The Rare Three-Man Interview: Ben Clanton, Andy Chou Musser, and Corey R. Tabor Talk Metamorphosis with Papilio

I am excited.

I am very excited.

I am so friggin’ downright excited, I don’t even know what to do with myself.

Recently you may have seen that I wrote a post called And Now Some Books I’m REALLY Excited for in 2025! There was one book in particular that I mentioned that is pertinent today. It’s the kind of book that feels like a dare: Can three friends (who also happen to be picture book author/illustrators) collaborate on a single work of informational fiction wherein each person takes a different part of a caterpillar-to-butterfly’s life cycle? Or, put another way (by their publisher):

“Introducing Papilio Polyxenes, the Black Swallowtail Butterfly! She’s an adorable and hilarious caterpillar who is ready to join the world and become a butterfly! But growing up is a complicated work in progress, and Papilio encounters some hiccups as she learns to fly, fall, and feed. While avoiding foes and making friends, she transforms from caterpillar, to chrysalis, to butterfly…and most importantly, learns to believe in herself along the way.

Told in three parts, mega-bestselling author-illustrator Ben Clanton, Caldecott Honoree Corey R. Tabor, and rising star Andy Chou Musser have come together to create an expressive character who exudes all of the emotions that accompany life’s big firsts and the experiences that help us to discover our inner strength.”

Today, the whole reason I’m excited is that I get to talk to these three and get the real skinny on this book once and for all!

This is gonna be good . . .

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Betsy Bird: Thank you so much for answering my questions today! I know you talk a little bit about this in the back of this book, but I’d love if you could tell us how precisely a picture book with three creators telling a single story came to be. From what I understand, the three of you were walking in an Arboretum. Why were you there? And why did you want to work together on something like this?

Ben Clanton: Andy and I were in the midst of working on the first Ploof book and having such a blast teaming up that we found ourselves eager to do even more collaborative projects. We started discussing what else might be fun to try out. This conversation just happened to be taking place the day before we had a meet-up with Corey planned at Belle Epicurean Bakery and the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle. There wasn’t really any particular objective to the day. We just wanted to get together and discuss books and whatnot. But as Andy and I talked about what other collaborations could look like we naturally found ourselves going “What if Corey was part of this conversation?” which had the immediate response of “You just read my mind.”

Andy Chou Musser: Yes, absolutely! It felt like we were sharing the same brain wave. This collaboration felt natural for so many reasons: the three of us have been friends for over 10 years, we’ve been in a critique group together for almost as long, and we all happen to be the same age. It felt special that, in addition to having a shared enthusiasm for reading all kinds of kid’s books, our work shared sensibilities that seemed like they could work together.

Corey R. Tabor: It was such a nice surprise when Andy and Ben invited me to collaborate with them. Before then I don’t think I’d ever considered collaborating on a picture book (outside of illustrating someone else’s story). I think my initial, immediate response was, “That sounds really fun!” Which, in this line of work, is a very good reason to do something. It’s the second best decision I’ve ever made in the Washington Park Arboretum. (Fun fact: I also proposed to my wife in the Washington Park Arboretum.)

BB: And you could have done any topic in the world but you selected butterflies. Why? What is it about them that has such an allure for you?

Ben: We had a whole list of possible ideas in mind. But when Corey mentioned the stages of the butterfly I feel like there was a collective “oooh! YES!” sort of response. The life of a butterfly is such an incredible journey . . . one filled with awe and wonder, ups and downs, and lots of possibilities. That really resonated. We didn’t know what this collaboration would look like but the butterfly provided such a great place to, ahem, let our imaginations take flight!

Andy: Yes, it was such a perfect fit. When we were considering a topic, we kept asking ourselves: “Does this story really necessitate having three authors and illustrators?”  The life cycle of a butterfly is such a familiar yet compelling concept that had enough space to let all three of us do our own thing while still weaving our pieces back together into a complete story.

Corey: Absolutely! We realized that the three distinct stages of a butterfly’s life would let us tell three stories in our own distinct voices and styles. Papilio’s perspective changes as she grows and changes, so it made sense that the art and storytelling could change with her.

Andy: That process of growing and changing felt like it could be universally relatable for kids and  grown ups too. And that journey of self discovery goes hand and hand with our hope that readers will feel inspired to consider branching out and start creative collaborations of their own.

BB: So tell us a little bit about your process. Did you all ever brainstorm together or was there just a lot of backing and forthing via email and the like? And how long did the whole process take altogether?

Corey: Most of our collaborating happened over video calls. (I live about an hour away from Ben and Andy, so we don’t get to meet in person as often as we’d like.) We spent the calls brainstorming, sketching, going off on tangents about our favorite picture books, etc., then we’d spend a week or two (or more, depending on what other projects we had going) working on our own sections of the story before getting together again. We had a shared Google Doc file where we built our dummy, each of us plugging in our sketches as we finished them. Andy or Ben might have a better memory than me but I think we spent about a year and a half  working on the initial dummy, then another year after we signed on with Viking.

Ben: Our video call chats were one of my favorite parts of making this book! Especially all the wonderful tangents. We also texted quite a bit in between those calls. Plenty of tangents there too, of course, but in the end it was also really productive and helpful.

Making books often is a very isolated, secluded experience (which can be nice yet is sometimes lonely too) but with Papilio there was this wonderful mix of working together and apart.

Taking a look back at our shared drive we also had an initial brainstorming and outline document that we all contributed to. So neat to see all the various directions we had in mind! I had totally forgotten that I had a version of the caterpillar story in which Papilio is a distracted eater and another in which she is super picky. And Corey had a version of his section in mind in which Papilio’s chrysalis was this awesome apartment-like dwelling where she plays video games and musical instruments to pass the time.

Andy: Yes! It was such a joy spending time with Papilio and seeing where the story took us. Writing the book took longer than I think any of us expected, but looking back all that time and space felt necessary to allow Papilio to emerge fully formed.

About a year into the process, we had a draft we thought was finished… but after getting feedback we realized it still wasn’t quite ready to take flight. Fittingly, that happened in the spring, and after overhauling the story through the summer we landed with a new draft that pretty closely resembles the final book.  There was so much extra fun stuff we wanted to add, both whimsical and non-fiction related, but in the end the book worked best when we trimmed a lot of that and focused on Papilio’s character and her journey.

BB: Part of what is so fascinating about this book is that your three writing and artistic styles really play off of one another so well. The transitions between the three of you are seamless. From your note at the end, you apparently passed the illustrations back and forth between the three of you. Logistically this is fascinating. Was that a smooth process or did you encounter any hiccups along the way?

Corey: I think there are six illustrations in the book that we illustrated collaboratively by passing the illustrations (as Photoshop files) back and forth between the three of us: the front cover, the back cover, the case cover, the two transitions between sections, and the illustration at the end of the book where Papilio and the mouse are flying off into the sunset. We did the rest of the illustrations solo. But we did give each other a lot of feedback (and encouragement) as we wrote and  illustrated our sections, and we definitely played off of each other’s stories and illustrations throughout. I’m sure there must have been hiccups along the way (there are always hiccups), but I’m not remembering any of them now, so they must have been little, baby hiccups.

Andy: Agreed, I remember the process being pretty hiccup free. I think we mainly encountered big questions that felt more like puzzles, and once we solved them things would flow easily again. For example, we weren’t sure how to make collaborative illustrations together, so we discussed lots of options before we even picked up a pencil or paintbrush. Then once we decided on our approach, in this case it was to layer our elements together collage style, we just jumped in and gave it a go.

Ben: One of the things that helped us avoid any major hiccups was establishing a shared color palette. Corey had done a sample piece of final art featuring the mouse in the field as the chrysalis soars across the spread. We all liked the mix of blues, greens, yellows, and pinks, so soon Andy and I were giving that palette a go too. A lot of the book went that way . . . one of us would do something that the other two liked and then we’d adjust, incorporate, and build off of that new element. For instance, Andy had a lot of dandelions at the wish stage in his section. I love dandelions! So when I saw how prominent they were in Andy’s story (which fits so well with Papilio’s wish to fly and reach the flower in that part of the book!)  I added them to my section as well but at the flower stage, which then was another opportunity to allude to one of our central themes, change.

Speaking of change . . . I think being open to that ourselves helped with the process. I really liked my first go at the caterpillar story, but it wasn’t quite working with what Corey and Andy had come up with. I had initially gone with a David Attenborough-esque voice which I felt really attached to, but the nonfiction feeling of that voice was a bit at odds with the more character-centered approach Corey and Andy had taken. So I put my caterpillar story into a chrysalis and let it emerge as something new.

Andy: Often, it felt like making the book was a game and we were collaboratively writing the rules as we were playing as a team, and an effective move was usually to be more playful and look for ways to set each other up for more interesting moves.

BB: When you first were coming up with the notion of the book, did you know from the get-go that you wanted Papilio to be a black swallowtail? Why did you select that particular (and striking) type of butterfly?

Ben: I believe that was Andy, yes?

Corey: Yeah, I remember spending a good chunk of one of our video calls admiring and deliberating over pictures of caterpillars and butterflies, before Andy found the perfect one.

Andy: There were so many fascinating species to choose from! Since I was custodian of the butterfly stage, I felt extra responsible to help pick one that would work well for all of us. In my mind, there were two qualifications for our candidate: to be fun to draw as a caterpillar, and to be somehow eye-catching as a butterfly. I was less worried about the chrysalis because Corey embraced the oddness of that stage, and all chrysalises look kind of odd to me.

We knew from the onset that any new butterfly book would be compared to “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” so I wanted to steer away from that visual territory. And what is more opposite than an almost completely black butterfly? I like that it subverts the general expectation of what a butterfly should look like, and from a technical standpoint a black butterfly meant that I could make the backgrounds colorful without the main character getting overshadowed.

BB: Okay, in the interest of not choosing favorites I won’t tell you which of Papilio’s little songs is my favorite, but one thing I have to ask is whether or not each of you wrote her little song on your own, or if one of you wrote the both of them.

Ben: I’m pretty sure Andy came up with both of them! But it can sometimes be hard to recall who came up with what. We had a session where we brainstormed all sorts of possibilities and those were the two we liked the best.

Andy: I think I wrote the first draft of the songs, and then we finished them together. As a hobby, I like making music… I sometimes record super silly songs (complete with bad drum loops and cheesy keyboards) for friends’ birthdays… so I was pretty stoked when we decided to write songs for the transition pages. And it didn’t hurt that Ben and Corey are musicians too: Ben played the trombone and is a great singer, and Corey plays drums and banjo (amongst other instruments).

Corey: I just searched our old dummies and here are two bonus tracks from the cutting room floor:
“Ring-a-ling! Time to take wing!”
“Waiting was a snore, I can’t wait to soar!”

BB: I shall expect the promotional music video presently. Now this one’s for Corey. Corey, you got the chrysalis stage. Now I need you to be honest here. Did you volunteer for that or was it foisted upon you? It’s exceedingly well done, but unlike caterpillars and butterflies I’d say it would be the most difficult to accomplish action-wise (though you find a very nice way of getting around that problem).

Corey: I really wanted to do the chrysalis stage! Andy and Ben are the nicest people, not exactly the foisting type. I love a good challenge (I’ll take creative limitations over a blank page any day) and I enjoyed trying to imagine what it might be like to be a chrysalis just hanging out for several weeks, waiting to be a butterfly. I’m actually pretty sure it was Ben or Andy who first had the idea that the chrysalis could be going on a chaotic adventure while Papilio chills, oblivious, inside.

Andy: At first, it felt like such a relief that Corey stepped up and took the hardest section. But then he wrote it really fast and with such a deft hand… that it made writing my section feel super intimidating! But I’m really happy he raised the bar. It was immensely inspiring to see him work his magic and made me want to aim for that level of “just rightness” (or perhaps “just write-ness?) in my work.

Ben: Ditto that! I think Corey’s chrysalis story hardly changed from what he first sketched up. It felt pretty fully realized right from the get-go . . . which is kind of ironic given the unformed nature of Corey’s subject.

Andy: Yes, everything is there in his first draft! It was so helpful to have Corey set the tone early on with such a solid foundation for us to build on. His section became this bridge in the middle of the book that allowed Ben and I to go in different directions with the comfort of knowing how our pieces would fit together.

BB: Finally, this book is just so delightful you just know that people are going to ask you for another. Any plans to create another? The water cycle, perhaps? *hint hint*

Ben: We’ve got all sorts of potential stories and ideas floating about currently. Water cycle actually did recently come up as one of the options that could be fun! Mutualistic symbiosis has also got our wheels turning. Plus cats and eggs and robots and oodles more. It’s fun to keep playing and experimenting! Not sure where we’ll land on a second collaboration just yet.

Andy: Agreed, we have lots of really promising ideas, and I’m itching to work together again! But we keep coming back to our original question of whether the story really necessitates having three authors and illustrators to make it, and we’re trying to be really intentional with our choice.

Corey: To be continued…

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The nicest men in show business, folks. And how many of you had “Mutualistic symbiosis” on your bingo cards? Check that phrase off right now.

I’d like to thank these three incredibly, incalculably sweet fellas for speaking with me today, sharing every possible aspect of this fascinating process. Thanks too to Lathea Mondesir and the team at Penguin Random House. Papilio is on shelves everywhere March 4th so get your pre-orders in now!

Filed under: Best Books, Best Books of 2025, Interviews