Turning a Jumble of Facts into an Idea

When I was a child, my favorite lunch was Campbell’s alphabet soup. I loved to fish out the noodle letters and arrange them on my plate until they spelled a word. Writing and illustrating a book is a little bit like that. I take a jumble of facts and put them together so they make sense. Just as the letters in my soup could be made into a variety of different words, facts can be arranged to tell a variety of different stories.

In my book A Penguin’s World, I followed two Adelie penguin chicks through a year of their life. The organizing principle is time sequence. In this book, I illustrated each step with my own cut paper art.
In Australian Animals, I grouped the animals by the places where they live. The organizing principle is a common space. This book is illustrated with photographs, many of them taken by me on my several trips to Australia.
In Birds: Nature’s Magnificent Flying Machines, I showed how each part of a bird’s body helps it to fly. The organizing principle is the physical act of flying. This book is illustrated with beautiful, scientifically accurate art by Patricia Wynne.

Each of these books is organized in a different way, but by the end of each one, all the pieces fit together in logical order to make a unified whole.

Books Give You Someplace to Go

I don’t read the comics on a regular basis, but last week I opened the newspaper (I still get an actual paper newspaper!) to the comics page and saw a wonderful cartoon. Dennis the Menace is seated under a tree with his pal Joey listening with rapt attention to Gina reading a book. This in itself caught my attention because Dennis is usually pictured getting into some kind of trouble. Instead, he is caught up in the magic of books. The caption reads, “Reading is fun. It gives you someplace to go when you can’t go anywhere.” I couldn’t agree more. Books can transport us to far away places both real and imaginative. We can run with zebras in Africa, float high in the clouds, or encounter magical creatures with Harry Potter. As a child, I traveled vicariously to France with children whose professor father was spending a year in Paris as I read the book Family Sabbatical by Carol Ryrie Brink. Books expand our world through both words and pictures. Books helped me dream that someday I could go someplace and see for myself some of the things I had first encountered through reading. A few years ago, I did go to France and climbed the Eiffel tower just as the children did in the book I read long ago.

How Do We Get Ideas?

How do we get ideas? On occasion, they come full blown in a sudden flash of insight. More often, though, they evolve a little bit at a time. My recent book, Global Warming and the Dinosaurs: Fossil Discoveries at the Poles, was a project that developed slowly. At first, all I had were random bits of information. These facts, fascinating though they were, did not make a book. I did not have enough and I still needed an organizing principle. But by keeping all those interesting bits floating around in my mind, over time, an idea for a book on polar dinosaurs began to gel.

This is the opening paragraph of my article Evolution of a Book Idea: From Percolation to Publication published in the Spring 2011 issue of Kite Tales, the newsletter of SCBWI-Los Angeles. In the article I discuss how the book grew out of my natural interests in fossils and dinosaurs, how conversations with librarians gave me valuable new material, how other book research added to what I already knew, how experts in the field helped answer questions, and finally, how a chance encounter propelled me to start writing and finishing the book. Click here to read the full article on page 31.

Global Warming and the Dinosaurs is illustrated with beautiful watercolor paintings by Laurie Caple. Laurie has illustrated five other books of mine about prehistoric animals and has done a fantastic job on all of them. Her naturalistic style is perfect for these books. She does as much research as I do to make sure that everything she draws is as scientifically accurate as possible. This is a challenge when most of what she draws has been extinct for millions of years. By creating whole environments for the animals, she truly brings them to life.

I am often asked, why don’t I illustrate all my own books? After all, I’m trained as an artist. The truth is that I don’t want to illustrate all my books. My style does not necessarily always suit the subject matter I write about. I am delighted that artists like Laurie Caple can illustrate my books. It takes just as much time to illustrate a book as it does to write it. If I did all my own illustrations, I wouldn’t have as much time to write. I enjoy illustrating my own books, but only when the concept of the writing and the art work together for me.

Etsy Anniversary

February marked the one year anniversary of the launching of my Etsy gallery, CarolineArnoldArt, offering cards and prints of my book illustrations. I now have 74 items listed, 48 cards and 26 prints, and plan to add more in the future. I am sometimes asked which of my images are the most popular. Platypuses, koalas and wombats are surprisingly popular. Perhaps it’s their exotic nature. After that, pandas and penguins seem to be well liked. Their black and white markings certainly lend them to decorative designs. That said, all of the animals get plenty of views. Etsy has been an ideal way for me to market my artwork to a wider audience. I’d love to hear what you think of my Etsy site!

Read, Know, Grow: Support School Libraries

Some time ago, I donated a piece of my art from my book A Panda's World to help support school libraries. It has now been incorporated into the California Campaign for Strong School Libraries. Visit the Campaign’s Library Store and see how you can buy a t-shirt, mug and other items with great art (mine or someone else's) AND support school libraries! (I've already ordered a bunch of t-shirts and mugs!) Great for gifts or for yourself!

The Campaign is a public awareness program aimed at publicizing today’s role of school libraries and shining a spotlight on the new Model School Library Standards approved by the State Board of Education last fall. The standards include: 1) Standards for Students that delineate what students should know and be able to do at each grade level or grade span to enable students to succeed in school, higher education and the workforce, and; 2) base level staffing, resources and infrastructure, including technology, required for effective school library programs for students.

Patrick Nelson, CEO of California-based bookseller Mrs. Nelson’s Toy & Book Shop, used his vast network of contacts with authors and illustrators to facilitate the arrangement with the California School Library Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that oversees the Campaign. Last year, Nelson was recognized by the California School Library Association for his role in creating and developing a statewide school library advocacy campaign. For more information about the Campaign or the Campaign’s LIBRARY STORE, contact Connie Williams at info@csla.net.

School Visit Tip

Recently, I was asked by my friend Alexis O'Neill to contribute a tip for doing school visits for her blog School Visit Experts.com. Here's my tip: Create coloring pages, activity sheets, and other “hands on” projects that can be downloaded from your website and used in the classroom to build up knowledge and interest in your books before or after your visit. Include this information in a packet sent to the librarian before your visit. I love going to schools and see walls of cut paper zebras created from the template on the web page for my book A Zebra’s World. No two zebra’s are ever alike!
In the photo above you can see the wonderful zebra mural made by the students in my brother's third grade class in Novato, CA. I love the way they created a whole African scene.
If you are an author or illustrator, check out the many other useful tips and resources on the School Visit Experts site.

ALA San Diego, January 2011

A week ago I spent a day at the winter American Library Association meetings in San Diego signing my books A Polar Bear’s World and A Bald Eagle’s World in the Capstone booth. I always love the opportunity to meet the librarians and teachers who are using my books with children and to see them happily taking my books home with them to add to their libraries and classrooms. When I wasn’t signing, I was cruising the aisles to see friends, read new books in other publishers’ booths, and collect catalogues, free posters and other goodies. In all, it was a great day!