RAR #211: How We Made A Little More Beautiful: The Story of a Garden

Sarah Mackenzie (00:00): Last time on the Read-Aloud Revival. Speaker 1 (00:03): I grew up reading the Penderwick novels and loved Jeanne Birdsall's work. And it was so fun to see an author that I had read and loved the work of, be a whole person in front of me, and get to see all of who she was and all that interested her. And it was just really beautiful to get a taste of her tangible life outside of writing and what fueled her and how she was inspired and what brought these characters and these stories to life. Kara Luellen (00:29): So I just started, a little bit at a time, taking out the really bad things and then splitting things from my own garden and putting them in there, and then buying things. It was very gradual. And the only person that really knew I was there and saw me was this wonderful custodian named Ron, and I still take care of it. It feels like another way of the garden paying forward, that it became a story for you. Sarah Mackenzie (00:54): Something welled up in me, a desire to make this book, this book that I loved and that Tommy loved. And so, in keeping with my habit of wading into territory where I have no idea what I'm doing, we decided to create Waxwing Books, a boutique children's publishing and print that makes the kind of books we know families want. (01:15): And we're starting with A Little More Beautiful: The Story of a Garden. I'm Sarah Mackenzie And this is the Read-Aloud Revival, the podcast that helps your kids fall more in love with books and helps you fall more in love with homeschooling. (01:35): In this episode, I'll take you on the rest of the adventure. The Kickstarter has officially launched, and you can guarantee your copy in the first print run of A Little More Beautiful: The Story of a Garden by going to waxwingbooks.com. Do it by September 1st and you'll get some Kickstarter exclusives, including a beautiful new book bag, prints by the illustrator and more. Now, last time I told you that the manuscript for this book had been passed around to various big publishing houses and there just wasn't much interest. It wasn't the book they were looking for. But while all of this was happening, I was getting clearer and clearer in my mind as to what this book needed to be. In fact, I was getting clarity on the kinds of books I would make if I was, say, running a publishing house. And my husband, Andrew, he thought I should go for it. (02:33): Soon after deciding to forge ahead and bring this book to life ourselves, my oldest daughter, Audrey, sent me the Instagram profile of an artist I had seen before but hadn't really thought about in correlation with the story of Lou Ellis, which was now a story I really wanted to see brought to life, especially as a way to honor Tommy and the vision that we had shared for this book. The Instagram profile belonged to Breezy Brookshire. I sent her an email. Breezy Brookshire (03:09): Oh my goodness, so I saw your name in my inbox and I thought, I know exactly who that is. And I used to listen to her podcast, and I love her, and I think if she has a book idea for me it's going to be right up my alley. (03:24): And I'd even been praying for a special project too. I was kind of at a crossroads there for a minute and a kind of interesting point in my life where I'm like, okay, I've been an artist and there's some book opportunities, but also, I want to spend quality time on something that feels like it's part of my vision as well. I don't want it to be just a book project. (03:45): And knowing the types of books that you loved and your spirit and what you love and what you want to do, I'm like, I could see this being very much a part of my vision and being able to pour a lot of my own heart into it as well. I'm Breezy Brookshire and I'm the illustrator of A Little More Beautiful: The Story of a Garden. Sarah Mackenzie (04:06): Not only was Breezy an absolutely skilled illustrator who was consistently making art I just loved, I could really see this book being brought to life by her. Also, she was homeschooled by a mom who read to her a lot, and you know I was all over that. Breezy Brookshire (04:26): I can say from as early as two, I've been doodling around and drawing. I've always been looking for pieces of paper to put little ideas onto and started keeping a sketchbook. Once I realized that was a thing, my mom made sure I always had a sketchbook on hand so I wasn't always drawing on school papers. (04:45): I was probably in my early teens when I had thought I'm going to illustrate this story as I read it. Like every chapter, I'm going to challenge myself to draw an illustration from this book. It was Anne of Green Gables. I had not read it, but I could just see it. I just have to put this down on paper, and had always wanted to paint and draw. (05:07): And I think around the same time, I was like, "Okay, I'm aging out of the children's book section, but I'm still really drawn to the art." Like, I keep looking at the art from these beautiful books, and this is actually a job. And by my late teens, I'm like, "I just love narrative and storytelling so much. I love illustration." Sarah Mackenzie (05:28): Breezy, it turns out, wasn't professionally trained, but mostly self-taught. And homeschooling gave her the time and freedom to learn from the masters. Breezy Brookshire (05:40): I would go to the library and get books on how the children's book industry worked and how to illustrate. And I would go back to books on painting; this was before YouTube was a big thing. So I would be going to books. We also have a college professor in town who led up the illustration department in the university and he became a friend. And so, I would, once in a while, have questions and bounce them off him. (06:06): There's been different stages where, especially when I was younger, I was encouraged to copy the masters. And so I would look at children's books, children's book illustrators I loved, read some of their bios and learn about where their style came from and I'd copy them and try to figure out like what makes them them. I think if you're really working at it from a young age, traditionally, you start to see some leaps and bounds being made. And probably the mid-teens is where you start to really find your voice, at least kind of that first iteration. (06:38): I can look back at some of my sketchbooks when I was like 16 and go, "Oh, that's where Breezy is starting to show up for real." That's when my professor friend told me, "Okay, you need to stop copying the masters too much. You're learning a lot, but now it's time to really branch out and start having a lot of fun on your own." And just seeing those little buds and fruits starting to grow, and just all the little details of what makes my style. Yeah, that was really encouraging to me, as a young artist to go, "That's my voice. I can see it." Sarah Mackenzie (07:14): Now, I had Breezy on board and excited about the project, but I knew too much about really high-quality picture books. I had too much respect for the art form to think that Breezy and I could pull this off on our own. We needed professionals at the top of their game. (07:31): First, as an author, I needed a picture book editor. And not just any editor, but an editor who knew picture book form and a unique kind of storytelling that picture books do. I wanted an editor who was well-practiced in picture books and who was also willing to freelance edit since, obviously, we are not a big publishing house. I found Michael Green. Michael Green (07:56): I'm Michael Green. I have run a company called GreenHouse Editorial, and I was fortunate enough to work on A Little More Beautiful, and very glad that I did. It's been a fun process. Sarah Mackenzie (08:08): Michael is the former president and publisher of Philomel Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, Penguin Random House. He's edited books you've read or at least heard about, and has worked with authors like Eric Carle, Oliver Jeffers, Brian Jacques; that's the Redwall guy. Ruta Sepetys, one of my favorite novelists. You know the Ranger's Apprentice books? He edited those. The Day the Crayons Quit? That too. That picture book was quite a phenomenon, in fact. Also, he edited the Otis books by Loren Long. He's just got a track record to write home about. Michael Green (08:46): I was hired back in 1991. It was my first job directly out of college and I was hired as an editorial assistant. I was told my first week that children's publishing either gets in your blood or doesn't. (09:03): ... publishing either gets in your blood or it doesn't, and you say goodbye. Because it's certainly not an industry to enter to get rich or famous. It is about the books. It is about the authors. And it is not about you. And turns out I love that. I love the business of it, and the art of it. But there comes a time where it's hard to keep up with the demand that the industry had placed upon an imprint like Phil Amel. We did have a lot of best sellers, a lot of award winners. And for every one best seller, the expectation was, "Okay, we'll now produce 1.5 best sellers." (09:39): And at some point it changed the nature of the business, and it became a little less fun and a little more, I don't know, hectic. And I'd had enough. I had done it for 27 straight years and I just needed a break. So I left. And I didn't expect to rejoin the industry anytime soon. I thought I would write. I thought I would just see what the world was. 'Cause I never really had a chance to do that. (10:05): And as it turned out, I missed editing. I missed the discovery of new author voices. That little thing that just raises the hair on the back of the neck when you read it for the first time, and you know you're discovering somebody. It's one of the best parts, if not the best part of publishing. And I certainly missed it. So I decided I would just rejoin the fray on my own as a freelance editor. And it worked for, I want to say about almost two years. And just recently I was hired by Marble Press, which is a startup publishing company, to develop their list of picture books, middle grade fiction and graphic novels. So I'm back in the publishing fold officially. And looking forward to every step of the way. PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:09:04] Sarah Mackenzie (10:53): I was delighted to find that Michael was doing freelance editing. So I sent him my story and asked him, "Can you help us make this story better? Can you tell me what it might be missing?" I sent the email and held my breath. Michael Green (11:08): I didn't want you to go changing the story too much, because it was ... You really nailed. It could have been your 75th draft or it could have been your second. I don't know. But whatever draft it was, was darn close. And when you get close, there's something precious about it. And I just want to make sure it goes the rest of the way smoothly. I don't want it to change too much. Picture books, they're wonderful for the soul. And process wise, I think of them as poetry. And so I'm always looking to get to strip the voice to its basics and to not overwrite, which fell right into what you were looking to do. So the match was strong there. Sarah Mackenzie (11:55): I want to stay here for a second. Because picture book editing is an art form. I asked Michael about his process. And I think when you hear his answer, you'll understand why he was such a good fit. Michael Green (12:08): Oh, it's messy. I like to begin by never making notes. I'm always assuming I'm going to read through it clean and I keep my pencil to the side. I want an uninterrupted experience. And then I come to something and I just stop. And then all of a sudden, I just start making notes. I do like to read it a couple of times through silently. And then I like to read aloud and just see where the pacing is, see where the strong beats are. Is there a reason for this manuscript to exist beyond the fact that it's been written? Will it carry weight down the road? I had a goal for every picture book, and it's not possible to achieve. But the goal was, can this book become part of the fabric of a family? And by that, I mean to become part of the routine, the bedtime routine. There can be an aha moment two years down the road. And an editor and an author is never around to see this, where someone years afterwards, something just clicks, the tumblers click into place. (13:13): And there's a memory of a picture book and how it changed the way you saw the world, or the way that you interacted with your family. That usually means that down the road, the same children that were read the story are going to read the same story to their kids. And that's part of that fabric of the family that I strive for. One of the things I like to do is to read everything aloud. My opinion of the picture book process, there's art and there's text. But for me, it's a very 3D experience. And for any parent and for anyone who's producing a read aloud revival type of ... You know as well that these books are meant to be read aloud. And that's part of the literal experience of creating a picture book. So everything is read aloud. And if it doesn't work when it's read aloud, that's something that is usually a deal breaker for me. Sarah Mackenzie (14:08): If it doesn't work when it's read aloud, it's a deal breaker. Oh, yes, he was my guy. So now the story had been critiqued several times, and was professionally edited by someone who knew his stuff. Another step in here is a copy editor. That's the kind of editor who cleans up the tiny bits of grammar and punctuation mistakes. And yes, even with a picture book text that is less than 500 words and has been scoured by several professionals, our copy editor still found plenty to correct. Copy editing is a superpower. But the text isn't the only thing that needs professional guidance. The art needs that too. I like to describe it this way, the author needs an editor to help their story be what it's trying to be. And the illustrator needs an art director for the same reason. Kara Luellen (15:04): It's like an editor brings out the best in an author, and the same with an art director. The art director's job is to bring out the best in the illustrator. Sarah Mackenzie (15:13): That's Kara Luellen. She's kind of a big deal. You'll know some of the books she's designed, the Caldecott award winning The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson. The Hundred-Year Barn by Patricia MacLachlan illustrated by Kenard Pak. The Quiet Book and The Loud Book by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Renata Liwska. How To Be A Good Creature by Sy Montgomery, illustrated by Rebecca Green. David McCauley's Built To Last. You want me to keep going? I can keep going. Kara Luellen (15:46): I ended up managing a team of nine designers in two cities. When you manage a team of nine designers in two cities, turns out you don't get to make books anymore. There's meetings. And I mean, I loved mentoring the designers and running cover meetings and stuff. But I got 500 emails a day. And I just didn't have time to physically make books anymore. And realized that I really missed that. So went free-land and it's been really great. I can pick my own projects and make my own schedule. I do still work for big houses. I actually just finished a stint at Harper Collins. But it's usually temporary because I like my freelance time so much. Sarah Mackenzie (16:43): We needed an art director. And I was worried, because I wanted an art director who knew picture books inside and out. And also who wasn't put off by the fact that were not an established publishing house. Were a fledgling boutique imprint. And we're sort of building the plane as we're flying it. Honestly, I sort of didn't know what I was doing. How do you hire a topnotch art director for that? Kara Luellen (17:09): I have a lot of people reaching out to me, strangers, relatives, friends of friends, the person who I meet in the grocery store saying that they have a children's book that they've written and they would love for me to look at or work on. But every interaction with you just reiterated how much you knew your stuff. Your manuscript read like the ones I worked on at the big publishing houses. So I was like, "Ah, man. She's legit." You totally admitted that you didn't know what you were doing. But it was very clear that you knew enough to do your part. Well, I guess you probably haven't worked that closely with a big publishing house, but you pretty much have it together better than some teams at big publishing houses. Sarah Mackenzie (18:00): I reached out to Kara hoping to somehow articulate- (18:02): I reached out to Kara, hoping to somehow articulate that we were trying to make the most beautiful picture book possible, and we thought she could help us do it. I knew it was a long shot, but I also knew we couldn't do it alone. PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:18:04] Kara Luellen (18:14): Just the fact that you knew that it needed to be a collaboration, I think a lot of people don't know that, or at least just don't know all of the behind the scenes work that goes into a picture book. Sarah Mackenzie (18:25): I cannot overstate the importance of a skilled art director on a picture book. We couldn't have made this book look the way it does without Kara. There's a lot more going on behind the scenes than most people realize. Kara Luellen (18:40): What I start with is the manuscript, which is often a Word document. It definitely doesn't look like a book. And from that, I work with the editor to come up with a good trim size and page count and how long it is and what kind of book it's going to be. The trim size part is really fun, because you can sort of use what's in the book to figure out the size. So if it's a book about the garden, it might be horizontal , sort of like a landscape view. Or if it's a book about a giraffe, you probably want it to be tall and skinny. (19:14): And after that I create a dummy or a book map, people call it different things. And once that is done, the illustrator will send sketches. I will create what's called a mechanical, that sort of early type design, and then starting to have the sketches work with the type and the letter forms to make sure it all is really cohesive and works together. (19:39): And once we have comments on both the interior and the cover, get all those notes to the illustrator, sometimes there are revisions and then the illustrator goes to final art. And the final art stage is probably the longest time period of making a book. Imagine you're making 17 to 20 full finished painting. Usually at the end, there are some corrections to the artwork as well, just little tweaks. And then we do what's called first pages, which is when the final arts in, we circulate the pages to everyone, editor, author, illustrator, copy editing sees it, and anyone else who needs to see the book. The first pages are my favorite part of making a book because you go from a sketch book dummy to something that when you put the final artwork in with the type, it just sort of magically becomes a book. (20:36): There are a couple rounds. First, second, third pages of correction based on everyone's notes. Then the final files will go to the printer and the printer will send back proofs, which are basically just flat printed pages of what the actual book pages will look like. They're just not bound into a book. I really like seeing these, especially when the book is on an interesting paper stock because then you can really see how the ink is sitting on a texture, whereas you've really only seen it on a screen or printed from a copier. And then the book goes to print. Sarah Mackenzie (21:14): It's a long process and it can't be rushed, or at least from what I can tell, it can't be rushed without compromising the quality. (21:27): So like I mentioned in the last episode I spent a couple of years writing the book. And then this whole process, from the time I reached out to Breezy and got her on board, to the time right now when the book is available for pre-order, that took us about 20 months or a little less than two years. And we were in various stages of this process that whole time. One of the things that was most fun for Kara, Breezy, and I was playing with the end papers. Do you know what end papers are? Those are the pages that are pasted down to the hard cover board in a picture book, the inside cover of the book? I love them. I feel like they're an opening curtain. They usher you into the story and offer you a first immersive experience into a tale. Kara Luellen (22:14): I think actually end papers might be one of my new favorite pieces of a book too. It used to be the case cover, hidden under the jacket, I thought was really, really fun. But weirdly now that I have a two and a half year old who is a whirling tornado and will just rip the jackets off of it, we just take them off now. Also that, and kind of the copyright page. Doing weird things with the copyright page has, from very early on, been my favorite. On The Loud Book that was illustrated by Renata Liwska and written by Deborah Underwood we did a little character with a megaphone. And so all the copyright information is shooting out of the megaphone. I worked on another book recently where each line of the copyright info was sort of floating all around the page and there was like a flock of chickens pecking at all of it. Playing with that stuff is really fun. Sarah Mackenzie (23:11): When you get your hands on A Little More Beautiful: The Story of a Garden, I think you'll see how we had fun with these kinds of details. And throughout the whole book, there's an interplay between the text and the illustrations. We were constantly adjusting one or the other to make sure we were telling the story the best way it could be told. Kara Luellen (23:31): And of course the best picture book you could sort of do that little test where if you took away the type, it wouldn't really work, and if you took away the illustrations, they both really need each other to function. Sarah Mackenzie (23:45): And oh my, my, my, what a beautiful book it has turned out to be. Just wait till you see it. Breezy's truly gorgeous illustrations, the swooping birds, the colors, the vibrancy, the movement on the page brought to life with Kara's incredible design and typography, all of it printed in large hard cover format. It's so delicious. Breezy Brookshire (24:15): There's some blue birds. They are mostly swallows. And going to my granny's farm growing up a lot, she had a barn with a bunch of barn swallows. And so every time we'd pull into the drive and get out of the car, there would be these barn swallows scooping around. And my granny is a very spry little lady and she's always kind of busy doing things around the yard. So bit of it came from that as well. Sarah Mackenzie (24:39): There's also a cat that your kids are going to fall in love with. Here's Breezy on the cat. Breezy Brookshire (24:45): When I was young, I really loved being able to find motifs or little repeated elements, repeated characters or shapes or whatnot. So we wanted to include something that was like a quiet sidekick, if you will, that would also lead your eye through the story. And I kind of debated between a dog and a cat because I absolutely love dogs. I've grown up with dogs, but I also am always kind of capitated by how cats move and how especially drawings of them can be so poetic. And I thought this would be kind of a great element because we've got the sweet little old lady who's quite spunky actually, and she's got some of her own like shapes and colors. And then we have this little girl who's got all of this youth and spunk and she's a bit on the shy side, but she also has her own creative personality, and you can see when she sketches and she likes little feminine elements and she's got wild hair. (25:40): And then some reason I really felt like the color orange would be a good compliment to some of the purples and violets and blues that the two girls wear. So orange is the complimentary color for blue, and combined with some of the action that I wanted to see with this little sidekick I thought, "Oh, my gosh, it's got to be an orange cat." And also I'd heard some stories about different cats and colors, like different colored cats having different personalities. There's some generalizations there, of course, but I was just so amused by some of the stories my friend Kate was telling me about her orange cats over the years. I thought, "I really have to put orange cat in there." Sarah Mackenzie (26:18): Here's something that will be hard to miss for those of you who love picture books as much as I do. This book is a love letter to Miss Rumphius, my all time favorite picture book, written and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. If you've read Miss Rumphius, you know it's about a little girl named Alice who tells her grandfather that when she gets older she will be just like him. She'll go to far away places and live beside the sea. Speaker 2 (26:47): Miss Rumphius, story and pictures by Barbara Cooney. (26:58): The lupine lady lives in a small house overlooking the sea. (27:01): Small house overlooking the sea. In between the rocks around her house, grow blue, and purple, and rose colored flowers. The looping lady is little and old, but she's not always been that way. I know. She's my great aunt, and she told me so. Once upon a time, she was a little girl named Alice who lived in a city by the sea. PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:27:04] Sarah Mackenzie (27:38): In the book, her grandfather tells her there is something else she must do. She must do something to make the world more beautiful. If all books are a part of a great conversation, talking to each other, and connecting ideas, then mine is talking to Miss Rumphius. In fact, breezy, knowing that Miss Rumphius was the book of my heart, used Barbara Cooney's illustrations as a launching pad for her own. Breezy Brookshire (28:10): I have a couple of her illustrations that I just took out of copies of her book that I framed and put in my wall because I love the movement of her hills and that sweeping feeling that her landscapes have. And I also love those moments in Miss Rumphius, where she's planting and she's going on a walk, and you can just feel the wind moving around her. I knew I had to incorporate that. So when the little girl is standing on the hill and she's thinking and pondering to herself, what can she do? It's very much that similar moment of how is she going to take action? And she's got her basket, and she's done a ton of gardening, and taking care of the cat already and thinking out her next adventure, if you will. Sarah Mackenzie (28:57): And so we've done it. We've created a book that I think is worth becoming part of the fabric of your family, worth reading, and rereading, and rereading again, worth passing on to your friends and family, and snuggling close together to read before bed. Michael Green (29:14): I think it needs to be said, congratulations to you for having this vision a few years back and for making it come to fruition. It's not easily done. And you had, both the material to make it work and the drive and vision to see it through to the end. So I think that's pretty cool. I think it makes the world a little more beautiful. Speaker 3 (29:36): I cannot express how gorgeous your book is. How did you... You've never created a whole book before. How did you do that? I wouldn't have the first idea to know what to do. That's amazing. Breezy Brookshire (29:54): My hope for this book is I would really love for children to get lost in the words and the art, and to just have a really beautiful experience with it because so many of my experiences with books have been aesthetic. And I think that encounter with beauty definitely shapes the heart. And so I would love for it to somehow influence children to love beauty more. That's what I love, and what I really, really hope for children. And I hope that that is a doorway to loving goodness and truth, and serving people, and being creative, and finding beautiful ways to serve each other. Sarah Mackenzie (30:40): That's my hope too. I hope you feel more alive after reading this story after pouring over the pictures, I hope it makes you grateful to be alive in this gorgeous world, makes you feel loved and seen, and I hope it helps you love, and see, and serve those around you better. Now, this isn't the only book we've been working on at Waxwing Books. We actually have several more coming down the pipeline, and you can expect to hear about those in the very near future. For now, though, we are ready to put A Little More Beautiful: The Story of a Garden into your hands, and we need to know how many to print. If you want to guarantee your copy in the first print run, you'll want to pre-order before September 1st. We've also got some fabulous exclusives, including a book bag that you can only get during the kickstarter. Go to waxwingbooks.com to get yours. (31:45): It's been a long journey, but we're really still at the start of it. At Waxwing Books, we're committed to bringing you books that your kids will love to read, and that you'll love to read aloud again and again. Head to waxwingbooks.com to get your own copy of A Little More Beautiful: The Story of a Garden. Thanks so much for listening. This episode was written and narrated by me, Sarah McKenzie, and produced by the team at Yellow House Media. Until next time, go make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through books.