What Can You Do with An Idea? How This Book Was Made by Mac Barnett and Adam Rex

At first, this book wasn't a book.

It was an idea.

Most kids probably don't give a thought to how books come to be. It's like they've just always been there on shelves in libraries or book stores. But they have a story all their own.

They start with an idea in the mind of a writer--a piece of a story--it could be the middle, or the ending, or the beginning. It could be a mental image of a character, or an appealing event that makes other things happen. It is the author's job to come up with characters, plots, dialog, and a conclusion that satisfies the reader. Sometimes an artist is called on to help the reader visualize the characters and action.

But that's only the beginning of a book.

So... Mac Barnett, the hopeful author, writes a draft of his book.

I had a bunch of words on paper. The words were the first draft.

But a first draft is not a book.

Neither was the second draft. Or the third. Or the twelfth.

With the twentieth draft I was done. So I sent my words to my editor.

Is it a book then? NO. There's many a slip between cup and lip, and Barnett's last draft is not the last one after all. The editor suggests many changes in his draft. Author Barnett is not pleased.

"You're not the boss of me!" he says.

That line hadn't worked with Mac's dad either, but finally author and editor agree on the final draft. Is it a book yet?

NO. It needs an illustrator to make the ideas easy to understand, so artist Adam Rex is called upon to do some drawings. He gets to argue with the editor while Mac gets to forget about this book and work on another one for a while. At last the manuscript and illustrations are approved. Now the book is ready to be printed and bound.

Now, the fastest way would be to print the book nearby in New York or Philadelphia or maybe Miami.

But NO.

The book was printed in Malaysia.

Malaysia is half a world away from New York. All the freshly printed copies have to be loaded on an ocean-going freighter. There are tiger and pirate problems in between. Mac Barnett has time to grow a very long beard while he waits.

And in Mac Barnett's How This Book Was Made (Hyperion Books), the author admits that "a book is not real until it has a reader." Books have come a long way since a story was mostly a storyteller on one end of the log and a listener on the other, but at the heart of it all that's what happens, and what happens in the creation of a book is a story in itself. Barnett's humorous story of how that happens IS the story of this tour de force of a story-within-a-story. Publishers Weekly says,"Barnett and Rex concoct another self-referential story, this one about the process of bookmaking. As in their collaboration, Chloe and the Lion, Barnett and Rex star as writer and illustrator. With the help of an editor (“she is like a teacher, only she works in a skyscraper”), a tiger, pirates, and a cast of thousands (well, maybe dozens), the manuscript leaves Barnett’s desk, undergoes editing, and arrives at the printer in Malaysia....Rex's artwork features paper models and a painted globe in addition to the pencil-drawn figures, lending the work the three-dimensional texture of a puppet play."

Perfect for Book Week read-alouds for Book Week, this one covers a lot of territory, not all of it on the Road to Mandalay!

Warning: Writers At Work! Violet and Victor Write the Best-Ever Bookworm Book by Alice Kuipers

"I'M VIOLET SMALL, AND I'M SIX MINUTES OLDER THAN MY TWIN BROTHER VICTOR. I LOVE WRITING AND I'M A GOOD SPELLER.

I WANT TO WRITE THE BEST BOOK IN THE WHOLE WORLD!"

Violet may be a great speller, but as she sets out on her grandiose plan, she finds that it takes more than spelling to write. She needs WORDS!

In fact, she needs a plot, and for that she pesters her "little" brother Victor to be her collaborator. Victor would rather count worms--his pet earthworms in his worm farm. But Violet is annoyingly bossy, so to satisfy her, he throws out the most preposterous superhero he can come up with on the spot.

"HOW ABOUT WILBUR, THE BIGGEST, STRONGEST WORM IN THE WORM WORLD?"

The idea of a powerful protagonist appeals to Violet, so she morphs Wilbur the Worm into Violet the Virtuous. Victor protests that she trampling on his creative story line, but agrees to provide one more line to his sister's proposed saga.

ONE DAY VIOLET OVERHEARS THE SCHOOL LIBRARIAN SAYING, "THIS BOOK IS MISSING PAGES!"

"WHY?" ASKS VIOLET.

"WAIT! THAT'S IT!" SAYS VICTOR.

And they're off. Violet can scarcely keep spelling correctly as they quickly brainstorm an inspired story about the heroic heroine who fights the big, bad bookworm who is eating the library. There is some sibling and gender rivalry between the twins as they craft their masterpiece, in Alice Kuipers' Violet and Victor Write the Best-Ever Bookworm Book (Little, Brown and Company, 2014). Kuiper's story-within-a-story premise works well largely because of Bethany Deeney Murguia's appealingly free-flowing illustrations, incorporating photographs of real library cards, maps, and actual book pages along with her simply drawn but lively Victor and Violet. Page design is also clever, with different color fonts, lavender and orange, for the distinctive twins.

Murguia is also the author-illustrator of Zoe's Room (No Sisters Allowed), Zoe Gets Ready, and Zoe's Jungle (see reviews here).

Writer's Block: Ike's Incredible Ink by Brianne Farley

Ike wanted to write an incredible story.

He had read many incredible stories and he felt sure he could write his own.

He was ready to start.

Like many accomplished readers, Ike thinks he can author a great story, too.

But as most of them discover when they sit down in front of that blank page, it's not as easy as it looks.

Ike is trying to write his first story, and he already has writer's block!

Maybe if he can find his favorite pen, the words will flow across the page. Much searching ensues. Perhaps a chat with a good friend will get him in the mood.   That done, Ike realizes that his untidy room must be the cause of his lack of focus.  A flurry of cleaning follows.

Inspiration does not.

An inkblot sort himself, Ike decides that what his writing lacks is the right ink for the job--not just any ink, but the darkest of inks--one made from the dusky hue of shadows, the feathers of a bird so unbelievably black that it might have inspired Poe to begin with "Nevermore." But what that ink really requires is a bit of blackness from the dark side of the moon!

Back from that trip, Ike mooshes and squooshes and fixes and mixes, even does a bit of treading like a peasant vintner, and finally throws it all into his blender.At last his ingredients are ready for that twirl and whirl which will surely yield inspirational ink.

Except that Ike forgets one important thing--the lid for the blender.

A splendiferous gush of blackness spills forth, almost engulfing Ike and his quarters, but Ike suddenly has an inkling of a great story, in Brianne Farley's debut tale, Ike's Incredible Ink (Candlewick Press, 2013). Ike sits down and with the dregs of his ink he begins to write.

Farley's artwork, inspired by drips and drabs of spilled ink, give form to her main character, a blobby shape which does not quite contain his inkiness, and her inventive use of blackness itself as part of the story is intriguing. Turning Ike's struggles to write into the story he does write is a device which youngsters will love, and her double-page spread of the super-sloshing ink spewing from the blender will be everyone's favorite page. As Publishers Weekly says, "Farley is a genuine talent, playing with detail, scale, and texture like a seasoned pro, giving her images a sweet, eccentric, comic rhythm."