From Grumpiness to Love: An Emma Full of Wonders Interview with Elisha Cooper

“… the epitome of a summertime tale with its warm, scenic views and bounding dogs.”

You know, you’ve gotta hand it to the publicity team at Macmillan. Here we are on the cusp of summer, a moment when it still retains a hint of the romance we felt for it back in March, and here they are knowing just how to talk up a picture book that, as they say, epitomizes lush green hills, blue skies, and sunny days.

Recently I was in New York City with my family for a three day trip. Naturally, I couldn’t help but drag my poor offspring to Greenwich Village where my first library branch, the Jefferson Market, towers. Inside, we made our way to the children’s room where large murals painted by Elisha Cooper oversee everything that happens inside. There is something about the style of Mr. Cooper that fits a library so well. In my own location now, the Evanston Public Library in Illinois, we have wooden signs everywhere by Mr. Cooper, highlighting our picture book, nonfiction, DVD and other sections. In a library setting, the man simply fits.

Now he has a new book out as well. Some of you may know Elisha best from his Caldecott Honor winning Big Cat, Little Cat, but he’s done amazing things beyond that book. Now he’s releasing the truly delightful Emma Full of Wonders, full of dogcentric fare. It’s the kind of quiet, smart little book that defies description. So, naturally, I had to ask Elisha about it myself.

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Betsy Bird: Elisha! So good to talk to you again! And I’m entranced by your latest. EMMA FULL OF WONDERS is such an interesting complement to your previous dog and cat-related fare. I never knew you to be a dog man, but this book belies that assumption. Can you tell us a bit about where it originated?

Elisha Cooper: Hello to Chicago! I’m writing to you on a porch, looking out over Long Island Sound, the same porch where I painted some signs for the Evanston Public Library. This feels right, connecting with you again in this way, and I’m so glad you were “entranced” by Emma. Now, to your question. The origin of this book was grumpiness. Children’s books sometimes make me grumpy, especially when they dance around facts, or brush over reality. That grumpiness motivated me to write about death in Big Cat, Little Cat, and with this new book I’m hoping to do the same with birth. Since stories have multiple origins, Emma also came about because of Elise. Watching her give birth to our daughters — she was so strong and powerful — I wanted to acknowledge and celebrate that. I wanted to celebrate all mothers. And then, write a story in such a way that would show children that birth is normal and natural. So, that’s the origin! From grumpiness to love.

BB: THAT, my friend, is an origin story for a book. You know, you’re one of the few author/artists I know of who vacillates between dogs and cats in his picture books. I know that this question is going to traipse dangerously close to who-do-you-love-more territory, so I’m going to rephrase it slightly. For you, how does writing a picture book featuring a dog differ from when you write a picture book that centers a cat?

Elisha: Can I go back to what you said about me being a dog man? Because, I am not! I’m a goat man. Oh my goodness, have you ever held a baby goat? It’s a life-changer. They’re cute and capricious (much respect to anyone who recognizes the Latin root of “capricious”). Bouncing all over, getting into trouble, stubbornly butting their heads against things (mmm, this sounds a little close to home). I think children’s book authors generally stick to cats and dogs because they’re a known quantity (I’m guilty of that myself), and play on type (cats are aloof, dogs are goofy, etc…). I have respect for authors who write about less familiar animals (like the spider in Jessica Lanan’s beautiful Jumper; or the owls our friend Matt Cordell is painting for his upcoming book). I also have respect for authors who write about cats and dogs, but do so in a more substantive way, where the character almost becomes a different animal altogether. I’m thinking of the pup in Doug Salati’s Hot Dog. Or of the kitten in Kevin Henkes’s Kitten’s First Full Moon. Because it’s a kitten, but really it’s a child. And, unavoidably, it’s the author. That’s who’s centered. I suppose this means that I am Emma, except for the giving birth to seven puppies part. Hmm, I traipsed dangerously close to not answering your question.

BB: I’ll overlook it, but only if this means that a goat-related Cooper title may be slated for the future someday. Emma appears to be a bloodhound, if I don’t miss my guess. And much of the book focuses on her dreams. To your mind, do dogs dream in the way that Emma dreams in this book?

Elisha: Bloodhound, you are right! I’m sure that choice was influenced by Best in Show, the hilarious mockumentary. Watching Christopher Guest’s character talk to his bloodhound just cracked me up. That dog, its presence. Then when I thought about mothers being strong and powerful, from birth onward, I wanted to play against stereotypes of motherhood, and a bloodhound just felt right. As for dreams — and I bet I’m misremembering this — but I think E.B. White wrote that when dogs dream they dream they’re chasing rabbits. I think it’s important not to anthropomorphize animals, even as we children’s book authors do that to some degree (the genius of Kitten’s First Full Moon is how Henkes pulls off a neat trick; you never doubt the character’s “catness,” yet she speaks to us emotionally as human). Before I wrote Emma, I talked with Alexandra Horowitz, a professor of dog cognition at Barnard, to get all the dog pregnancy details right. What does a pregnant dog understand? Can they conceive of the future? That said, I’ve always been drawn to dreamy characters in my books, ones who imagine the world without leaving their front porch. Like Ferdinand under his tree (my illustration of Emma under her tree is pretty clearly an homage). I like to imagine what animals imagine, possibly because we can’t know. There’s something lovely about not knowing.

BB: Just as there’s something lovely in knowing that Barnard has a “professor of dog cognition” on its staff. Reading this book, I admit that I thought the plot might go along the same route as your previous book HOMER. In fact, reading through it, I was fairly convinced that poor Emma was old and going to die. After all, we get a fair number of dead dog books in a given year. What happens instead caught me entirely off guard. Do you feel that you purposely lead your readers to expect one thing and then deliver another, or was this just me?

Elisha: Oh, damn. I’m so sorry. That’s on me. I think I messed up a little with the tone in the build-up, where maybe if I finessed a few words, or painted more clearly, I could have guided the reader better. I think I was trying to get across the ambivalence an expectant mother must feel, both her hope and worry. Those swings in emotion. It’s possible that I, and my amazing editors Emily Feinberg and Beth Clark, having read over the book proofs a thousand times, leaned more into the worry part because it added tension. You’re not the first person who mentioned that they thought Emma was a goner (I’ve found that if a few people have the same criticism, they’re usually on to something). Though, I did want the birth to be a surprise. Give readers an ohhh-so-that’s-what-was-happening reaction after the reveal. My sly hope is that this book gets better with re-reading. Where the clues I hid, her daydreams, her expanding belly, now make sense. Being a children’s book author is a humbling thing, something I take seriously (and I’m neither humble nor serious!); whenever a parent tells me they’ve read a book of mine fifty times with their child, I always say, “Sheesh, I’m sorry.” And I mentally remember that it’s almost a responsibility to add layers to my books, put in wordplay, hidden details, random Easter eggs that can make reading the book a pleasure on that fifty-first time. But look, books are living things. Messy, imperfect. Something I’m aware of, maybe even more aware of now after writing a bunch of them. Our authorial intent doesn’t always land where we thought.     

BB: That is true, but I should clarify that I preferred being wrong! It was like I thought the book was directing me in one way, and then it did the best possible U-turn instead. I see that as a bonus! My assumptions are probably just based on what I’m used to already seeing in books for kids. What does it say, I wonder, that a person who reads loads of picture books makes the assumption of death and not life when they read a book of this sort?

In any case, in many of your books, animals live on farms or in the country with wide open spaces. And if I’m not too much mistaken, you yourself grew up on a farm. Can you tell us a bit of that? And do you find yourself returning increasingly to this setting over the years for any particular reason?

Elisha: Yes, I grew up on an apple orchard in Connecticut. It was a childhood of climbing trees, taking care of goats, and reading books on a hill looking out over fields. I spent a lot of time observing the natural world. But where do I live now? In Manhattan! Sitting outside a café on Lafayette Street, I watch rivers of New Yorkers pass by in all their wildness and diversity. I spend a lot of time observing the natural world. I guess I’m saying there’s beauty in both. They’re not dissimilar to me. What unites both is looking, connecting with something, whether it’s nature or people. What I don’t love is…. can I go on a tangent here? A rant? And before I do, can I also say how much I miss Julie Danielson and 7-Imp (I miss her blog terribly, how she let authors share our bookmaking process, and flesh out ideas about children’s books). I was about to say that I don’t love the suburbs. I already take that back; I’m sure many of your fine readers live in the suburbs; it’s complicated. To be more exact, I don’t love walled-off spaces. Communities with gates or walls, metaphorically or not. Places of isolation. Inside our cars. Or the confines of our phones. And I wonder if good art can come from these spaces? (art that isn’t in opposition to those spaces, I mean). Or can a good children’s book? And if the goal of books is to connect, and I believe that it is, then don’t we need books that make us curious about the wide open world beyond our walls? I realize my rant has turned into a series of questions, for which I have no answer. Okay, back to the interview.

BB: Well, for the record, I miss Jules too. I sometimes feel like I’ve filled in some of the gaping hole where her interviews once stood, but only slightly. No one has ever taken her place. So we’re going back to the interview, what else are you working on? What do you have coming out next?

Elisha: My next book is called Here Is a Book. It’s about how a book gets made. It’s very meta! I’ve always loved children’s books that show how things work — I loved all of David Macaulay’s books as a kid — and when I visit schools, I often get the question “how did you make this book?” This book is my answer. It starts with an artist in her studio, then follows the bookmaking process —bringing her art to the publisher, the book to the printer, a school, a library. Am I pandering to you? Well, of course. I’m pandering to librarians everywhere. To bookstore folks and everyone in our larger community. I will say this though — and maybe this makes it not pandering — I spend much of my life being grumpy, opinionated, a little cynical (i.e. I’m a New Yorker), but there is one thing I’m not cynical about and that is books (to be fair, I’m also not cynical about my family, apple trees, and raspberry jam). I love everything about a good book. How they feel, the turn of the page, the thought and care that goes into them. And when I see something beautiful as I go about my days — the light on watertowers at dusk, or a dog giving birth — and I am able to put that image into a book, well, that is the best feeling. A rush to the heart. A connection where, through some sort of alchemy, I am able to reach out, from me in New York, to you in Chicago, and to readers who I will never meet.

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God, what a class act that man is. The best dang interviewee you may encounter this season, that’s for sure and for certain. The kind of fella who makes me want to go over all my picture book manuscripts and make them so much better.

For the record, if you enjoyed this, please check out my 2021 interview with Elisha about his book Yes & No, and which features (amongst other things) a photograph of his preternaturally attractive cats. As for Emma Full of Wonders, I’m happy to report that it’s on bookstore and library shelves right now. Find it! And thank you to Elisha for the sheer gobs of care and time and attention he poured into this interview. Thanks too to Kelsey Marrujo and the folks at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group for helping to put this all together.

Filed under: Best Books, Best Books of 2024, Interviews