No story today because I’ve got a long one about meeting Molly Idle!
But first, the book!
Title: Flora and the Penguin
Published by: Chronicle Books, 2014
Written by: Molly Idle
Illustrated by: Molly Idle
Word count: zero (wordless)
Pages: 40
In one word: Getting-along
In one sentence: Flora is skating with a penguin when all of a sudden…he disappears!
Favorite Pages:
Likes:
Love the blue in this one. It’s calm and beautiful and striking!
Great action with the flaps being printed on both sides! You can spend a few minutes on a page, playing with them.
Again, love the facial expressions.
I like how hard you have to look to see the little fish too.
Another sweet friendship story!
Learns:
Readers love characters and like to see second and third adventures with them (read on to learn about the third Flora book that Molly’s working on!)
Again, cool formatting things can really make the book. This one’s lends to the skating action, which is so fun!
I got to see Molly Idle at Hicklebee’s on October 5th talk about Flora and the Penguin.
What was really fun was meeting up with some Santa Cruz friends there.
Hicklebee’s is a good 45 minutes away, sometimes an hour if traffic is bad.
My friends have kids and have also heard me talking about this store ALL THE TIME
and I’ve been bugging them to come visit it!
It was so cool to hear an author illustrator talk with my friends by my side!
Molly used to work in animation, because she loved the idea of making stories through drawings.
“When you animate, you flip through drawings,” she said,
and it’s clear to see how she brought this idea of animation back in her Flora books.
Flora and the Flamingo has images printed on the flaps, and another image underneath the flap, with the flaps opening in an up/down fashion. For Flora and the Penguin, they’re ice skating, which is more back and forth, NOT up and down.
“What if we printed on the flaps?”
was the question that helped them get the book to where it is today.
The idea for Flora and the Penguin came when the final art for Flora and the Flamingo was handed in. The art director mentioned that the look of the water reminded her of the sheen of ice.
“Well, if they’re on ice it would have to be a penguin,” Molly said, and the idea was born! Originally it was going to be a boy and a penguin, but over time they decided it would be fun to see more of Flora. They wanted to see how the first book went before doing a second one, and we all know now the first was a huge success!
There are plans for a third book in the series too, Flora and the Peacocks!
On learning to draw:
“I love the books by Lee J. Ames….Draw 50. They work with simple shapes, and it makes drawing bite sized and easier. This is still the way I work today. I build up simple shapes, connect them, and add shading.”
On wordless books:
“They can be an entirely different story to everybody. The end is the same, but it’s up to you how you get there…you have a stake in the story and you get to take part.”
On rejection:
“You’ll get rejected more than you’ll hear yes. You have more resolve with each NO!”
She shared a few stories…she send over 100 query letters for her first book and got rejected by all but one (“You only need one!”), some publishers said flat out that Flora and the Flamingo was not a book for them or too big of a risk, and she and her husband had fun with receiving rejections in the mail by rejecting rejections: burning them, marking them up, or writing a rejection letter for the rejection letter.
On working in animation and transitioning to picture books:
“I worked as a fine line animator,” she said, and then explained it to us. Basically, you need 24 drawings per second per film character. She said an animator does the guideline, like what the 1st, 12th, and 24th sketch should look like, and then they would fill the drawings in between.
“I love to make flip books,” she said,” because I love to see my drawings move.”
When she moved into wanting to illustrate picture books, she read a TON and figured out what worked and why and how. “I knew how to draw,” she said, “but not how to utilize the picture book format!”
On starting out, getting an agent, all that jazz:
She had no agent at the start of her illustration career, and did a few small books with a small publisher. “Then I wanted an agent,” she said, “and joined SCBWI.”
She attended the NY conference after winning a portfolio award, and was approached by established agents asking if she had representation. An Art Director she met emailed her agents she knew that worked primarily with author/illustrators.
“All I wanted to do was simply illustrate books,” she said. “It took a while to understand the medium, and then I kept hearing the same things: ‘This work is great, but this style is just not good for books.’ I started writing to have something to pair with my art. They said they didn’t know what stories they’d pair me with, so I made work for myself!”
On the author/illustrator collaboration:
“We want to show all we can do,” she said, then talked about Tomie DePaola who says “Don’t show off if you don’t need to.” Ask yourself, “What part of the book needs to shine at this time…the illustrations or the text?”
“I have so much respect for writers who leave room for illustrators,” she said, adding that they makes you come off smart and having no ego. “It’s SUCH a gift when we’re (illustrators) given that.”
She also did two drawings during the presentation,
one of the Flamingo that she built up with simple shapes,
and another that started with a chair,
then there was a mouse, and some cheese,
and a cat!
She got the audience involved; kids were shouting out what they thought should go in the picture next. I really like how she drew so slow and explained to them what she was doing, and asked them what they saw, things like, “What shape comes next?” or “What does that part look like?” I bet a lot of kids went away from the presentation being inspired to draw!
I talked to her a little bit in the signing line about my book coming out,
and she had nothing but AMAZING things to say about Chronicle.
It was such a fun day!
Whew!
What did you read today?
See you tomorrow,
KE
Thanks for sharing this event. I managed to get a signed copy, but couldn’t make it to the signing.