Book Giveaway for Teachers: Help OPB Create a Future Post

Teachers of preschool, kindergarten, and grades 1 or 2–I need you! In return for your help, you can win a stack of free books for your classroom.

You heard me…I said, “FREE BOOKS!”

What I’m asking of you: Just poll one or more of your preschool, kindergarten, or grade 1 or 2 classes about “Things Kids Love” and send that list to me to before midnight on January 31, 2023. Use the form here: https://www.onlypicturebooks.com/contact/

**The more specific the items on your list, the better. For example, “toys” is far less interesting/​helpful than, say, “Super Soakers,” “LEGOs,” or “Mr. Potato Head.”**

Tell me about those free books!!!: On February 1, 2023, I’ll draw 10 teacher names at random from all entries, and each of those 10 winners will receive a free stack of 10 books (most are picture books, but some are early readers or chapter books).

**Shipping to US only—sorry!**

Can I increase my chances of getting some of those much-​ballyhooed free books?: For one additional entry, poll your class about “Things Kids Don’t Like” and send me that list before the January 31, 2022 deadline, too. **Entrants can only win one set of books, but this would increase your chance of winning anything!**

What are you doing with this information?: I’ll be compiling all the results (anonymously) into lists that appear as a free resource via a post or two for writers, teachers, librarians, and parents right here at www.OnlyPictureBooks.com

Do you have an example of what you’re looking for? Yes, indeed. Check out these links–I’m essentially creating up-​to-​date versions of these terrific lists.

I’m not a preschool, kindergarten, or grade 1 or 2 teacher. Can I still win books?: Not this time, sorry! But you can earn yourself some literary karma by sharing this opportunity with a preschool, kindergarten, or grade 1 or 2 teacher,

Editor Interview: Kayla Tostevin (Page Street)

The October Industry Insider at OPB is…Page Street Senior Editor Kayla Tostevin! While I generally create my own bios for interview guests, I ran across this bio for her at various SCBWI faculty bio pages, and it’s so terrific that I’m just including it in full.

When not poring over books (and sometimes while poring over books), she likes to be outside: hiking, biking, on a boat, or wandering aimlessly and smiling at animals. She hails from one end of the longest US freeway I‑90 (Seattle, WA) and now lives at the other in Boston, MA.”

Kayla got on my radar because she’s acquired books from literary agents who’ve joined us here at OPB, such as:

What I’ve found is that good people tend to gravitate toward other good people, so that pretty much explains the connections above.

And speaking of good people, let’s learn a bit more about our new good friend, Kayla, by getting to that interview.


RVC: Between the bio above and your Twitter bio (which has the line “happiest while adventuring”), I’m really curious—what type of childhood did you have?

KT: I’m very lucky to have grown up with four fantastic parents (my step-​parents both came into the picture when I was quite young), shifting back and forth between my two sides of family every few days. I think having that constant movement and two wonderfully different home environments—generally spending a lot of time running around outside with neighbor kids and hiking with family at one house, falling in love with movies and playing lots of card and video games together at the other—has probably greatly influenced my restlessness and curiosity/​enthusiasm for a wide variety of things even today. I’m so grateful for all I was able to experience during childhood and all the adventures I’m continuing to have as an adult!

RVC: At what point did you know you were going to work in publishing?

KT: I’ve loved books my whole life and suspected I wanted to work with them as early as middle school—but I originally wanted to be a writer, so I went for a writing, literature, and publishing major in college. After spending some time around other students on the same track and taking several classes, I realized I was better suited to the publishing part than the writing part!

RVC: You started at Page Street in the marketing area. What kind of advantage does that give you now as an editor?

KT: I think it really helps to have a better view of the entire process of bookmaking—and in this case, that very much includes what comes both before and after the book is made. When I’m looking at submissions for potential acquisition, I’m careful to consider not just if it’s a great story, but if it actually has some strong selling points, and my marketing experience definitely has made me stronger at pinpointing those selling points. Once the book is made, I can discuss with the marketing/​PR team what features of the story might be most useful for them to push, using my familiarity as editor to help the rest of the team promote as effectively as possible. Other perspectives are always useful. This background has also given me a much greater awareness and respect for all the other departments involved in making a book.

RVC: What’s the story behind the first picture book you edited at Page Street?

KT: I was one of two children’s editorial assistants in 2019, and we would often be assigned stories the children’s publisher at the time was interested in working on and possibly acquiring. We’d often (good-​spiritedly) fight over who got to work on which ones, and a dummy I won eventually became Moles Present the Natural Tolls of Digging Holes by Springer Badger.

Honestly, it was pretty minimally revised—I mostly just encouraged the author-​illustrator to rearrange some scenes, bring out some contrasts, and lean into the delightful weirdness lurking in the art’s background. The process was a strange one with me doing most of the editing during my temporary return to the marketing/​publicity department, and I still have a huge soft spot for the book.

RVC: What important lessons did that book teach you?

KT: This book was probably my first big lesson on how incredibly subjective publishing is. The author-illustrator–my bosses–and I all had many different ideas about the best way to handle many aspects of this book, and I realized, oh, being an editor is much less about fully controlling the development of a book than it is about finding the best route to solid middle ground between multiple visions. It’s not steering the car so much as politely giving directions from the shotgun seat, while sometimes the driver ignores you to make their own rogue turns, or the backseat passengers argue, or your maps app dies and you have to ask everyone to pull over and be patient with you while you reroute.

It’s a kind of chaos I’ve learned to fondly embrace. Having to come up with a new title that satisfied everyone was an especially hard piece of this lesson. (Fun fact–the original title of the book was We Dig Holes Like Moles).

RVC: Fun title! Now, what makes a Page Street book a Page Street book?

KT: Our publisher likes to stress that we want to make books we feel passionate about, and I second that! With our picture books specifically, we try to consider what will entertain a kid first and foremost—any messages or lessons have to come second to this, because no matter how great they are they’ll do no good if they can’t keep a kid’s attention, and like adults, children absolutely deserve to have some really great stories they can simply enjoy again and again. Though if I do have a favorite agenda to push, it’s to expand perspectives and encourage curiosity about the whole world, on scales big and small.

RVC: Describe a typical workday for you.

KT: Usually, a lot of emailing and meetings—I’m in constant communication with Page Street coworkers, authors, agents, and more. I’m also pretty consistently reading newsletters and reviews and doing research to try to keep up with kids book trends and the publishing industry as a whole. Other than that, each day holds some amount of editing manuscripts, proofreading text and reviewing art, looking at submissions, copywriting, browsing a pitch event or kidlit illustrator hashtag on Twitter, and plenty of other miscellaneous tasks. Sprinkle in some tea, snacks, and music throughout the day, plus a walk in the middle.

RVC: What’s the most important thing prospective Page Street authors should know about you?

KT: I want to be a team! I am here to listen and suggest and collaborate—even after I’ve had my hands all over it, I want the text to always feel like it’s wholly yours, or ideally even more like it’s yours, as we should be trying to make it stronger and bring out its essence together. I might put my foot down about things that aren’t working, but I’m always flexible on how those things can be fixed. Also, if I offer to acquire your book, know that I really, really love it and believe in it, and I will champion it to anyone and everyone in my immediate vicinity.

RVC: The worry writers have over Art Notes. Totally overblown, totally appropriate, or totally something they need to lose sleep over?

KT: Definitely nothing to lose sleep over! I think they’re most appropriate when either a) any part of the text might be confusing without them, or b) you have an art idea that’s so good you just have to throw it out there.

Think of them as a tool in your arsenal—they’re just there to help you communicate with your preliminary readers and the illustrator, and they can definitely be phrased more as suggestions than directives (which is my personal preference, since I think it’s wise to leave plenty of creative space for the illustrator!). The best part about art notes is that no one is going to see them in the final book, so they merely have to be comprehensible, not super carefully crafted like the rest of your writing.

RVC: Tell me about a project or accomplishment that you consider to be the most significant in your kidlit industry career.

KT: I feel most proud and accomplished any time I get to hold a real, finished book I acquired and edited for the first time. Making a picture book is a long, hard process, and every single one feels like a huge victory. Maybe that feels like a cop-​out answer, but this is a tough question, and it’s true! If you want a funnier answer, a recent personal high was proposing a title for a picture book sequel inspired by 2 Fast 2 Furious and expecting everyone to laugh and move on, but, uh, look out for Pirate & Penguin: 2 Few Crew by Mike Allegra and Jenn Harney! (After the first Pirate & Penguin releases, of course.)

RVC: Just wow. That sounds awesome.

KT: Agree!

RVC: How do you handle pressure at work? What do you do to de-stress?

KT: Whenever I feel my focus starting to slip or my anxiety starting to spike, I let myself take a little break—it’s going to be worse for everyone if I keep working and it’s not my best work. My kind of mantra whenever I’m having a really stressful time is “Nobody dies in publishing,” and that little reminder always helps me either muster up the strength to push on or assuage the guilt about taking my necessary pauses. Walking helps me immensely, especially if I go outside, or making a cup of tea, or reading a little bit of a non-​work book.

RVC: You seem to have an especially active presence on Manuscript Wish List. Why don’t more editors or agents use it?

KT: I don’t know, I think they should! It’s a super useful tool that ultimately saves a lot of time, because agents and writers are always asking me, “What are you looking for?” and I can immediately send them a link to a detailed list. I try to stay especially on top of it because I don’t really have a lot of time for agent calls, so I hope keeping this list updated, detailed, and easy to find helps make up for my very limited availability.

RVC: One last question for this part of the interview. What’s an upcoming project or two that you’re really excited about?

KT: One at the top of my mind right now is Kadooboo!: A Silly South Indian Folktale by Shruthi Rao and Darshika Varma, because we just looked at revised sketches and some potential covers for it and ohmygosh it’s so much fun. It’s basically a game of telephone, an adventure all across town, and a hearty recommendation for South Indian food all rolled into one. We’ll have to wait until Winter 2024 for that one, so coming up much sooner (this November 1st!) is Mending the Moon by Emma Pearl and Sara Ugolotti, which has such a lovely, classic storytelling feel and a really cool fantastical scenario, with the moon falling to Earth and shattering and a girl, her grandfather, and some animals working together to fix it.

RVC: Alrighty, Kayla. We’re entering…THE SPEED ROUND! The point values are quintupled, and zippiness is at a premium. Are you ready?

KT: Oh boy, I guess!

RVC: If you could only have one app on your phone, it’d be…

KT: AllTrails.

RVC: If “Spider-​Man” is the answer, what’s the question?

KT: Who’s the only superhero you’ve seen all the movies for?

RVC: You’re organizing a kidlit dinner party. Which three characters from pictures books do you invite?

KT: Pokko from Pokko and the Drum by Matthew Forsythe, Lilly from Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes, and Payden from Payden’s Pronoun Party by Blue Jaryn and Xochitl Cornejo. (This will truly be a party.)

RVC: Five words that describe your editorial process.

KT: Consider, suggest, listen, try again.

RVC: What’s a picture book from 2022 that really got your attention?

KT: I already mentioned a Matthew Forsythe book, but I gotta say Mina. The humor, art, and unexpected direction are all so, so good.

RVC: Let’s end with a single line from a picture book you acquired.

KT: “If Mimi hears one more Chinese ghost proverb, she will shriek. And not for extra credit.” (Just one of many excellent ghost jokes from So Not Ghoul by Karen Yin and Bonnie Lui.)

RVC: Love it. Thanks so much, Kayla!

Educational Activities: Fonchito and the Moon by Mario Vargas Llosa

Fonchito and the Moon
Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
Illustrator: Marta Chicote Juiz
18 October 2022
Kales Press
32 pages

Book description from Goodreads: “Fonchito falls in love for the very first time and discovers that there is nothing one cannot do for a loved one, even if what they wish for is the moon!”


Need some reviews on Fonchito and the Moon?


Educational Activities inspired by Fonchito and the Moon:

  • Before Reading–From looking at the front and back cover: 
    • What do you think of when you think about the moon?
    • What’s happening on the front cover?
    • What’s interesting about the back cover?
    • Where and when does this story seem to take place?
    • What questions would you like to ask the author before you read the book?
  • After Reading–Now that you’ve read the story: 
    • How did you react when Nereida said she’d only let Fonchito kiss her on the cheek if he got the moon and gave it to her?
    • What other ways can you think of that Fonchito could get the moon for her?
    • Do you think Nereida really wanted him to kiss her?
    • Which picture did you like the most? Why?
    • What did you think of the book’s ending?
    • Did you like this book? Why/​why not?
  • Drawing–How do you like the illustrations of the moon? Does it look like what YOU think the moon looks like? Use colored pencils, crayons, or markers to create your own moon art for this story or simply to be art all on its own. Consider sharing your work with a friend or family member.
  • Crafting–Since the moon plays such a big role in this story, let’s enjoy some moon crafts! 
  • Further Reading–Learn more about the moon by reading these related books. Which of these have you already read? Which of the others would you want to read first? (Click on any book cover for more information on these titles!)

Author Interview: Caron Levis

I’m especially excited about this month’s Author Interview because Caron Levis wrote one of my favorite picture books–you’ll figure out what it is easily enough in a moment!

In addition to writing terrific picture books, Caron’s stories for teens and adults have been published in magazines and anthologies, her short-​plays have been selected for several festivals, and the film adaptation of Attendant won Best Short in Sunscreen Film Festival West (2018) and was selected for the Garden State Film Festival. Pretty cool, right? Caron’s also a professor at NYU and The New School’s Creative Writing MFA program where she serves as the advisor for the Children/​YA concentration.

Caron has an LMSW from Hunter College and has facilitated young people’s loss and bereavement groups for The Jewish Board. After many years as an arts educator, Caron now loves using acting and writing to teach social, emotional, and literacy skills to students of all ages through her author workshops. Having trained in acting and dabbled in playwriting, Caron “enjoys turning theatre techniques into writing tools for groan-​ups through her workshop Act-Like-A-Writer.

With that, let’s get to that interview and learn more about our new writer pal, Caron!


RVC: What were some of those early formative experiences that got you on the pathway to being a writer?

CL: I have this cassette tape recording of my mother when I was around two or two and a half. She read to me a lot every night–she always read to me lots of picture books. Anyway, she was leaving me with a non-​family babysitter for the first time, so she thought it would be helpful to record herself reading our nightly picture books. The one that stuck with me when I listened to it was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It was amazing because my mother’s Brooklyn accent was so strong, which made it fun to listen to.

You can hear me in the background, calling out the words that I knew–you know, “hungry!” “cherry pie!” that sort of thing. Clearly, I was lucky to have that time in my life where I absorbed so many words and books. As we now know through research and science, that’s one way you learn to read and enjoy books.

I also had a Brooklyn grandmother who was a kindergarten teacher. She loved to read with me. As I got older and became a reader myself, we’d watch Wheel of Fortune together. That all helped me fall in love with words.

RVC: When did you first realize you’re a writer?

CL: The moment cemented in my memory is reading Ramona in second grade and feeling like someone knew me. I enjoyed feeling very validated in the messiness of Ramona. I realized I wanted to write books for other kids so they could know that feeling, too.

RVC: That’s awesome.

CL: I was lucky. I had wonderful elementary school teachers who validated me, or at least I read it that way. Looking back at my journals, there’s not necessarily a budding writer there. There’s a lot of “Can you actually write MORE next time?” But they were always really encouraging.

I’m still in touch with my second- and fourth-​grade teacher. She’s in second grade now, still teaching at the same school, and with each new book of mine, she’s invited me to visit her classroom. It’s such a special treat to be able to do that.

RVC: So, along the way, you got all kinds of degrees and training that seemed you had a non-​writer path in mind.

CL: I always wanted to be writer, but in elementary school, though, I got taken to A Chorus Line and The Fantasticks, because I lived in New York City. I fell in love. “I’m going to be an actor!” I decided.

Around sixth grade, I wrote a term paper on a famous case of pretty intense child abuse and neglect that I learned about from the TV coverage. It really shook me. I thought about it a lot. I remember thinking, “Why isn’t the world literally stopping to fix this for kids?” That led me to thinking about being a counselor, or at least somebody who worked to help kids.

RVC: That’s a lot of different directions.

CL: I’m still trying to sort it all out! It all comes together though in my author workshops for kids and adults, where I use acting and writing to explore emotional skills and subjects.

RVC: How did that morph into you becoming a published writer?

CL: As an undergrad, I was studying creative writing with the goal of writing short stories and plays. I was taking acting classes, too, and absorbing child psychology through a couple of classes. I was always working with kids through children’s theater, which was influential for me. I combined those loves. I performed a show that was about dating, violence, healthy, unhealthy relationships.

Anyway, I graduated with my undergrad degree while remaining fairly lost about how to pursue those things. Nobody really gave me directions such as “Okay…THIS is what you should do next.”

RVC: Too few students get that kind of useful advice, it seems.

CL: I puttered around, and I’d get jobs in education, doing various things for both love and money. I was writing fiction plays and stuff for kids–a bunch of different things. And I was auditioning and taking part in super off-​off-​Broadway stuff. I was trying everything.

At some point, I decided, “Okay, I’m not really making headway on trying to do all of these things.” I started feeling that I needed to pick something to dive into and pursue. I realized that I wasn’t really pursuing my acting career aggressively like I could’ve been. I had knowledge. And I had contacts I wasn’t using. Honestly, I found the auditioning process to be soul sucking, and I kept walking out of auditions because I’d look at the script and decide, “I don’t want to do that.” I didn’t want to do commercials either, which is how you earn money as an actor.

I remembered advice I’d gotten during acting training in my undergrad classes. At the time, it made me so mad. A visiting teacher said to only pursue a career in acting if there’s nothing else in the world you can do for work that will bring you joy. Only do it if you’d truly be miserable without it.

I decided I was going to give that a try–I’d completely drop the goal of acting for six months. I started working for a company that hired actors to teach conflict resolution and communication skills in K‑12 schools through push-​in programs before SEL was an accepted and understood term. I loved that work so much. It just filled me.

I checked in after six months, and I wasn’t miserable about not acting. I still loved acting as a craft, but I was more in love with the skills and other things it gave me that I could incorporate into my educational work. Acting totally informs my writing process. And it informs me as a human, quite frankly.

RVC: And that’s when you turned to writing?

CL: I was writing more. I tried giving up writing a few times, too, but I’m always too miserable without. So, I’m stuck with it.

RVC: I’ve been there!

CL: I wanted to be a novelist and a playwright and be writing for children all at the same time. At the time, I was still in my 20s and I was working in this wonderful school, in a kindergarten classroom. I loved that. And even when I was writing for kids, I was writing YA and MG. I’d never thought of myself as a picture book person because I wasn’t a visual artist. But I was absorbing so many picture books. I’ve always loved them and never stopped reading them.

I ended up with a notebook full of ideas from students I was working with, and one in particular was really, really sticky. It came from a chat with a kiddo who was feeling blue. I decided, “You know what? I think I want to focus on writing for children.” When I finally said it out loud, everyone around me was like “Duh!”

RVC: Hah!

CL: That led me to reading more intentionally, and checking out books on writing for children, and that led me to SCBWI back when they were borrowing space in an office around Union Square. I went to a few talks with editors, and that led me to finding my first writing-​for-​children writing group. Truly wonderful folks.

Two of the women there kept nudging me to go to the New School MFA Writing for Children and Young Adults program. At the time, I said, “I’m not going to graduate school for writing!” That seemed like a really bad idea. But I ended up there, and it was wonderful. It was a great investment of time and money. I met other like-​minded people, and I got to study with David Levithan, Sarah Weeks, Tor Seidler, and Susan Van Metre.

RVC: Were you submitting work at the time?

CL: Before I got to MFA program, I’d written a few picture books and sent them out old-​school style in the actual mail with SASEs [self-​addressed stamped envelopes] and gotten a bunch of rejections. And the one that meant most to me was for a book based on sadness, Stuck with the Blooz.

I keep those rejection letters., When I visit elementary schools, I bring those letters and read them with the kids. Some are form rejections, and some are encouraging. I had one amazing editor who asked for an exclusive and held it for a few months, but finally passed. And I, of course, got totally stuck with my own blues, but kind of came out of it thinking, “Oh, that was close.” That’s when I ended up with the writers group and the MFA program. But at the time, the business was telling me that picture books weren’t selling, and breaking in with a picture book was impossible. So, I was working on YA material instead. My plan was to finish the YA book and look for an agent.

RVC: I’m guessing the plan didn’t go as planned?

CL: Exactly. What happened instead was the kind of luck you get when you’re working for it. I ended up being introduced through someone to Adah Megged Nuchi, an editor who just got the power to acquire books at her job at Houghton Mifflin. I sent my picture book manuscript to her, thinking it was a long shot.

She loved it. And she fought for it. I think it was about eight months of waiting but I got a contract.

The idea for that book–Stuck with the Blooz–came to me 10 years before publication. I still have the notebook from that kindergarten class where I jotted down that idea.

RVC: I save notebooks like that, too. Just in case.

CL: I hope the wait’s not that long for everyone else. But I loved how it came out. It was worth the wait.

RVC: What’s the most important lesson that book taught you?

CL: I had this weird belief that you’re supposed to be really excellent at something before you announce that you’re trying to do it. It couldn’t be worse thinking. Find other writers to support you sooner than I did. Get out there.

RVC: Joining SCBWI can help.

CL: Absolutely. SCBWI, a class, an MFA program, a writer’s group—whatever works for you.

RVC: What happened next?

CL: I was reading a lot at the time, really absorbing all these books. But I don’t think I understood how to read like a writer the way I do now. Instead, I was engaging and listening to the kiddos which I just enjoyed doing so much. And then letting my imagination go.

I learned persistence, as well, both in the drafting and the craft, and obviously in pursuing publication.

RVC: Amen to that.

CL: Another writing lesson I learned is that ideas are plentiful. A lot of them can come in. For me, the hard work isn’t coming up with ideas but rather figuring out which ones have enough juice to become a book and are important enough for me to stick through all of the rough parts of the writing and the business.

RVC: You mentioned “reading like a writer.” How does one do that?

CL: That’s one of the best things I got from grad school–learning how to read books like a writer, which is to figure out the names of the craft elements. I mean that both objectively–like what makes something work–but also just for you, as in when you find something that you think is awesome, how do you identify it so you can use it? It’s pulling the story apart to figure out what’s actually being done, such as how to infuse emotion at the line level.

RVC: What is something about your writing or revising process that might surprise people?

CL: It can be really long. I revise forever. This reality wouldn’t surprise established writers, but if you’re new to writing or if you’re a young reader and you learn this? When I explain this in schools, kids look shocked and teachers love having this as a reference when they ask students for more drafts.

RVC: Care to share a bit more about your revision process?

CL: My revision process is very nitpicky. I go over and over things. You have to kind of tear it away from me. With my last few books, my very patient editor has let me nitpick to the very end.

There’s always a place that I get to that’s what I call “the pit of despair,” where I can’t figure something out, or it’s not working. If it’s a contracted book, I now have the experience of knowing that it’s merely part of my process. That doesn’t prevent me from being in the pit of despair, but I have this other part of my brain that’s saying, “Oh, here you are. This is THAT part. You’ll be here for a while.” But I know I’ll figure something out.

RVC: I want to talk about one of my favorite books, which is Ida, Always. I first heard it when Emma Ledbetter (read her OPB interview here!) read the entire thing aloud at an SCBWI conference event in Orlando some years back. She included spreads via an overhead projector, too.

CL: She was my editor.

RVC: Ah, that’s right–I remember that fact now. She clearly loved your book and was using it as an example of great writing. People in the audience were literally crying over it–not fake crying but real crying. 

CL: Wow.

RVC: Please tell me how that book came about.

CL: People knew I was interested in social emotional learning for a long time, and they started asking me if I’d considered writing something that deals with death–specifically death and grief. A neighbor once asked this because their elder cat was ill. “I have no idea how to talk to my four year old about this. Have you ever thought about making a book to help with this?” Stuck with the Blooz had come out by this point and during a school visit in Newtown, Connecticut, a teacher asked me about that topic as well.

Meanwhile, I also had that notebook where Stuck with the Blooz came from, and I saw that I’d written about a moment that struck me. During playtime, a group of kindergarten students constructed an in-​depth funeral for a bug. They set up seats, they gave eulogies, and at one point, somebody said, “And now we’re supposed to cry.” It was incredible.

And then my editor from Blooz who knew I was playing around with this type of idea sent me an article about Ida, the polar bear that died. Gus and Ida lived in Central Park Zoo for a very, very long time, which is also near where I grew up.

Those two things came together. It just felt like the perfect vehicle to explore the story I wanted to because while there were books about death, they tended to focus very specifically on grandparents or a pet. I wanted one that could be open for all kinds of relationships.

RVC: It’s so lucky that your editor sent that article to you. How did the writing process go?

CL: When I started, I was thinking about the story being after the death of Ida, with Gus being there, and having the main character be a child who visited Gus. I wrote many drafts that way, and it was sort of inspired by a photo and an article I’d seen. Plus, I visited Gus. It was just me and Gus hanging out when I did that.

I didn’t have an agent, by the way, but my wonderful editor was looking at this uncontracted manuscript because she wanted to publish it.  Yet it wasn’t quite working. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I’m going to give her the credit because she probably posed the question–since the story is really about the two bears, can they be the main characters?

I took the story back and spent some time making it about the two of them. That took a while. Eventually, I had a bunch of what you see now, but my editor said that we need to love their relationship before we start losing Ida. That’s when I started thinking about establishing their bond a lot more because it’s easy to think, “Well, OF COURSE everyone’s going to be engaged and moved by someone losing someone they love,” But you need to let people feel what is precious. It’s an idea I’ve carried with me since. Make sure you’re establishing what we care about before the challenges arise.

At some point, I discovered the city was how they connect. It became not quite another character, but a representation of the connection between them.

RVC: What were some of the other challenges you were facing?

CL: It was important to me to use the word “die.” In fact, I wanted to use it twice, but that didn’t end up happening. Euphemisms have their place, for sure, but with a lot of kids, they can actually lead to more emotional difficulties because they can be taken literally. For example, “just went to sleep” can at times cause very young kids to worry about their parents “going to sleep” or themselves falling “asleep.”

It was important to me to use the correct word, but also to do it gently. I’d read the story to imagined kids to see if I felt like I was being dishonest or too harsh.

RVC: Ida, Always has serious emotional resonance. In your mind, who sets the standard for books like this? Who do you recommend when you want to show someone the true level of emotion a picture book can generate in a reader?

CL: There’s just so many people who do it well. It takes my breath away. But who comes to mind right now? A writer who surely influenced me–though I wasn’t consciously aware of it at the time–was Judith Viorst. I felt lucky that I somehow didn’t make that connection while I was writing Blooz or Ida because I realized later, “Oh, I’ve been trying to be her because her great Alexander books are about being sad. And The Tenth Good Thing About Barney is about death.”

In terms of recent books, I like Jessixa Bagley’s Boats for Papa. It’s just gorgeous, and she makes some interesting emotional choices. It’s a good example of creating characters that has enough distance from real life and events that allows a young reader to move forward emotionally into the book as opposed to feeling like they need to be protective.

Anastasia Higginbotham has very different kinds of books. They’re much more direct explorations and so useful. And there’s A Song of Frutas by Margarita Engle and Sara Palacios. It’s such a gorgeous book that deals with family and also separation.

Then, of course, you have The Rabbit Listened. Cori Doerrfeld just nails it. That book is one of my favorites.

RVC: Let’s talk about your new book, Feathers Together, which isn’t so much about death as it is about separation and ambiguous loss.

CL: This was a doozy. It’s the third animal book I’ve done with Charles Santoso, and we have a fourth one coming out next year that features elephants.

Feathers Together has been the hardest, longest, most tumultuous revision of any book I’ve done. And, of course, it was one of the ones that I thought was going to be the easiest.

RVC: Isn’t that always the case? Tell me more!

CL: I was very purposely trying to come up with another story that was inspired by a real-​life animal that I could pitch to Emma [Ledbetter] and have Charles [Santoso] illustrate. For the first time, I was intentionally seeking an idea.

I was staying with my aunt while doing book research and she said, “This friend of mine sent me the cutest video about these ducks.” Now, there’s so many adorable animal relationship videos out there, and you could spend your life watching them, but as wonderful as they are, most don’t have a real story in them. It turned out that they weren’t ducks but rather storks, and their story was incredible. I was in love with it for so many reasons.

The real story takes place in Croatia, when a man found a female stork whose wing was injured by a poacher–she’d been shot and couldn’t fly anymore. She couldn’t get fish, and she couldn’t get up to a nest. So, the man took her in, and he created a nest for her with a ramp because they like to nest up high. What Charles created for the book is pretty close to what it really looks like.

RVC: I’m not surprised. Illustrators often do as much–or more!–research as their writer partners.

CL: She couldn’t migrate. So, the man took care of her in the winter. I’ll share the real story with you because it goes into making choices about the book.

The two storks had babies, and the human man and the male story helped her raise the babies and teach them to fly. But each year, for 19 years, this male stork would migrate to South Africa with the rest of the flock and bring the babies with him over 8000 miles and return to Croatia later when the weather was right.

This story struck me on multiple levels. It has the relationship with the human and her that was just so incredibly moving. And then there’s the forced separation, which was my primary interest. I immediately was thinking about kids that I knew and families I worked with and how they had to deal with separation from the military life, from immigration, etc. For some people, separation is just a consistent part of their lives. It’s interesting, too, that I wrote this before the pandemic.

RVC: Which created all kinds of separations.

CL: I also saw in this story a way to address gun violence because the poacher had shot her. There was the whole story of chosen families with this wonderful man Stjepan taking Malena in. The book also deals with the way injury or disability can affect relationships on both sides–not being able to do things that were planned.

At first, I tried to write all of these ideas into the same 40-​page picture book. I tried to do that for months and many revisions. On maybe the fifth revision, my editor helped me realize I needed to focus on the separation. That while I can touch upon everything, I couldn’t responsibly go deeply into everything at the same time.

So, I had to let go of this huge part of the story that I’d wanted to tell and that took me a while. It was a big part of that long process.

RVC: That had to be hard.

CL: I was trying to stay true to my original vision, but it created too many stories to tell, which hearkens back to the lesson I learned with Ida about establishing the relationship first. Before you know the loss or the event that is the bulk of the story, you need to have that connection. There wasn’t enough real estate in the picture book format to go through Malena discovering and forming relationships with the human, and then forming a relationship with Klepetan and then losing him. You have to make these time frame choices for your book. What is the most important part of the story? Where does it need to actually start?

So, I changed some details as I fictionalized the story. It’s inspired by real-​life animals. It’s not nonfiction, however.

RVC: That’s a huge difference.

CL: I started out with them just being friends. Then I had to make a choice, and I decided to focus on the aspect I really loved–that this was a long term, seasonal thing. These were hard choices, but I had to make them or the emotional resonance would be lost. I knew the emotional aspect that I wanted to create though getting there took SO many drafts.

RVC: Are you open to confessing to how many drafts you have for Feathers Together?

CL: It’s fair to say dozens of drafts. For sure.

Some are big revisions and other times they’re just line-​level revisions. But because of the emotional aspect of this, I spend so much time on one line or one moment because that’s the thing with picture books–you’re trying to get it as succinct as possible. I’m constantly trying to get them shorter but also be nuanced.

RVC: Not an easy task.

CL: Not for me. But I love it. I love doing it. And it’s meaningful to me.

RVC: I hear you there. Now, one final question for this part of the interview. What are you working on next?

CL: Charles is now doing his part working on Mighty Muddy Us, which is our book about elephant siblings. I just saw sketches for it and WOW, they’re amazing. It’s another inspired-​by-​true-​life animal tale about a young elephant with a birth injury and how he gets along with his older sister. It’s about that relationship and how your sibling roles get established, and how, as your relationship ages, you can get stuck in these roles, and that can cause conflict, and about how they navigate it.

I’ve got another idea I’m very excited about, but my editor hasn’t seen or heard about it yet, which is why I’m not talking about it specifically. Just crossing fingers.

RVC: Okay, Caron. It’s time for the LIGHTNING ROUND. Let’s get zippy and zoom right along. Are you ready?

CL: Let’s do it!

RVC: What outdated slang do you use on a regular basis?

CL: Geez louise.

RVC: What word do you always misspell?

CL: Oh, here’s a good one for me to confess. I can’t even say it, and I use it in my books all the time! Onomatopoeia.

RVC: What moment from a picture book do you wish were real?

CL: One of my early favorite Hans Christian Andersen stories has a little girl whose flowers are wilting, yet they come to life at night and they all dance at a ball. I always wanted to go to that ball and I think I still do.

RVC: Which picture book author would you want to write your life story?

CL: I’m going to cheat and just say Julia Sarcone-​Roach because she knows me. And I know she’d be very kind. And the story would be beautiful. And there’d be lots of animals in it.

RVC: What picture book do you recommend for those who don’t normally read picture books?

CL: There’s so many. I guess…After the Fall by Dan Santat, because I feel we could all use this beautiful encouragement to climb back up the wall right now.

RVC: Six words that speak to your picture book philosophy.

CL: Seriously playful work for important people.

RVC: Thanks so much, Caron. This was a real pleasure.

Picture Book Review: Five-​word-​reviews on Five Picture Books (Abbreviated Hurricane Ian Version)

In case you didn’t know, the OPB mother ship/​home base/​lair is in Sarasota, FL, and Hurricane Ian caused a bit of havoc with my house/​yard and my ability to get online to handle the blog. Since my illustrator review partner for October also lives in this area, the OPB plan regarding today’s post went kablooey.

I considered just skipping a week, but decided to simply go with a change of pace instead. Here it is–my five-​word reviews on five new picture books!

**For those who are concerned, my house is still safe to live in, I have power and Internet (thanks, FPL!), and my family is doing well. But I’m sending supplies down to Lee County, though, which took the real brunt of Ian’s strength here on the Gulf Coast of Florida. I encourage others to do whatever they can to help, too.**


Author: Larissa Theule
Illustrator: Steve Light
Candlewick
27 September 2022
32 pages

Ryan’s five-​word review: Engaging. Eye-​opening. Surprisingly fun. Solid!

4.75 out of 5 concrete blocks


Author: Ashley Spires
Illustrator: Ashley Spires
Dragonfly Books
6 September 2022
40 pages

Ryan’s five-​word review: STEM and magic? Discussion worthy.

4 out of 5 magic wands Bunsen burners


Author: Evan Turk
Illustrator: Evan Turk
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
20 September 2022
40 pages

Ryan’s five-​word review: Luminous. Richly emotive. Child-​like curiosity.

4.25 out of 5 moon phases


Author: Bethan Woollvin
Illustrator: Bethan Woollvin
Peachtree Publishing
30 August 2022
32 pages

Ryan’s five-​word review: Small voices matter. Appropriately clever.

4.5 out of 5 Viking axes


Author: Laurie Keller
Illustrator: Laurie Keller
Christy Ottaviano Books
20 September 2022
32 pages

Ryan’s five-​word review: Jam-​packed fun. Asking questions = good.

4.25 out of 5 coconuts

Editor Interview: Frances Gilbert (Doubleday Books for Young Readers/​Random House Children’s Books)

This month’s Industry Insider is Frances Gilbert, Editor-​in-​Chief at Doubleday Books for Young Readers/​Random House Children’s Books. In addition to editing some of the top picture book writers working today, she also authored the picture books Go, Girls, Go! and Too Much Slime!, as well as numerous Step Into Reading titles and an abridgment of The Secret Garden. Among other things, Frances is well known for offering clear, supportive writing advice on social media and at writing conferences.

Let’s get to the interview to hear some of that wisdom ourselves firsthand!

Frances’ Twitter


RVC: At what point did you realize you were absolutely going to work in publishing? 

FG: I grew up in a blue collar family in a blue collar town where people didn’t have jobs like the one I have now. When I got to University of Toronto, I was surrounded by élite students whose parents had jobs I didn’t even know existed.

One friend’s mother was a sales rep at a big publisher. I asked if I could visit her office and as soon as I saw the stacks of books in everyone’s cubicles, I decided it was the place for me. She actually tried to talk me out of it! I think she was pretty burnt out. But in my head I kept thinking, “Nope, nope. This is what I’m going to do.”

RVC: What happened next?

FG: A couple of lucky breaks. A friend noticed a posting on a job board at University of Toronto while I was finishing my Master’s degree in English. It was for a Book Club Editor at Scholastic Canada. I knew I wanted to work in publishing but had my sights set on literary fiction. I applied anyway and was hired by the brilliant and wonderful Iole Lucchese, who thankfully read to page two of my resume and saw that I’d worked in the children’s department of my town library for four years in high school. She saw potential that I’d completely missed. Within days of starting, I knew I wanted a career in children’s books.

RVC: What kind of duties does a Book Club editor have? 

FG: A Book Club Editor manages the monthly book club—those flyers we all ordered from as kids. My responsibility was to select and purchase the Canadian content for each list, in addition to writing the copy and hitting monthly financial targets, so I was essentially a book buyer with a large business to manage and account for. I met with every Canadian publisher a few times a year and liaised with my counterpart in the New York office. Looking back, I still can’t believe they gave me such a big job. It allowed me to leap over assistant and associate positions and start right in the deep end. I was so lucky.

RVC: This might seem like a silly question, but I know people are wondering. Were books being published by Scholastic Canada solely for the Canadian marketplace? 

FG: Like any publisher, Scholastic Canada publishes primarily for their own country first, the Canadian marketplace, but not exclusively. Every publisher also has an international sales and foreign rights team who both sell English language copies around the world and license the rights to foreign translations.

RVC: How much French did you pick up while there?

FG: I lived in Canada from age five till I was thirty and took French in school through my second year of university, so I can get around in French at a schoolgirl level.

RVC: Très cool! Now, what are your thoughts on the Tim Hortons Double Double?

FG: I picked up a Tim Hortons Double Double each morning on my way to work. I still hit one up as soon as I land in Canada. Not Double Double anymore, but it’s still my favorite coffee.

RVC: Before getting to Doubleday where you’re at now, you spent a good bit of time working at Sterling (for those of you who don’t know, it’s owned by Barnes & Noble).

FG: Sterling was family-​owned when I was hired. I knew them as one of my suppliers for Book Clubs and Book Fairs. I bought books from them. The owner wanted to start a children’s editorial division and asked if I was interested in moving to New York to set one up. I was twenty-​nine when I got the offer, and had never actually edited a book, as my position was as a buyer and product manager.

RVC: What were some of the highlights of working at Sterling?

FG: Looking back, Sterling’s family-​owned, maverick spirit was certainly a highlight. They were nimble and independent and could take chances. When I protested during my interview that I had no editorial experience, they said, “You’ll learn!” And I did! I’ve often described those early years as “I’ve got a barn, let’s put on a show.” I was teaching myself a lot of stuff on the spot, but I had their full support to find my place. I’ll always be grateful to the former Sterling owners and executives for what they did for me. We had a large and very profitable children’s business when I left twelve years later.

RVC: How is working for Doubleday (a Big 5 publisher) different than what you experienced at your previous editorial jobs?

FG: The feeling of coming to Random House was definitely that of arriving at the Mother Ship. It’s impossible not to be impressed by basically everything–the resources, the systems, the offices, the history, the authors, the backlist, the bestsellers, the brilliant and in many cases legendary staff. But in some ways, my job was very similar to the one I left. Doubleday Books for Young Readers hadn’t published anything for a number of years when Chip Gibson, then the President of Random House Children’s Books, asked me to come over and see what I could do with it. Just like when I started at Sterling, I had to build a business from the ground up, so that was a task I was really comfortable with at that point.

RVC: Let’s help some of the aspiring writers out there. What’s a common misconception about kidlit editors?

FG: I know our industry can feel opaque when you’re trying to break in. One thing I always let people know is that we’re always earnestly trying to find exciting new works. I think people have the idea that we enjoy rejecting things, when in truth it’s the opposite. We’re always avidly trying to find great writing. We don’t enjoy saying “No” as often as we must. “Yes” is always more exciting.

RVC: What kind of things are you most looking for with picture book submissions?

FG: I’m always looking for that intangible thrill you get when you read something and it grabs you, either because it’s incredibly unique or stunningly beautiful or blistering funny. It’s hard to quantify but I know it when I see it. One thing none of us are looking for is formulaic writing. I do worry that picture book manuscripts fall into this category too often. I’m not looking for anything that simply ticks a lot of boxes that someone has heard in a seminar. That’s not how it works.

RVC: One more question for aspiring writers—what are your feelings on art notes? 

FG: If I don’t know what you envision happening in the book without art notes, then give me art notes. It’s that simple. I don’t understand why people worry about them so much.

RVC: In November 2019, you tweeted, “Gulp, so I’m a published book author.” How did your debut picture book Go, Girls, Go! come about?

FG: I actually wrote Go, Girls, Go! as a sort of practice piece. I was thinking about how most cars and trucks books have male characters behind the wheel and wondered what one would look like if we featured girls instead. I wrote it quickly and then put it away for a couple of years, never meaning to have it published. But I kept stumbling across it and finally shared it with a handful of editors. Andrea Welch at Beach Lane /​ Simon & Schuster clicked with it and made me an offer, and I ran about my apartment screaming. The feeling was as if I’d never set foot in the industry before. It was such a thrill.

RVC: What was the most important lesson you learned thanks to that book?

FG: I learned how important it is for authors to roll up their sleeves and really hustle for their books. It became like a second job to me in the evenings, writing to people, begging for favors, posting online. Now that I’ve done it myself, I feel even more emboldened in expecting it of the authors I work with.

RVC: How do your various identities—editor and author—inform each other?

FG: Certainly as an editor I can already envision how a manuscript I’m writing will fit into a publisher’s program—how it will be pitched at list launch, how it will be positioned within the larger list of books, what kind of marketing hooks the sales, marketing, and publicity team can use to help them sell and promote the book. Basically, all the things I think about when I’m acquiring, I also think about when I’m pitching one of my own manuscripts.

RVC: You’ve gone on to publish more picture books. Which one has the most unusual path to publication story?

FG: I have a new picture book coming out with Beach Lane /​ Simon & Schuster next spring. I wrote it during the first summer of the pandemic after receiving an email from an environmental group in my neighborhood. The subject line of the email sparked an idea and I immediately went out on my deck and wrote Can You Hug a Forest? I felt like I knew the entire manuscript in that one second; it just landed in my head and there it was. One moment you’re not thinking about writing something, the next moment you have an entirely new manuscript to share with your editor.

RVC: Do reviews hit you differently as a writer versus an editor?

FG: I’m thick-​skinned as both an author and an editor and can easily read a negative review and think, “Well, you didn’t understand what I was trying to do, and that’s too bad for you that you’re missing out on something really nice.”

RVC: In all of your experience as a picture book author, what has surprised you the most?

FG: How much I love doing it! I was an editor for close to twenty-​five years before it even occurred to me to write something. I can’t explain why; it just never crossed my mind. Being a writer has opened up a whole new part of my imagination.

RVC: What’s next for you as a picture book author? 

FG: Outside of Can You Hug a Forest?, which comes out next May, I don’t have a new manuscript in the works. I have to get on it!

RVC: Here’s one last question for this part of the interview. Who sets the standard for picture book rhyming?

FG: John Robert Allman, author of A Is for Audra and B Is for Broadway on my list at Doubleday. He uses rhyme so smartly to add sass and humor. It’s brilliantly inventive, like he’s landing a quadruple axel in each line.

RVC: Alright, Frances. Now it’s time for THE SPEED ROUND. Boomy-​zoomy question followed by zappy-​cracky answers, please. Are you ready?

FG: Hit me.

RVC: What would you most want—personal chef, maid, or a masseuse?

FG: Paul Hollywood baking in my kitchen all day.

RVC: What makes you roll your eyes every time you hear/​see it?

FG: The phrase “cancel culture.”

Samuel West, who indeed has a mellifluent voice!

RVC: If someone narrated your life, who would you want to be the narrator?

FG: The actor Samuel West, who has the most perfect voice on the planet.

RVC: What’s your editing superpower?

FG: I make really quick decisions. I know what I like the second I see it.

RVC: What’s a picture book you;ve edited that’s more awesome than the world realizes?

FG: Philip Stead’s I’d Like to Be the Window for a Wise Old Dog is an absolute masterpiece. Everyone who reads it will see I’m right. I don’t think it gets any better than this.

RVC: Your picture book philosophy in five words or fewer?

FG: “Grab me from line one.”

RVC: Thanks so much, Frances! This has been delightful. 

FG: Thank you for your great questions!