teach Mentor Texts, Jennifer Reed from Reederama, Cynthia Alaniz from Librarian in Cute Shoes, and I are celebrating How to Tell a Story by Daniel Nayeri and Illustrated by Brian Won. I am excited to have Brian on the blog to share about his work on this project.  Thanks Brian for stopping by.

How to Tell a Story seems like a different type of project to work on than say an actual book. What did you have to take into consideration when working on this project with Daniel?

Although this project was different than illustrating a book, it was just as enjoyable and in some ways, more challenging. Ironically, the illustrations didn’t need to “tell a story” but convey an emotion, action, or location as quickly as possible. The dimensions of the cube faces are about 1.5 x 1.5 inches so my main goal was to make the illustrations simple and engaging. Also, I had to take into account the sheer number of illustrations required for all the sides of the dice, about 120. Categories like People, Places, and Things were easier to represent while Emotions, Relationships, and Verbs required more conceptual thinking. 

Can you share your process for determining which images would represent what on the blocks? Was it collaborative? Did you do research in order to decide? 

Daniel was absolutely fantastic to work with. He supplied an initial list of ideas and if I hit any roadblocks, he would provide several more options. Also art director, Colleen Venable, was instrumental as a sounding board. Early on I sent Daniel vector sketches, but soon found that to be time consuming. My usual work process doesn’t involve pencil sketches, but with so many moving parts, pencil sketches were far more effective. We were able to see if not only the illustration was working, but if the word itself needed to be changed. Below are some examples of rejected sketches and themes. Tied Together, still makes me smile. 

Are there any you are particularly proud of?

I am most proud of the illustration that represents Sail. It reminds me of when I’m driving with my son and I tell him to look out the window at the beautiful mountains. He has zero interest. 

How do you hope your artwork might inspire young writers?

I hope the artwork and the book will show young writers that writing is fun. I tend to put writing on a pedestal. I get tripped up with grammar and feel inadequate even when constructing an email. However, we can all tell a joke or talk about the crazy thing that happened five minutes ago. These are stories, wonderful stories worth telling and writing. 

What is your favorite indie bookstore (where is it and why do you like it)?

My favorite indie bookstore is Vromans in Pasadena. I have fond memories of my mom buying us books there when we were kids. My younger sister would get one of the Babysitters Club books and I would get something Roald Dahl. 

Finish the statements: “Reading is…” and “Writing is…”

“Reading is… the best thing you can do with a kid. Not even for the sake of the child, but for yourself. The day doesn’t seem so bad after a shared book.”

“Writing is.. whittling a golf pencil from a sequoia tree.”

What are you reading and loving right now (or recently)? 

Thanks to my friend, Renee Kurilla, I am reading Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. I highly recommend this book for both writers and illustrators. 

“Forgive yourself if you tried to create something and it didn’t work out. Remember that you’re nothing but a beginner – even if you’ve been working on your craft for years. We’re all just beginners here, and we shall all die beginners.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

What is the best writing advice you have received and what advice would you give student writers?

“When you are going good, stop writing. You don’t go on writing and writing until you come to the end of it, because when you do, then you say, well, where am I going to go next? You make yourself stop and you walk away. And you can’t wait to get back because you know what you want to say next.” – Roald Dahl. 

This also applies to illustration. Fiddling with your chair, checking the basketball score, Facebook – its all a distraction from actually starting. Student writers, have something good to come back to so you aren’t afraid to begin. 

To find Brian: website | twitter | facebook

Check out the other posts in this blog tour:

November 3, 2015 - How to Tell a Story Week Kick-Off - Teach Mentor Texts and Kid Lit Frenzy
November 4, 2015 - Jennifer Reed at Reederama and her students play How to Tell a Story
November 5, 2015 - Illustrator, Brian Won visits Kid Lit Frenzy
November 6, 2015 - Author/Creator, Daniel Nayeri visits Teach Mentor Texts
November 9, 2015 - Cynthia Alaniz at Librarian in Cute Shoes and her students play How to Tell a Story
November 10, 2015 - How to Tell A Story - Share your "Why Game" stories - Teach Mentor Texts and Kid Lit Frenzy

Enter to win a copy of How to Tell a Story: 

We hope you'll check out How To Tell a Story and visit the various blog posts we'll have up to celebrate #howtotellastory week!

Thanks for stopping by and celebrating with us! We do have a giveaway as well. Thank you to Workman Publishing, we have a copy of How To Tell a Story available to five lucky winners with a US mailing address and the sixth winner picked will win a Skype visit with creator, Daniel Nayeri.

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How to Tell a Story Week is here!

Wandering around the exhibition floor of ALA Midwinter '15, Jen Vincent from Teach Mentor Texts and I met Daniel Nayeri and his clever idea for storytelling called How to Tell a Story. The concept was simple..."read the book, roll the blocks, and build adventures." After chatting for awhile, we let Trevor Ingerson from Workman Publishers that we would be interested in highlighting How to Tell a Story on our blogs. Fast forward 10 months and we are finally able to share our excitement about this with everyone. 

What is How to Tell a Story? Check out the video where

Ready to join in on the fun? 

Of course, we had to give you an opportunity to join in on all of the fun. Here are the directions to The Why Game, one of the many activities in the book, and below you'll find a handful of blocks so you and your students can play along. Be sure to write down your story ideas or the stories you come up with and come back on Tuesday, 11/10 to share and read what others write too!

Here are some blocks to use with the game: 

Share the news about How to Tell a Story Week

Grab the image below and spread the word about How to Tell a Story Week. Please use the hashtag #howtotellastory on Twitter or Instagram to share the news. 

Don't miss any of the fun for the How to Tell a Story Tour

Wednesday, 11/4 - Jennifer Reed at Reederama - How To Tell a Story in Action!

Thursday, 11/5 - Aly at Kid Lit Frenzy Interviews Brian Won

Friday, 11/6  - Jen Vincent at Teach Mentor Texts interviews Daniel Nayeri

Monday, 11/9 - Cynthia Alaniz at Librarian In Cute Shoes

Tuesday, 11/10 - Final Celebration at Teach Mentor Texts and Kid Lit Frenzy

*We'll have a Padlet set up where you and your students can share your stories!

We hope you'll check out How To Tell a Story and visit the various blog posts we'll have up to celebrate #howtotellastory week! It is November and NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo are here! It would be great if you and your students take a try at The Why Game. We would love to hear what you think and what stories emerge when you give your brain a few ideas to get going. Thanks for stopping by and celebrating with us! We do have a giveaway as well. Thanks to Workman, we have a copy of How To Tell a Story available to five lucky winners with a US mailing address and the sixth winner picked will win a Skype visit with creator, Daniel Nayeri.

Complete the rafflecopter below to enter.

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One Word From Sophia Blog Tour

One Word From Sophia
by Jim Averbeck, Illustrated by Yasmee Ismail
Atheneum Books for Young Readers (June 16, 2015)
Fiction * Humor * Communication
Audience: Ages 4 to 8
IndieBound | WorldCat

About the Book:
Sophia wants a pet giraffe for her birthday. It is her one true desire. However, she has a problem. In fact she has four problems— she must first convince her mother (a judge), her father (a businessman), her Uncle Conrad (a politician), and her very strict Grand-mamá to approve.

Determined, persistent, and creative, Sophia uses all her wiles to persuade each one . . . but to no avail. “Too many words,” they complain after each elaborate presentation. Undeterred and undefeated, Sophia rethinks her approach – editing and revising it to its essence until she finds just the right word. Simplicity, directness, and sincerity prevail. True desire triumphs in this funny, warm-hearted confection that celebrates words even as it shows that less of them can often be more.

Check out the book trailer for the book:

My thoughts on the book:
Since I had a chance to originally see ONE WORD FROM SOPHIA in January 2015. Months before it was available to the general public. I remember reading it and laughing.  Always a good thing to have positive memories of a book that you read for the first time.  And equally good when it holds up to re-reads. 

Sophia is an articulate, intelligent, creative child who has her heart set on a giraffe as a birthday present. 

Did I say articulate? Sophia is going to argue her opinion to any and all who will listen. It isn't easy to convince everyone that a giraffe would be a great pet. 

Did I say creative? 

Of course, if all else fails an emphatic "please" might work. 

One Word for Sophia is filled with humor, a diverse family, and a lesson that fewer words may be better than more. 

So, what are you waiting for? Please, pick up a copy of One Word From Sophia from your favorite indie bookstore or community public library. 

About the creators: 
Jim Averbeck works, plays, and evades the law in San Francisco, California. His first book, In a Blue Room, was a Charlotte Zolotow Honor book. His popular books Except If and Oh No, Little Dragon! feature charming protagonists with pointy teeth. His book, The Market Bowl and his middle grade novel A Hitch at the Fairmont were Junior Library Guild Selections. His most recent book, One Word From Sophia, was an IndyNext Top 10 for Summer 2015.  website | twitter 

Yasmeen Ismail is an award-winning illustrator and animator who has a love of inks, paints and watercolours. "Time For Bed, Fred!" is her debut picture book. Originally from Ireland, Yasmeen now lives in London.  website | twitter

Resources & Related Media:

Teacher's Guide | Free Skype Giveaway | PW & We Need Diverse Books 

Check out the previous blog tour posts: 
10/19/2015 - Jen at Teach Mentor Texts
10/20/2015 - Jennifer at Reederama
10/21/2015 - Franki and Mary Lee at Two Reading Teachers
10/22/2015 - Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers
10/23/2015 - Crystal at Reading Through Life
10/24/2015 - Alyson at Kid Lit Frenzy

The Toymaker's Apprentice Blog Tour - Sherri L. Smith on Literary Heroes

Thank you Sherri L. Smith for stopping by and sharing about your literary heroes as we celebrate your new book THE TOYMAKER'S APPRENTICE.  And thank you to Penguin Random House for coordinating the blog tour. 

Literary heroes… that’s a tough title to live up to, in part because I find that I learn a lot from all sorts of writers—the ones I think are amazing, and the ones who might not be my cup of tea, but introduce me to a technique, a structure or a way of writing that helps unlock my own work.  Probably the first name that comes to mind is Marion Zimmer Bradley.  In her fantasy masterpiece, The Mists of Avalon, she did two things that blew me away.  One was a broad effect—she retold a very familiar tale about King Arthur, and convinced me that this was the only way it could have happened.  Her version of the story, from Morgan Le Fay’s point of view, felt like I was reading the truth.  The other thing she did was on a smaller scale.  There is a scene in the book where Morgan is weaving and at the same time enacting a spell.  The effects of the spell during a boar hunt are intercut with the act of her weaving.  It’s something we see in movies all the time, but in writing it was striking.  How she kept the rhythm of that moment, and built the tension was amazing to me.  It’s something I studied for use in my own work.

For The Toymaker’s Apprentice specifically, aside from the primary inspiration of E.T.A. Hoffman’s story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, I looked to another fantasy favorite of mine—David Eddings.  In Toymaker there is a rat named Ernst Listz.  He’s a scholar and an adventurer, a minstrel and a scribe.  Shortly after we meet him, he sings a song in a tavern in exchange for a meal.  Writing music into a story can be difficult.  In fact, I had an editor once tell me it couldn’t be done successfully.  But, clearly, she hadn’t read Eddings’ The Mallorean. 

In book three of this fantasy series (which I highly recommend, especially the first series, The Belgariad)  there is a scene at a feast where three women, including an immortal sorceress—sing an ancient song about the fall of a city in a great battle.  The sorceress was actually there, so her version has great resonance.  I first read these books in high school and I remember the breathless effect the scene had on me.  Eddings was smart.  He didn’t write the song.  He wrote the intent.  He wrote the feeling of the moment and the effect on the listeners.  I leaned heavily on this when crafting Ernst’s song.  It has the same sort of history to it.  He is singing about the Pied Piper of Hameln.  From a rat’s point of view, this is the story of a massacre.  You’ll have to read the book to see how I managed it.  The one difference is, I did write lyrics, but only the chorus appears in the story.  (If you want the rest, it’s there in the appendix.)

Lastly, I’ll credit Lloyd Alexander’s Westmark trilogy with telling me what is possible when telling an historic, or historically inspired, tale.  Sweeping stories work, but you have to have heroes you want to be swept along with!  At the end of the day, this book is about two motherless boys with great expectations upon their shoulders, and where their loss and ambition leads them, across a landscape where I hope many readers will want to follow!

The Toymaker's Apprentice
by Sherri L. Smith
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers (October 13, 2015)
Audience: Grades 4 to 7
Fiction * Action *  Adventure * Fairytale
Indiebound | WorldCat | GoodReads

About the book: 
Young Stefan Drosselmeyer is a reluctant apprentice to his toymaker father, and he wants nothing more than to escape the family business. That is until the day Stefan’s world is turned upside down when his father is kidnapped by a mice army. Matters only gets worse when he is enlisted by his mysterious cousin, Christian, to find a mythical nut called the krakatook in another world and to cure the Mouse Queen's curse.

Embarking on a wild adventure through Germany and beyond, Stefan must save Boldavia's princess and his own father from the fanatical Mouse Queen and her violent, erratic seven-headed Mouse Prince. Based on The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann and The Nutcracker ballet, this fascinating journey through a world of toymaking, magical curses, clockmaking guilds, talking mice, and erudite squirrels will have readers on the edge of their seats until the very last page.

Perfect for the holidays and fans of The Nutcracker world, THE TOYMAKER’S APPRENTICE presents another side to the famous story beyond Clara’s perspective and explores the tension between the human and mice kingdoms. As the clock winds down for Stefan, readers will wait with bated breath to see if the curse can be broken and whether mice or men will come out on top.

About the author: 
Sherri L. Smith is the author of several novels for young adults, including the critically acclaimed Flygirl and Orleans. This is her first middle grade novel.

For more stops on the tour, check out the schedule below:

The Book Smugglers –  10/12

Novel Novice – 10/13

Owl for YA – 10/14

The Compulsive Reader – 10/15

Teen Librarian Toolbox – 10/16

Green Bean Teen Queen – 10/19

Kid Lit Frenzy – 10/20

Great Imaginations – 10/21

The Children’s Book Review – 10/22

Word Spelunking – 10/23

Fable Comics Blog Tour & #GNCelebration

I am excited to be a part of the Fable Comics Blog Tour and I get to reveal to you some of the art from the Thief and the Watchdog.   

Fable Comics
Edited by Chris Duffy
First Second (September 22, 2015)
Fables * Fairy Tales * Adaptations * Comics
Audience: Ages 6 and up
Indiebound | Worldcat

About the book:
From classics like "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Grasshopper and the Ants" to obscure gems like "The Frogs Who Desired a King," Fable Comics has something to offer every reader. Twenty-eight fables from different cultures and traditions are wonderfully adapted and illustrated in comics format by twenty-six different cartoonists. Edited by New York Times bestselling Fairy Tale Comics' Chris Duffy, this jacketed hardcover is a beautiful gift and an instant classic.

Quick thoughts on this fable adaptation:
Braden Lamb & Shelli Paroline have added their own humorous spin to Aesop's fable 'The Thief and the House-dog'.

Over the course of several pages, Lamb and Paroline take the fable to a new level. 

These two pages only give you a taste for the spin that was added to the original story.  I enjoyed how the watchdog has a certain level of sarcasm or snark in his response to the Thief's attempt to silence him. A great addition to all of the other fable adaptations making this book a definite must have for a classroom or school library.

Check out the blog tour, here for more on all of the different fable adaptations. 

Fable Comics is: 
James Kochalka and ‘The Fox and the Grapes‘
Tom Gauld and ‘The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse’
George O’Connor and the ‘Hermes’ fables
Sophie Goldstein and ‘Leopard Drums Up Dinner’
Charise Harper and ‘The Belly and the Body Members’
R. Sikoryak and ‘Lion + Mouse’
Jennifer L. Meyer and ‘Fox and Crow’
Eleanor Davis and ‘The Old Man and Death’
Jaime Hernandez and ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’
Simone Lia and ‘The Crow and the Pitcher’
Graham Chaffee and ‘The Dog and His Reflection’
Maris Wicks and ‘The Dolphins, The Whales, and The Sprat’
Vera Brosgol and ‘The Hare and the Pig’
Kenny Widjaja and ‘The Demon, The Thief, and the Hermit’
Corinne Mucha and ‘The Elephant in Favor’
Liniers and ‘The Mouse Council’
Mark Newgarten and ‘Man and Wart’
Israel Sanchez and ‘The Milkmaid and Her Pail’
Ulises Farinas and ‘The Great Weasel War’
R.O. Blechman and ‘The Sun and the Wind’
Graham Annable and ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’
John Kerschbaum and ‘The Grasshopper and the Ants’
Braden Lamb and Shelli Paroline and ‘The Thief and the Watchdog’
Gregory Benton and ‘The Hen and the Mountain Turtle’
Roger Langridge and ‘Demades and His Fable’

As part of the #GNCelebration for the month of October, I am giving away a copy of Fable Comics. 

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