Come along on the picture journey of meeting Mo Willems!
First, here’s something I wrote about him in an earlier Reading Journal entry, about an Elephant and Piggie book.
Ok. I think it’s pretty obvious what happened here. I love this author and I went into volunteer at the library and saw that all of these came back. Not for one second did I worry about taking these away from potential beginning readers. I returned them quickly anyway! I love Elephant and Piggie. And I got to meet the squirrels too. You’re probably thinking I have some kind of crush on Mo Willems books. Well, I do. They’re great. Plus, I’m getting really good at his kind of art, maybe because he purposely makes it so a five year old can draw his pictures. And that, of course, really works out in my favor.
So,
CLEARLY I was excited to meet him!
First up though, were some animated shorts based on his books.
I hustled into the auditorium at the Charles Schulz Museum and was in the second row, hence you feeling like you have to crane your neck to see the images.
(Just wanted you to feel like you were really there, you know?)
The animated shorts were great and featured an all star cast of voices, including Mo’s whole family (wife, Cher and daughter Trixie) in Knuffle Bunny, and Jon Scieszka as the bus driver in Pigeon!
We waited in our seats anxiously for one o’clock to roll around.
I spent the time organizing my crayons, drawing pictures on the backs of receipts, and drawing Mo’s name in my notebook. All preparations really.
and then…
HE CAME OUT!
HURRAY!
MO!
Right when he comes out he basically says,
Look, get your cameras out right now and I’m going to pose for a few pictures and then you put your cameras away.
That first shot is a posed one, along with the next two:
(p.s. I really respect him for doing this. It was much easier to relax and have a good time and not try to document every little thing he did. Way to go Mo!)
Mo’s posing with “I broke my trunk” like he is actually reading it. During the presentation, he did read it. The little boy sitting in front of me actually lent him the copy, so HIS book was read by Mo Willems! He was SO EXCITED! Very cute indeed. His family also got to go up to the front of the signing line. Very practical indeed.
Mo did great voices for Gerald (and later Piggie!) when they had nose problems!
Since we were at the Charles Schulz museum, Mo talked a little bit about him. He said, at age 5, that he wrote a letter to Charles Schulz that asked the simple question:
“Can I have your job when you’re dead?”
His father never sent the letter, but Mo always loved Sparky. When he came out to the museum a few years ago for his first visit, he got an actual strip and a pen nib. He then used this pen nib to draw the pictures for “Naked Mole Rat gets dressed.”
AWESOME!
Then he opened it up to a few questions.
I loved that he reminded the kids:
“Questions are things you do not know. ‘I have a pony’ is not a question.”
and then added:
“I promise you, you can ask me anything you want, and I will answer anything that I want.”
Kids asked about the pigeon.
Why the pigeon?
Mo said it was simple. He liked drawing him and it was a character that no one else had really used before, so why not?
Another kid asked why he wrote books:
There were a few more questions that I can’t remember now….
He mentioned Elephant and Piggie books…
“They are easy readers and hard writers.”
He talked about cartooning and said this:
Next we went on to learn how to draw pigeon. Mo walked us through it, with sound effects, ending with his favorite: “Va-Va- Voom!” (drawing three v’s while we were at it!)
Here’s Mo’s:
And here’s mine:
I love his invention of the “circ-angle.” Here’s how he described it:
“A circ-angle is a circle that halfway through its life had an identity crisis and decided to be a triangle.”
The circ-angle is the shape of the pigeon’s body (go ahead, go back and look at it!)
Next up it was autograph time!
Since I was in the front of the auditorium, I ended up being at the end of the signing line.
No worries though; I had to write all the names of the people who the books were doing to on sticky notes anyway, and that took a while!
Though most of the books were going to me!
When I arrived at the museum, all they had was
“Should I share my ice cream?”
so I bought four copies, three for babies that I know.
But then this lady came in with more books of his, so I stuck around to see what they were. We couldn’t buy them until they were entered into the system. I say we, because this guy who flew all the way from GERMANY to see Mo, was there one step ahead of me and bought up a bunch of them.
He WAS NOT messing around!
I talked to Mo’s wife in line and learned about flapping, or how to stack the books so they are ready to go and get signed and Mo can spend more time talking!
I loved that idea, of course!
He asked me who the kids were (I don’t want to disclose their names, it’s a surprise for them!) and then I talked to him about the conference. I mentioned hearing his agent speak about how long it took to sell “Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus.”
He said all the editors said the same thing, it was interesting but unusual. The 28th one took it! I told him about my book journal too, and showed him a few illustrations of his books.
When I said I was going to be an author, he corrected me and said I was an unpublished author, which is true.
I like one line he said about you really having to be passionate to survive in the field. He said it’s better to be passionate and unpublished than published and not passionate! I agree with that wholeheartedly!
As I took the last of my books, he wished me luck and said,
“See you at the conferences!”
What a great day!
Meeting Mo Stats:
- 5 hours in a car to drive there and back.
- 10 books signed:
Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus!
Knuffle Bunny: A cautionary tale.
I am going!
Pigs make me sneeze!
I broke my trunk!
We are in a book!
Should I share my ice cream? (4 copies signed) - 6 of those books signed to me!
- 3 short films watched
- 1 pigeon drawn
- 1 great conversation with MO!
I hope to get to meet a lot more!
Kind of random, but I LOVE IT!
Look for a post detailing my fun times at the museum in an upcoming artist’s date post!
Until then,
Kathy Ellen
