Everyday Bean: A Cover Reveal and Q&A with Creator Stephanie Graegin

Earlier this month I did a post on this site called And Now Some Books I’m REALLY Excited For in 2025 in which I mentioned some of the children’s books I was most looking forward to in the coming year. Now I can confess to you that there were a couple books I really and truly wanted to mention and couldn’t. Why? Because I hadn’t done the cover reveals for them yet!

Two such books shall appear on this site this week.

Everyday Bean is the first.

How can I adequately explain to you what the art of Stephanie Graegin means to me? When I was a new mother, I’d had my children’s librarian expertise to fall back on to a certain extent, but that didn’t necessarily mean I knew what to read. There was a lot of trial and error in those early years, and living in the heart of Manhattan at the time, I found myself incredibly moved by the art in Water in the Park. There are picture books that make indelible imprints on the children that read them, and there are picture books that make equally indelible imprints upon their caregivers as well. This book certain fell into the latter category. I fell in love with Graegin’s art and have searched for something to spark a similar feeling in me, all these years later. I have found it in her latest book: Everyday Bean.

Out July 8th, the publisher describes the book in this way:

“Meet Bean, a very tiny hedgehog. She loves ghosts, swings and a stuffie called Clem.

Meet Bean’s grandma. She loves strawberries, sweaters and tiny Bean burritos.

And they both love stories.

In ten tiny stories we follow Bean and her grandmother through adventures of the everyday. Bean loses her bad mood in a meadow and Grandma thinks she sees a ghost (don’t worry it’s just Bean!) — and there’s even a story with giant strawberries.

This first volume in the Tiny Bean’s Big Adventures series by acclaimed author/illustrator and hedgehog friend/insider, Stephanie Graegin, is the perfect gift for little (and big) readers and hedgehog admirers everywhere.”

Today, I have the infinite pleasure of not only premiering the cover for you, but also talking to Stephanie about the book, where it came from, how Post-It Notes play a part, and how difficult it is to write short-short-short stories:

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Betsy Bird: Stephanie! Such a delight to speak with you today! First and foremost, EVERYDAY BEAN is just lovely. Quiet, and compact, and charming. It’s an early chapter book in some ways, which are rare beasties in the American publishing scene. Can you give us a bit of a sense of where this book came from, and why you chose to make it a little chapter book rather than a picture book?

Stephanie Graegin: This book didn’t really start as a book—but actually as some writing exercises. Like, let’s write a story in three frames, like three mini acts . . . it was kind of a formal look into how we tell stories. Then Bean started to elbow her way into them. These exercises soon turned into a way to understand her and figure out her life and personality, using each set of frames to see her more completely. Then it dawned on me that when I strung the stories together, they created this little world. Once I noticed this, I was able to write towards it. From there, we get Everyday Bean, which is undeniably a picture book with very tiny “chapters” that are their own bite-sized story. Kids with short attention spans or caretakers short on time don’t have to read the whole book at once, they can skip around to a favorite story.

BB: The sheer tiny length of each of these stories is remarkable. I know just how hard it can be to write very short stories. You’ve managed to do it again and again and again. Asking you how to write such stories is probably a fool’s errand, but I’m going to do it anyway. What technique works best for you?

Stephanie: I’m a big fan of Post-it notes. They keep the process very casual. They allow you to write story parts down, rearrange them, and substitute them. And when you draw or write on something that is essentially impermanent, the preciousness of each idea is not there—so you can keep searching or move the Post-it around . . . maybe the end of one story should be the beginning and all you have to do is move the Post-its around. The ideas themselves all come from different sources: some came from wanting to introduce the reader to the things that are special to Bean (a very important blanket or her favorite stuffie) or from an image that popped into my head (a spiky plant that looks like both Bean and Grandma), or from a memory of something from childhood. Maybe my friend says something funny, or I have a random, disjointed thought that I’m not sure how to use; I write it on a Post-it, slap it on the wall, and come back to it later.

BB: One thing I really like about the book is how it shows a child and a grandparent living together. It’s always so nice to have an intergenerational family for kids that have those living situations. Was that something that was at all on your mind when you wrote the book?

Stephanie: Absolutely. I wanted a non-traditional family so we can have situations that are out of the everyday—I think there are certain expectations and patterns when a mother or father is a central part of a story that don’t necessarily exist with a grandmother. I wanted Bean to have the freedom to roam and wanted her caretaker to be more relaxed than a parent might be. Grandma is very loving, but she also gives Bean a huge amount of independence. It’s a slightly different relationship than the typical parent/child.

BB: Let’s talk hedgehogs. What is it about these tiny creatures that adapt so very well to books for young children? Basically what I’m asking is, can you pinpoint the essential allure of the hedgehog? Why do you like them and why are Bean and her grandmother of that species? 

Stephanie: I’m not totally sure. I think Beatrix Potter laid the groundwork with Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. This question makes me want to see if she had thoughts about it. For me, I think it’s the way a hedgehog toddles—it’s similar to a toddler. Small yet spiky, stubborn, and unpredictable. They’re the underdogs of the animal world. And who doesn’t like an underdog? I think it’s also easy to see these creatures as a stand-in for small children—with their rounded, slightly bent shape. Selfishly, as an illustrator, the shape of them is really fun and natural to draw. I’d been drawing versions of Bean for years in my sketchbook. She wasn’t called Bean yet, but she was a character I came back to again and again.

BB: If you had to choose, which of the tiny stories in this book is your favorite?

Stephanie: “Bean’s Bad Mood” is my favorite.  As a kid, I was always drawn to “bad day” stories like Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. “Bean’s Bad Mood” started as a full-length picture book manuscript, but I was unhappy with most of it. It felt unoriginal and too predictable. That’s where the Post-its came in. I was able to break up the story into little parts . . . I kept the lines I knew were working, which is to say I got rid of 80% of it. That little bit got reworked into “Bean’s Bad Mood”.

BB: And were there any stories you initially thought you might write for this book that never made it to the final product?

Stephanie: Oh yes, definitely! I have a pile of them that just didn’t seem good enough or are unresolved fragments. I kept weeding out the lesser ones or ones that were too similar to each other. I was looking for a balance of stories that were either funny, sweet, or adventurous, but that, as a whole, were a complimentary look into Bean’s world. I lay out the stories on the floor and organize them in order of most favorite to least favorite, or which ones work well next to each other. Doing this sometimes shows me where a half-written story might fit in. It gets you to ask questions about your work.

BB: Finally, what’s next for you? And will we see more Bean in the future? (I would really like much more Bean)

Stephanie: Luckily, more Bean! I love spending time in her world. There are two more books on the way: in Summer ‘26 and Summer ‘27. In the next book, Bean’s adventures get a little bit wilder, and Bean gets a little bit louder, but she and Grandma still have their sweet bond.

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Thank you, Stephanie, for this peek behind the curtain!

And now…. the Bean herself…

Ain’t she a delight?

Special thanks to Stephanie, once again, for taking the time to answer my questions and to Samantha Devotta and the team at Tundra Books for enabling me to do both this Q&A and cover reveal. Everyday Bean is one everyday shelves everywhere July 8th.

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