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When you’re super swamped and have your own writing deadlines and a whole host of other stuff to do, yet you see a picture book like Jim Averbeck’s<\/a><\/strong> Except If<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, released by Atheneum in January of this year, and you really<\/em> super bad want to feature the book, what do you do? Well, you could<\/em> email the author\/illustrator and tell him exactly how<\/em> super swamped you are but that you’d love for him to send an in-his-own-words type of feature about the book, along with some art, if he’s so inclined to oblige. So, that’s what I did in this instance. And when you give someone like Mr. Averbeck the freedom to just run with it? Well, you’re in for some fun. <\/p>\nYou see, Jim has this very<\/em> close friend. Her name is Jessica, and she’ll introduce herself in just a moment. Since I was so swamped when this book was first released (yes, this was over three months ago—and I’ve also been sitting on this post about a month now—so I’m happy to finally be bringing it to readers), Jim invited Jessica over to interview him in my stead. I was happy to turn the breakfast table over to her. As you can see below, she has a very festive scarf, for one, which I may beg to borrow. Also her full name is just a KICK to say. <\/p>\n If you haven’t seen Except If<\/em> yet, know that it’s been described as no less than a “short, sweet, philosophical speculation” (Publishers Weekly<\/em>), an “existential” and “deceptively simple yet delightful tale” (Kirkus<\/em>), and “contrarian” fun (Booklist<\/em>). The book starts with an egg, which is not what you think. It’s not a baby bird, you see, “but it will become one except if it becomes a baby snake.” Readers’ expectations continue to be overturned with successive page turns—and the repeated use of “except if”—in this puzzler of a book, less of a story than a “convergence of fanciful possibilities,” as School Library Journal<\/em> wrote. Just when readers think the story is going one way, Averbeck provides a narrative detour. Adds the PW<\/em> review, “{e}ven very young readers will find they’ve succeeded in following a rather convoluted piece of reasoning, clause by clause and picture by picture; it’s a book in which the action unfolds in the mind as much as it does on the page.” I don’t want to give it all away either and spoil your experience reading it, if you haven’t already, but let’s just say it ends as it started — with a pale blue egg and maybe, just maybe<\/em>, a baby bird. <\/p>\n Okay. Back to work. Jessica’s here to take over—she’s already brewed the coffee—and I thank her. And Jim. For running with it. No except-ifs about that one. <\/p>\n Guest Interviewer: Jessica Wiggebotham-Whyte, MLIS<\/em><\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n Jessica Wiggebotham-Whyte is an ardent admirer of children\u2019s literature. A recent(ish) graduate from the Grenada School of Information Sciences, she is currently shoring up the children\u2019s collection at the Emma Woodhouse School for Young Ladies in Austen, Texas. She is the author of Pulling Max\u2019s Tail: An Irreverent Look at Classic Picture Books<\/em> and Edgy-Schmedgy: A Compendium of Banned Books Every Teen Should Own<\/em>. She reads at home with her husband, Jeroboam, and their cat, Mick Jagger III.<\/p>\n Our guest for breakfast today: Jim Averbeck<\/a><\/strong> is the author of the critically-acclaimed Except If<\/em> and winner of a Charlotte Zolotow Honor for his first book, In a Blue Room<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. He lives in San Francisco with his partner and their dog. He can be found online at JimAverbeck.com<\/a><\/strong> and TheRevisionaries.com<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Jessica:<\/font><\/strong> Hello, dear readers. I\u2019m filling in today for Jules, and I\u2019m so fortunate to get to interview one of my favorite children\u2019s book authors, Jim Averbeck. Welcome, Jim.<\/font><\/p>\n Jim:<\/font><\/strong> Hi, Jessica. Nice to be here. <\/p>\n Jessica:<\/font><\/strong> My first-graders at EWSYL just love your book. What was the genesis of Except If<\/em>?<\/font><\/p>\n Jim:<\/font><\/strong> I\u2019m a member of a group of children\u2019s book writers called \u201cThe Revisionaries.\u201d We meet throughout the year to critique each other\u2019s work, striving to create new classics of children\u2019s literature. (Well, you gotta have high goals, right?) You\u2019ve probably heard that E.B. White said \u201cthe best writing is rewriting.\u201d That\u2019s why we named our group as we did, because we wanted to always have it in our minds that revision is where real writing takes place.<\/p>\n But for our holiday meeting in December, we all participate in \u201cThe Assignment.\u201d The idea is to put aside all revision and start something new. We come up with a vague theme or writing prompt, and everyone uses that as a springboard for a new story. The themes are sometimes a bit odd. Here are a few from the past:<\/p>\n In December 2008, I sat down a day before the holiday meeting. The assignment was \u201cBaby Book,\u201d which meant it could be a story for babies or about babies or about something baby-like or about a book that was a baby, etc. Of course, I didn\u2019t want to just write a book with a baby as the main character. Too predictable. So, I sat down and thought, \u201cwhat is like a baby, but not?\u201d My answer was \u201can egg.\u201d I said to myself, \u201can egg is not a baby bird.\u201d Immediately after, it occurred to me that that statement sounded a bit like a pro-choice slogan, and I wondered what the pro-life response would be. \u201cBut it will become one\u201d sprang to my mind. And there I had the first two lines of my story. <\/p>\n But an egg becoming a bird seemed a bit expected, so I asked myself what I could do that would be unexpected. I sketched the egg and stared at it for a while, and I remembered finding the remains of box turtle eggs when I was a kid. What if the egg hatched something else? This opened a lot of possibilities -\u2013 snakes, lizards, turtles, etc. So, I repeated the first two lines and tried to figure how to get to snakes.<\/p>\n An egg is not a baby bird, but it will become one _____ a baby snake.<\/p>\n The obvious fill-in-the-blank was \u201cexcept if it becomes\u201d a baby snake. And I knew that the words \u201cexcept if\u201d could come before the page turn and be used throughout the book as a cue to kids that a surprise would arrive on the next page. As it ends up, I\u2019ve had many positive reviews that mention the strong central concept of the book is great for classroom activities around challenging assumptions and using your imagination. <\/p>\n Jessica:<\/font><\/strong> Except If<\/em> is one, in fact, one long run-on sentence. That was a grammatically daring choice. Why did you make it?<\/font><\/p>\n Jim:<\/font><\/strong> I thought about how conversations with young children often go. They hitch one thought on the back of another unendingly, like a train with no caboose. I wanted to capture that sort of mental process. So, I decided to see if I could make a story out of one long run-on sentence with a surprise after each turn of the page — and the words \u201cexcept if\u201d connecting the whole thing together. Of course, I had to create a caboose, because a picture book has a finite number of pages. I thought about a lecture I once heard by Richard Peck<\/a><\/strong>, where he stated \u201cthe beginning is the end in disguise\u201d and the lectures I myself had given on circular story structure. It seemed to me that a circular ending was perfect if I was trying to imitate a child\u2019s thought patterns, because a circle gives closure but also implies a sort of infinite loop. So, now I had the beginning of my story, the end, and concept of how to get from here to there. <\/p>\n Jessica:<\/font><\/strong> My own scholarly volumes took several years each to write. It made me wonder, how long does it take to write a one-sentence picture book?<\/font><\/p>\n Jim:<\/font><\/strong> Often months and months. In this case, I had about two hours to write it, because The Revisionaries were meeting the next day. So, I wrote and, because the story depends so much on visual transitions and surprises, I sketched out some very quick drawings on my computer. Because I was working so fast, the sketches had a very child-like quality.<\/p>\n The next day, I showed it to my critique group and, for only the second time in their ten-year history, the group said \u201csubmit it, don\u2019t change a thing.\u201d I did, in fact, spend a couple of weeks revising and polishing it before I sent it in, but Except If<\/em> was conceived at the end of December 2008, submitted in January 2009, acquired in a two-book deal in February 2009, and published in January 2011. So, a little over two years from idea to bookstore. That\u2019s sort of a minor miracle in the picture book world.<\/p>\n That year\u2019s \u201cassignment\u201d was a good one for The Revisionaries. Four of the six of us sold the books we wrote for it. And I wouldn\u2019t doubt that the other two might as well.<\/p>\n Jessica:<\/font><\/strong> The editor on my current tome keeps changing the title. What were some of the changes you made?<\/font><\/p>\n Jim:<\/font><\/strong> Originally, the lizard grew into a dinosaur who stood taller than the trees, but then the \u201ctrees\u201d were just twigs on the end of a branch, and the dino was just a lizard after all. The issue with this was that it required the narrative to go backwards a bit. Essentially, I lied and broke trust with the reader by saying the lizard was a dino — and then saying it wasn\u2019t. <\/p>\n Then for a while the lizard grew into an alligator, who drifted in the water, but then was actually a branch drifting in the water, which then was actually attached to a tree. Developmentally, picture-book-age children tend to have a pretty linear viewpoint of things, and this solution was even more non-linear than the lizard-dino-lizard narrative. Eventually, I hit on the fossil solution you see in the finished book. All this was done before submission. The text I submitted remained pretty much unchanged.<\/p>\n The illustrations, however, did change quite a bit. Originally, the story had a \u201ccolor concept book\u201d aspect to it. As each thing was revealed, it had a different color from the thing before it. So, a blue egg hatched a red snake, who ended up being a purple lizard with a red head, who was taller than the green trees, etc. The \u201cexcept if\u201d page of each spread was a solid block of the new color. But in the end, the editor, art director, and I decided the color concept was a distraction from the strong central idea of challenging assumptions. And I added a ground line that broke the color blocks in an odd way. So, we dropped the whole color concept aspect. <\/p>\n See how adding the ground line makes the color block confusing. Is the ground red or white? It didn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n I liked the scratchy, child-like quality of the line from my quick sketches. So, I tried to retain that as I refined the images. But it is very difficult to draw like a child. My style up to this point was a bit more sophisticated.<\/p>\n To achieve the child-like quality I wanted, I printed—in blue—many copies of the image on textured paper. Then I traced it over and over as quickly as possible with a black oil pastel (essentially, a fancy version of a child\u2019s favorite art tool \u2013 the crayon.) Then I chose the drawing that had that loose sketchy quality I wanted and scanned it into the computer. Deleting the blue-lined guide left me with a black outline. These I printed on watercolor paper and painted with watercolors.<\/p>\n Jessica:<\/font><\/strong> You said this was part of a two-book deal. What can you tell us (or show us) about the second book?<\/font><\/p>\n Jim:<\/font><\/strong> When the deal was struck, I had no idea what the second book would be. I had planned a trip to China — to study Chinese art and research pandas for another book I am writing. Our guide in Beijing told us his name was \u201cFrank.\u201d When I asked him for his Chinese name, he said \u201cXiao Loong\u201d which means \u201cLittle Dragon.\u201d I thought, Little Dragon? That is a picture book character for sure!<\/em> I spent a lot of time on that trip writing the story that became the second book, currently titled Oh No, Little Dragon!<\/em> It\u2019s about a flame-proud dragon who takes a bath and puts out his fire. Here are a couple of images:<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/triptycha.jpg\")
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Author\/Illustrator Jim Averbeck<\/em><\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/revisionaries-jessica.jpg\")
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a novel serialized in newspapers and online<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/sketch-blue-black-finish1.jpg\")
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