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Once upon a time, in reviewing author\/illustrator Chris Raschka’s 2001 picture book title, Waffle<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, Publishers Weekly<\/em> wrote that Raschka “captures the essence of a mood with the merest hint of text and the briefest of brush strokes.” This is one reason I’m such a fan of his work: His minimalist approach, that ability to say so much with one wild, graceful squiggle here and one loose dab of line there and unbridled, vigorous sweeps of color all over, all which add up to Raschka’s inimitable quirky style. “Quirky,” to be sure, gets over-used in the world of children’s lit and risks making the artist sound too precious, but Raschka’s quirky is far<\/em> from precious or darling. His impressionistic style is unfettered (without overpowering the text, mind you) and leaps off the page with an infectious energy, affection, humor, and—most importantly—what comes across as a keen respect for the child reader. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n He’s also been no stranger to controversy, or—as Publishers Weekly<\/em> put it in their review of his 1998 picture book title, Arlene Sardine<\/em><\/strong><\/a>— “Raschka is at it again, setting picture-book precedent…” (I like that better.) Chris got it on all sides for his picture book which follows a sardine and her short life (which, yes, ends in a can), and particularly for the line, “{h}ere, on the deck of the fishing boat, Arlene died.” But shoot, y’all. You know how I feel<\/strong><\/a> about books like this — and the fuss made over them. ‘Nuf said on that. <\/p>\n Since I’ve been a fan for many years, I thank Chris—who makes his home in New York—for cyber-hopping over to 7-Imp and taking the time to do this interview with me. I found it very fitting that someone I consider to be such a clear-eyed visual artist answered some of these questions, particularly toward the interview’s end, with images. Let’s get right to it . . . <\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: You have illustrated for various age ranges (picture books; novels, such as Sharon Creech\u2019s<\/strong><\/a>; and poetry anthologies). Can you briefly discuss the differences, if any, in illustrating for one age group to another?<\/font><\/p>\n Chris<\/font><\/strong>: I\u2019m not sure how to answer, because—while some of my work has clearly been for older readers, as in the Sharon Creech<\/strong><\/a> work—other work has started out to be for one age group and wound up being embraced by another. I\u2019m thinking especially of my music books. For instance, I wrote Charlie Parker played be bop<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, thinking of nine-year-olds, and it has turned out to be more popular with two-year-olds. Or the other way, the biggest fans of Moosey Moose<\/strong><\/a><\/em> and Sluggy Slug<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, written for two-year-olds and three-year-olds, have since been embraced by some college juniors and seniors.<\/p>\n What have I learned from this? Well, let\u2019s say that I try to paint in a manner primarily derived from the essence of the book as a whole, whatever that might mean to me. Somehow, the book itself will dictate the style. Who reads it afterwards is perhaps another question.<\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: Do you find it more or less freeing to illustrate another person\u2019s text, compared to the titles you\u2019ve authored and illustrated yourself?<\/font><\/p>\n {Pictured here is the cover for Chris’ <\/em>Mysterious Thelonius<\/strong><\/a>, published by Orchard Books, 1997.}<\/em><\/p>\n This past Monday I delivered a complete set of final art for a new book. Ann, my art director, liked it very much. On Tuesday, I had second thoughts. On Tuesday afternoon, I saw Ann again, and when I said I wanted to do the whole thing over, she said “whatever” or words to that effect. Two hours ago, I cut all the paper to begin once more.<\/p>\n Four weeks later, and I\u2019ve finished the book for a second time, so I can sit down to finish this answer.<\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: It seems that all my very favorite children\u2019s book illustrators, when asked who they have in mind when creating books, respond that they are not necessarily making the books with a child audience in mind. You have said your audience is children but that you consider them to be very much the same as adults. Has this always been the case when it comes to your perspective on your “audience,” or is that something you grew into as an illustrator as your work has evolved?<\/font><\/p>\n Chris<\/font><\/strong>: It is certainly something I\u2019ve grown into (as is everything else involved in book-making). When I first entertained the notion of making books for children, I volunteered once a week at the American Museum of Natural History here in New York as an educator. I soon learned that the best way to engage my audience was to tailor the questions carefully — as in, when speaking to kindergartners standing before the grouping of African elephants, to ask\u2014Are these animals in front of you big or little?<\/em><\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: I hate to ask about “inspiration,” since you probably get asked that a lot, but I\u2019m going to anyway: Are there specific experiences that formed the basis of your artistic vision? Do you, say, remember childhood vividly, and does that inform your work? Does your love of—and experience with—music, very evident in many of your titles, inform your vision as well?<\/font><\/p>\n {Pictured below is the cover for <\/em>Violet and Winston<\/strong><\/a> by Sonya Sones<\/strong><\/a> and Bennett Tramer, published by Dial Books in 2009.}<\/em><\/center> <\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: On a related note, your art work has a very distinct rhythm, if you will, to it (depending on the title, but I think that overall you have a sort of signature organic rhythm, if that makes any sense). This might seem like a silly question, but I\u2019m curious to know if you listen to music while you work.<\/font><\/p>\n Chris<\/font><\/strong>: Another good question, because in the first (which was really about the fourth) rendition of Little Black Crow<\/em>, I worked in a quiet studio—the radio was off—in an attempt at better concentration. My concentration proved to be good, but perhaps too good, in that I had trouble turning off my critical mind, i.e. as soon as the work was complete on a given day, I thought it was awful. Turning the music back on perhaps allowed me to go with flow of the day, at the end of which I can just shrug and say to myself that it\u2019s what happened to happen today, we\u2019ll see if we like it tomorrow. Without the music, I found I was too present. I still aspire to working without music, and I hope I can get comfortable enough with myself that someday I\u2019ll manage it. <\/p>\n What kind of music? I do not listen to what we like to call classical music\u2014though this is the music in which I have the most training and feel very close to\u2014because I find it demands too much of my critical attention. I listen to, broadly speaking, popular music\u2014Sun Ra<\/strong><\/a>, for instance, The Lucksmiths<\/strong><\/a>, Biz Markie<\/strong><\/a>, Kirsty MacColl<\/strong><\/a>, No\u00ebl Coward<\/strong><\/a>, Television<\/strong><\/a>, Drink Me<\/strong><\/a>, Charlie Parker<\/strong><\/a>, and WFMU<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: Can you tell me briefly about your road to publication?<\/font> <\/p>\n Chris<\/font><\/strong>: I published my first book with a small publisher, Brethren Press, a small book about the Russian and English alphabets and peace; moved to New York; started to experiment with other ideas, which I showed to a couple of editors here; and then had the good fortune of having a friend say to me that I should send my book dummy (Charlie Parker played be bop<\/strong><\/a><\/em>) to Richard Jackson, because he seemed to like weird books. As it turned out, he does like weird books and published Charlie Parker played be bop<\/em>, my first for a major publisher, and is publishing my latest, Little Black Crow<\/em>.<\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: What exactly is your process when you are illustrating a book? You can start wherever you\u2019d like when answering: getting initial ideas, starting to illustrate, or even what it\u2019s like under deadline, etc. Do you outline a great deal of the book before you illustrate or just let your muse lead you on and see where you end up?<\/font><\/p>\n Chris<\/font><\/strong>: I get that funny feeling in my stomach, I write down the idea, and then I make many book dummies of the book itself. I consider the book to be the form, if you will—not the pictures, not the words, but the book itself—so I really need to feel it and see it, because this will impinge on the words, which will impinge on the pictures, and vice versa. When I work on either of these two elements in isolation, I tend to get into trouble. Even if the text will ultimately be set—that is, typeset as opposed to hand-drawn—I need to feel it on the page before I can paint adequately. And even then it often goes kabloowy.<\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: I think this question is rather related to process: I am always so impressed by how you can take a simple, economical line or dab of color or basic geometrical form and convey such emotion, energy, and spontaneity. Does this dynamic come easy to you, or do your compositions, by chance, start out more cluttered and you have to reign yourself in from keeping things too crowded and deliberate?<\/font><\/p>\n Chris<\/font><\/strong>: {Ed. Note: Chris is using the following images to answer these “questions of abstraction.” The art—from first sketches to final art—is from <\/em>Happy to Be Nappy<\/strong><\/a> by Bell Hooks, Hyperion, 1999. Click each image to enlarge}:<\/em><\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: Do you have a favorite medium in which to work?<\/font><\/p>\n Chris<\/font><\/strong>:<\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: Describe your studio or usual work space for us.<\/font><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/9780531054697.jpg\")
Raschka—not only a writer and artist, but also a musician—has written and\/or illustrated more that forty-five books for children. He received the 2006 Caldecott Medal<\/strong><\/a> for Norton Juster’s<\/strong><\/a> The Hello, Goodbye Window<\/strong><\/a><\/em> (Hyperion); a Caldecott Honor in 1994<\/strong><\/a> for his Yo! Yes?<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (Scholastic), an exploration of friendship in just thirty-four words through the “bold, original use of line and angle, color and space” (as determined by the Association for Library Service to Children); the UNICEF-Ezra Jack Keats Award<\/strong><\/a><\/em>; a handful of New York Times<\/em> Best Illustrated Book of the Year accolades; and much more. <\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/arlene.jpg\")
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published by Joanna Cotler Books, 2003.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/bebopcover.jpg\")
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published by Orchard Books, 1992.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/rpoke.jpg\")
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A Collection of Concrete Poems<\/strong><\/a>, published by Candlewick, 2001.
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An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms<\/strong><\/a>, published by Candlewick, 2005.
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Chris<\/font><\/strong>: The quick answer is that I have just as much trouble with my own texts as with anyone else\u2019s. Which means my various editors have always given me as much freedom as I\u2019ve asked for. There will always be details that will provoke comment, but overall, whether it\u2019s my work or another\u2019s, at the beginning I always do what I want. That said, in nearly every case I tend to do whole-scale revisions. <\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/wales.jpg\")
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(Click each illustration to enlarge and see the complete spread, along with poems.)<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/violetwinston.jpg\")
Chris<\/font><\/strong>: Inspiration comes to me in many forms. Physically, I get a little sick to my stomach, and then I think, I need this book, that is, I need to make this book<\/em>, and when, as was recently the case, it\u2019s a book about the jazz musician Sun Ra<\/strong><\/a>, then I know I\u2019m in trouble, because—after having dedicated a month or two of happy work on a hand-made vision of this book—I will discover that no one in their right publishing minds will care to publish a book about Sun Ra. In another instance, I was sightseeing in the Church of San Giovanni in Lateran<\/strong><\/a> and marveling at the glorious art which surrounded me, and I got that queasy feeling, and I thought, I want a book about how to read a church — with useful tips on how to spot saints.<\/em> You should see the cross-eyed looks this book has evoked in my editors. The book is done. It just probably will never see the light of day. The book I mentioned earlier, Little Black Crow<\/em>, on the other hand, came to me in much the same way. It\u2019s about a little crow and my own wondering about where it has gone. I got that feeling, wrote a little text, drew some pictures over and over, and now—I think—it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/hellogoodbye.jpg\")
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the 2006 Caldecott Medal Winner<\/strong><\/a>, published by Hyperion, 2005.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/grasshopperant.jpg\")
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I Pledge Allegiance<\/strong><\/a>, published by Candlewick, 2002.
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clicked to enlarge.}<\/strong><\/em><\/font><\/center><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/raschkamedium2.jpg\")
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