Visual Storytelling Meets the Wet Side of Pet Ownership: A Walkies Interview with Estrela Lourenço

STOP!

Before we go any further today, I need you to look at a picture book cover. This one, in fact:

Is not that grand?

Is not that glorious?

Can you not just FEEL the misery emanating off of this child? It’s just as palpable as the joy radiating from the nearby dog.

It seems to me that if a picture book author/illustrator is capable of accurately depicting such conflicting emotions on a single cover, then the book itself must be worth exploring. So imagine my delight when I found that not only did the book live up to its own cover but that the whole thing was wordless to boot. I LOVE wordless titles!

Here’s the plot description of Walkies for the curious amongst you:

On a gloomy, dripping, rain-boots-required kind of day, Kid is ready to stay inside, warm and dry, and play video games. But to Dog, Kid’s arrival home means only one thing: it’s time for WALKIES!

Outside, rain means puddles to splash in, mud to splock in! Tiny ears perked up, tail a-waggling with joy, Dog bounds through the park, Kid in tow. Playful action sequences, bold facial expressions, and vivid illustrations all drive this wordless tale, transforming a dreary afternoon into a boisterous adventure.

While at first doubtful about the experience, Kid’s attitude brightens, buoyed by Dog’s playful antics and the surprises and wonder to be found outdoors. Before long, thanks to Dog’s positive energy, Kid doesn’t think it’s such a bad day after all. In fact, it might just be the best!

Filled with adorable, exuberant scenes any dog owner knows well, this playful romp is sure to brighten the day of many a young reader, pet owner and non-pet owner alike.

I am that kid. You are that kid. We. Are. That. Kid.

I had a chance to talk to Irish-by-way-of-Portugal Estrela Lourenço about the book, and by gum I took that chance:

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Betsy Bird: Estrela! Thank you so much for answering my questions today! Just to kick us all off, tell us a little bit about where WALKIES came from. It’s so realistic, do you have a dog of your own?

Estrela Lourenço: Hi Betsy, I’m such a big fan of yours that it is a pleasure to answer any of your questions about “Walkies”, thank you so much! I had dogs all my life growing up and this story, in particular, is inspired by my walks with Chewie, our seven year old Smooth Collie. I always feel like I truly need at least one walk a day with him to feel like myself (we usually do two in different locations around our house). One day in particular I was feeling a bit down and overwhelmed (and I can’t remember exactly why), so I went for my lunch walk with Chewie in the local park as we always do. As I was walking and stopping for him to sniff the trees,splash in the mud or look at the view, etc, I started to slow down and be more present in the moment – I realized that these walks are a moment of mindfulness that I practice every day and I’m very thankful for that. When I came home, whatever was pushing my mood down, dissipated and I felt so much better!

BB: Wordless picture books (also called “silent books”) take a slightly different set of muscles than picture books filled with text. What’s your process when you create one? Do you write out the story? Do you make the pictures first and let them take the lead? How does it all come together?

Estrela: Because English is not my first language and I’m mainly working for the US kidlit publishing market, I really struggled to write text that didn’t feel to me as if it was written by a small child. Feelings and thoughts just don’t come to my head the same way Portuguese does. I also come from the Animation Industry where I worked for about 14 years as an animator, episodic director and storyboard artist. In the many animation festivals we frequented, I got very used to watching short films with no dialogue (sometimes because of a tight budget that does not allow the production to hire voice actors, and sometimes, just because it is an art form in itself). I realized, even though I want to continue studying to become a better writer, I’m first a visual storyteller, and I feel much more at home when visualizing stories with no dialogue that can stand on their two feet with no text. My agent, James McGowan, really liked the idea and the challenge so I set myself to start making “Walkies” almost completely wordless.

I discussed with James all the story beats first and we agreed on the story arc for the main character. After I knew which direction I wanted the story to go, I wrote down the story beats as bullet points on a page and stuck them to my wall to start drawing. I used my Ipad with the formatted 32 page setup (the book ended up having 40 pages when bought by PageStreet, which I’m so thankful for) and started “writing” in my favorite format – thumbnail pictures! I was always trying to make sure there was a variety in page layouts, that I was not going too long or too short for each story beat to happen and that my story pacing was working well for a picture book.

BB: Looking at the cover of this book, you might think that your sympathy would be entirely with the kid. But the book almost switches back and forth, making you see things from the dog’s point of view, then the kid’s, then the dog’s, and so forth. Was that how you envisioned the book from the start?

Estrela: You are so right, I didn’t envision it going that way ! I first thought it would be mainly from the kid’s point of view, but I like feeling empathy for both characters and to understand why walks are so beneficial to both the dog and their human.

BB: Was there anything you tried while making this book that didn’t make it into the final version?

Estrela: There was one thing I wanted to do but ended up being changed, and that was a moment after both characters get tangled by the dog leash almost at the end (mirroring when they first get tangled with the computer cords at the beginning) and their house door opens right beside them (instead of far away). It was mainly to show that the kid and dog were so involved on their fun walk that they completely missed the fact they got home already! I don’t mind the change and I’m very thankful to my art director Melia Parsloe and editor Kayla Tostevin for also helping me to shape the end of the book which turned out better than my original and more on theme!

BB: Part of what I like so much about your picture books is just how friggin’ hilarious they are. You have a talent for a visual gag that some illustrators would kill for. This book in particular reminded me of a silent film more than once. Humor is so subjective that it can be hard to make something that’s funny for a large group of people. How do you get the maximum amount of funny out of an image?

Estrela: Oh that is such a lovely thing to read, thank you so much! I think it is ingrained in me all those years of watching silent films and animation shorts and I couldn’t be more grateful for those. Also, when I was a Storyboard Artist, we were always taught to be very clear and true to the story. If it doesn’t make much sense without the dialogue, then it is probably not working. From where we choose to position our camera (which is SO important in Storyboarding), to our characters’ expressions, everything needs to be very clear to everybody or the director will slash it out and ask to do it again. I also feel very thankful that we had to work for many years in our skills of posing and character expressions while I was a character animator. We would usually get the note “push the pose or push the expression”, especially in the more cartoony shows where it is so much fun to play with how far can we push a character without “breaking” it.

BB: Finally, what else is coming out soon from you? What do you have coming out next?

Estrela: I’m so happy to have been given the opportunity to work on some projects by writers that I really admire! My next books to come out are “Merry Christmas, Dear Mars” written by Penny Parker Klostermann (Henry Holt, 3rd September 2024), my very own board book series based on a bunny I created for my oldest daughter’s bedroom called “Peek & Boo” (Sourcebooks, a series of four books with releases in 2025 and 2026) and lastly, a really fun picture book called “It’s Taco Knight!” written by Megan Maynor (Harper Collins – Clarion, 2025). 

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I don’t know about you, but I’m in the mood to go watch some Buster Keaton films now. Loads of thanks to Estrela for taking the time to talk with me today. Thanks too to Shannon Dolley and the folks at Page Street Publishing for setting this up. Walkies, I am happy to announce, is out everywhere now, so do be so good as to locate a copy and read it yourself. It’s a delight.

Filed under: Interviews