Road Trip! A Whiskers Hollow Adventure:
A Q&A with Steve Light
February 23rd, 2021 by jules
Get out your fountain pens! Steve Light is here.
Pictured above is an early character sketch from Steve Light’s Road Trip! A Whiskers Hollow Adventure (Candlewick, February 2021). This is a picture book with its own delightfully distinct world, one that Steve had fun building and tells me about below in our art-filled chat today. It’s a wooded world we enter, with animals zipping around in tiny cars on interconnected tree branches (there’s even an acorn car); characters with intricate homes in the trunks of trees; a heading dose of mud; and good friends. Oh, and there are endpapers that feature maps so that little hands can orient themselves — and, as Steve discusses below, even create their own imaginary adventures with locations not in this story.
What drives the story? (Bad pun intended.) Bear’s old truck needs a new headlight. Cue an adventurous road trip through tree branches with Rabbit, Mouse, and Donkey. It takes a minute for Bear to convince them: Rabbit isn’t so sure, because it’s almost lunchtime, and Mouse frets about all the things that could go wrong on their way to locate a headlight. But Donkey enthusiastically leads the way, because “Donkey loved junk.” When they arrive at Elephant’s Old Junk Tree, you can expect to linger for a while on the deliciously detailed spread with “old car parts and lots of rusty treasures … tires, tricycles, a guitar with broken strings, a motorcycle, and lots of wrenches. Even hubcaps!”
If you read reviews of this one, you’ll see that Light’s illustrations here are being compared to Albrecht Dürer, Arthur Geisert, Richard Scarry, and (generally speaking) artists of the mid-twentieth century. In our chat below, you will read that Steve did find inspiration from the line work of legendary artists before making this one. Let’s get to it, and I thank him for visiting to talk about this beautifully rendered, thoroughly entertaining tale.
Jules: Hi, Steve! So good to chat with you about your new picture book. I remember that, back in 2019 when we chatted at Kirkus, you said this book was in its eighteenth draft! Did you stop at 18, or were there even more?
Steve: Twenty-three versions in total! Long road — but ecstatic about the end result. I’m blessed to have Joan Powers and Maryellen Hanley at Candlewick take so much time with me.
Jules: Tell me about developing these characters and this world.
Steve: I set out to write a book that would help introduce empathy to young children. I thought how a hundred people could experience the same event but come away from it with very different feelings about what had happened. If we can get children to think of other people’s feelings, then we can grow to be a better society.
I knew I wanted to use animal characters so that any kid could identify with any or all of the characters. The book also does not use any pronouns, so any person, no matter what gender identity, can relate to the characters in the book.
I wanted the characters to all experience the same event or events, so my first thought was to have them ride a ferry boat.
As I was creating this world, Whiskers Hollow, I started to draw the characters in their cars driving to the ferry boat.
I remembered, as a kid, watching the squirrels use the branches as their own little highway, so I started drawing the cars driving in the trees. Well, this was much more fun than being trapped on a ferry boat for a whole book, so they went on a road trip instead.
I created so much of this world — from the giant acorns and the Acorn Relocation Service (or ARS) to Elephant’s Junk Tree and the fallen haunted log — that I put some things that are not in the book in the map endpapers. I hope kids will see other things in Whiskers Hollow that are not in this book and make their own stories, and I hope I will get to explore other stories with these characters in future books.
I have fallen in love with my Whiskers Hollow friends — Bear, who is adventurous and kind …
… Rabbit, who is always hungry and cranky but fun …
… Mouse, who gets scared but loves skipping …
“Bear and Rabbit arrived at Mouse’s house. ‘Mouse, let’s go!’ called Bear.
‘Road trip! I need a new light for my old truck, and I need you to help me find one.'”
(Click spread to enlarge and read text in its entirety)
… and Donkey, who sees the potential in everything, especially hubcaps.
Whiskers Hollow is a wonderful place, where friends care for each other. I’m so proud of this book and the world I have created.
Jules: I’m glad you mentioned these endpapers. I love them and imagine children running their fingers (or toy vehicles) over them. As a kid, I used to be fascinated with that kind of thing. I’d run toy cars over patterns on carpets. Were they as much fun to draw as it appears they were?
Steve: Oh, yes! Everything about this book was a joy to draw — the vehicles, the trees, and the characters. I loved designing the homes for each character and, besides my deep love for maps, I also love x-ray drawings. So, seeing inside their homes and thinking about the things they have was a joy.
The secondary characters also gave me joy — especially Elephant. He has a tow truck that I love, which played a bigger part in earlier versions of the book.
(Click spread to enlarge)
There is an acorn car and a leaf car on almost every page. They are driven by bugs. They are racing to see their family, who live in the tree stumps next to the mud puddle. Look for them!
The junk tree was close to my heart. I love old “rusty gold,” as Mike Wolf says on American Pickers, a show I watched a lot of during this book. There are a lot of treasures from that show hidden in the junk tree.
(Click spread to enlarge)
The map was the last thing I drew, although I was sketching and adding ideas throughout the whole process. Drawing that map was my reward for finishing the book. I got lost in there. There are many things on the map not in the story so that children can dream up stories of their own. I love Whiskers Hollow. I can’t wait to return.
Jules: What are some other ways in which the earlier versions of the manuscript differ from the published story?
Steve: There was less of an introduction to the world of Whiskers Hollow. They were all already on a road trip, as I said, but in separate vehicles. So, Bear hitting a giant acorn and then recruiting his friends on this adventure came at version nine or ten! Also, not finding the headlight at first but just enjoying being together came later. There was always mud! But in earlier versions their vehicles got stuck in the mud and they had to get towed out. Elephant was the tow truck driver. I still think he does that on the side — in addition to running his Old Junk Tree business.
Like I said earlier, though, they all had different personalities and were all feeling differently about the events taking place.
[Below are some images from an early dummy of Road Trip!]
Jules: How have you kept yourself inspired during this pandemic?
Steve: I have done two things during the pandemic.
I started to study — really looking at the great old illustrators and their pen and ink work. Franklin Booth, Arthur Rackham, Heath Robinson, and Walt Kelly. I would pull a book from my library, sit by the window, put on noise-canceling earphones with classical music, and really look at how each line was put down. I studied the architecture of the lines. It was a great escape.
I also built a bunch of random wood pieces — spools, wheels, spheres, etc. and started making robots. I imagined them protecting me. It was very relaxing to make my own robot army!
I have also been trying to eat right and take walks.
Jules: Are you planning any virtual school visits for this book?
Steve: I have some virtual book fair visits coming up. I have done some during all this. I even taught the Highlights Foundation Illustration Intensive over Zoom. These visits happen in my studio, so that actually works out well. Everything is right there, and they get a glimpse behind the curtain.
Jules: Thanks for the chat, Steve. May your robot army protect you and those you love.
ROAD TRIP! Copyright © 2021 by Steve Light. Final spreads in this post reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA. All other images reproduced by permission of Steve Light.
I love the inside look and details of the artist. I also LOVE this book. Such a delight to read to my girls.
So cool– thank you!