Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

What I’m Doing at Kirkus This Week,
Plus What I Did Last Week,
Featuring Rilla Alexander and Bob Staake

July 4th, 2014 by jules

Back cover character sketches from Bob Staake’s My Pet Book

“Read along. Read out loud.”
— From Rilla Alexander’s The Best Book in the World
(Click to enlarge)

This morning over at Kirkus, since women’s rights (given the news this week) are heavy on my mind, I write about Amrita Das’ Hope is a Girl Selling Fruit, an April release from India’s Tara Books. That link is here.

* * *

Last week, I wrote (here) about Rilla Alexander’s The Best Book in the World! (Flying Eye Books, July 2014) and Bob Staake’s My Pet Book (Random House, July 2014). Now, that column also included Jen Bryant’s The Right Word: Roget and his Thesaurus, illustrated by Melissa Sweet and coming to bookshelves in September from Eerdmans, but I will have some images (preliminary images, final art, and some words from Melissa) next week.

Today, I have some art from Rilla’s and Bob’s books — and Bob shares some early sketches as well.

Enjoy!

From Bob Staake’s My Pet Book
(Random House, July 2014):
Early Pencil Work and Some Final Art

Alternate cover sketch

Alternate cover sketch: Splitting pet traffic
(Click to enlarge)

Another alternate cover sketch

Alternate cover sketch,
based on the Eldredge Library in Chatham, Massachusetts

The cover sketch Random House ultimately chose

Final revised cover sketch

Final dustjacket
(Click to enlarge)

Manuscript with syllable cadence notes

Pencil studies for the boy and the maid

Opening spread pencil sketch with typography notes
(Click to enlarge)

Final spread (though the text is different)
(Click to enlarge)

Black and white ink art for “Loyal Neighborhood Bookopolis” sign

Final spread, though the text is different
(Click either image to see spread in its entirety)

Final spread
(Click to enlarge)

Final spread, though the text is slightly different
(Click to enlarge)

Bob: “This is the ‘awesomeness and glory’ sketch. If you look closely, you can see that I erased the boy sawing off the octopus’ tentacle and
instead showed him tying two of them in a bow.”
(Click to enlarge)