Awe (and) Inspiring. A Cover Reveal and Q&A with Chana Stiefel and Susan Gal

As you are well aware, we recently celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The ten days between the two are called the Days of Awe, which is the kind of thing one might expect to find in a children’s picture book somewhere. Such a book may well exist, but we have yet to see a truly magnificent and jaw-dropping Days of Awe book for kids.

Correction: We USED to say that we had yet to see such a book. Today, you will see such a title with your own two eyes because due to our good, great luck, two literary children’s book powerhouses are joining together.

Chana Stiefel and Susan Gal may be best known to you as the power duo that brought into this world the truly marvelous (and more than a little gorgeous) The Tower of Life back in 2022. They have joined forces once again and on March 3, 2026 you’re going to get a chance to see Awe! Heck, you can see some of it here today, since I’ll be revealing the cover. What IS it though? A publisher description is in order:

“Introducing A. W. E., anAwesomeWondrousEmpoweringemotion!When chills travel down your spine,and sudden tears surprise your eyes.When your heart exclaims, “Ooh! Ahh! Whoaaa!”That’s when you knowyou’ve found AWE.

This breathtaking journey will take you to the Grand Canyon and the deepest reaches of the sea. It will invite you to share moments of giving and to feel the joy of family and community. It will lift you to the highest heights and make your spirit soar.

Experiencing awe has been scientifically proven to spark wonder, improve thinking, and open us up to new ideas. For children living through these turbulent times, Awe! is the perfect book to foster positivity, comfort, joy, and empowerment.”

But before we get to looking on it (and believe me when I say it’s worth the wait) let’s speak with the creators and see what they have to say about it:

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Betsy Bird: Chana! Thank you so much for answering my questions about this singular and entirely beautiful book! The concept of “awe” is so rarely discussed, even as the word is bandied about, like we all know what it means. What was your own personal impetus for writing this book, and why is it important for children to truly understand what “awe” means?

Chana Stiefel: Thanks so much, Betsy! Susan and I are honored to be here and so grateful that you’re enjoying AWE!

Sometimes you find a story, and sometimes the story finds you. In February 2023, my friend Helen, who manages a WhatsApp group called “The Pod Squad,” shared an interview on the “10% Happier” podcast with host Dan Harris and Dr. Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at Berkeley. The episode was called, “This Scientist Says One Emotion Might Be the Key to Happiness. Can You Guess What It Is?” Of course, I had to listen!

Since I was a kid growing up in Miami, my parents instilled in me a deep appreciation of the wonders of nature—from microscopic blades on a piece of sawgrass to the jaw-dropping vistas of the Grand Canyon. I’ve always been thrilled by encounters with wildlife, from alligators and sharks to moose and brown bears. But I could never put my finger on exactly why I love those experiences so much…until I listened to that podcast. As Dr. Keltner explained, those chills, the teary eyes, the expressions of “Ooh! Ahh! Whoa!” can be summed up in a small, yet splendid word: AWE!

I was gobsmacked by the new research of awe—how it can change the way you think and feel, lessening our anxieties and making us more generous and kind. And I knew I had to write a book for kids about awe…so they too could put a word to this soul-stirring emotion.

BB: Tell us a little bit about your relationship to artist Susan Gal. You worked with her before on the Sibert Honor winning title THE TOWER OF LIFE, a couple of years ago. What does Susan bring to your books that no one else does?

In a word, AWE! As readers will learn, we can experience awe in other people—their generosity and their talents. And those experiences can make us more giving, kind, and creative, too! So yes, I’m in awe of Susan and her stunning artwork. She put her whole heart into this book, taking my words to new heights (and not just on the aurora borealis spread!). We first bonded over the stunning illustrations she created for THE TOWER OF LIFE, and we’ve become soul sisters ever since. It was such an honor and a joy to work on AWE! together with Susan and I hope we’ll have more opportunities in the future.

PS Here’s a pic of us meeting at Books of Wonder in NYC, planning spreads of AWE! together, both of us knowing how awesome and rare these moments are in creating a picture book.

BB: Well, that brings us to Susan then. Susan! How did you first encounter the manuscript of “AWE!” and what were your first thoughts upon reading it?

Susan Gal: As Chana mentioned, she and I became fast friends while working on THE TOWER OF LIFE. After a trip to California, Chana mentioned that she was working on a picture book about awe and would I be interested in reading it when it was completed. Chana’s writing stirs my emotions and ignites my creativity! Needless to say I was in awe of her story and when she asked if I would illustrate it, I was both honored and thrilled.

BB: The great crux of the book hinges on understanding what awe feels like. To that end, your art is responsible for stirring up that feeling in the child reader. No small feat. Since the text makes it clear that awe can come from experiences both big and small, how did you tackle the challenge of eliciting even an echo of that original feeling?

Susan: I think picture book authors and artists are able to retain an appreciation of the world from a childlike perspective. To me, experiencing awe as an adult feels as magical as it did when I was a child so I tapped into those memories and did my best to bring them to life. While working on this book, I made space to slow down and be in the moment of the world around me. If I saw an interesting insect, I squatted down and really observed it, admiring its shape and construction. I remembered neighborhood walks with my daughter when she was a toddler, every leaf or flower was a reason to stop and marvel at its beauty. I also persuaded my husband to sit with me in our driveway to watch the sunset. We couldn’t help but relax and in that moment be stirred by the sky and clouds changing colors as the day slipped away. I held on to those feelings and tried to express them in pencil and paint to harmonize with Chana’s words.

BB: Speaking of those words, Chana, more than once, you define “awe” as moments of “whoaaa,” “ahhh,” and “wow”. These are pretty much as good a definition as anything I’ve ever heard before. Since the book repeats these phrases, how did you come up with them? 

Chana: Again, I need to credit Dr. Keltner. He references studies suggesting that universal expressions of awe—such as “Ooh!” “Whoa!” and “Mmm”—were likely a primary language of early humans before the emergence of words about 100,000 years ago. To that I say, “OOH! AHH! WHOA!”

BB: There is a quote at the end of the book, on the same page as the Author & Illustrator’s Note, which reads, “Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.” — Dr. Dacher Keltner. That’s a glorious definition. Was it one you were aware of before writing this book or after? And how did you find it?

Chana: Yes, we need to sit with that definition for a while, right? And I’m thinking we should invite Dr. Keltner to this interview! 🙂 After listening to his podcast, I read his book for grownups, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder (Penguin Random House, 2023), and came across that quote. Then I did a deep dive into researching studies of awe…and behold, a new children’s book!

BB: Susan, another one of your greatest challenges as an artist is to scale down the massive awe inherent in canyons, the aurora borealis, and fireworks to something as personal and singular as the lighting of candles. How do you encompass such radical differences in scope when creating images as different as these?

Susan: While thinking of imagery for the text, [Awe can be…] “Big. Beautiful. Open-ended,” I remembered the first time I saw the Grand Canyon; the colors and the scale and how it appeared to go on forever. Limiting that spread to two pages didn’t do justice to that breath-taking experience. I took the chance of sketching it as a double gate fold spread in hopes that the reader could feel what it was like to experience a never-ending, jaw-dropping landscape. I’m grateful that the team at Scholastic agreed to let me take chances with designing the book. The creative process allowed each of us to push ourselves and come up with interesting ways to portray awe that would touch a reader.

BB: Did Chana have any input on the images you created to accompany her text? Or was it entirely your own creation?

Susan: What I loved most about creating this book was working with a team of creative people that admire and respect each other. Chana would make suggestions on some of the imagery, and she allowed me to make suggestions to her text. In the end, we both trusted each other to come up with our own individual solutions to make the book the best that it could be. There were a few spreads that we both loved for the words and the imagery, but we had to let them go because they were not working with the book. My particular favorite was the line “showered by the mist of a waterfall spray.” Oh man, that is such a good line and I had a wonderful image to go with it!

BB: Chana, it is singular that both you and Susan opted to write your Author’s & Illustrator’s Note together. Not separately, but as a single voice. Why did you decide to go that route?

Chana: The practical answer is space! We tried to pack a lot into the backmatter and originally, we each wrote a note. When I read Susan’s illustrator’s note, I saw that it was almost identical to mine. We both love and share the same experiences of awe. In fact, while working on this book, we both witnessed the aurora borealis and traveled (separately) to Yosemite, Loch Awe in Scotland, and the Edge, a dizzying view 102-stories above New York City. So I suggested to our editor at Scholastic, Dianne Hess, that Susan and I combine our notes into one…and it worked!

BB: This next question is for the both of you. On a personal level, what always inspires “awe” in you?

Chana: Oh wow. I’m gonna say my four kids, who are out in the world doing amazing things. I’m truly in awe and so proud of them.

Susan: What currently inspires me is finding awe in simple acts of kindness. A blind pedestrian in our neighborhood was crossing a busy intersection, and he was desperately struggling to catch papers that were flying from his unzipped backpack. Two teenage boys jumped off their bicycles, one ran to the man and got him to safety on the sidewalk, while the other boy stopped traffic so he could gather up the papers strewn in the street. When the man was safe with his papers, the boys rode off. It was such a simple and pure gesture and one that still brings tears to my eyes.

BB: Finally, what’s next for you? What are you working on these days?

Chana: I’m working on a picture book that will hopefully be a follow up to AWE! And I’ve been writing and revising my first middle grade novel—historical fiction based on my childhood growing up in Miami in the 1970s and 80s.

Susan: I’m currently in the sketch phase of a picture book by author Barbara Joosse. It’s a terrific tale with fabulous characters and I’m excited to see where the story and sketches take me and the talented team at Scholastic.

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Can an interview inspire awe? This one answers that question.

And now… the cover:

I’d like to thank both Chana and Susan for taking the time and effort to answer all my questions today. Thanks too to Aleah Gornbein and the team at Scholastic for connecting us. You’ll find Awe! everywhere March 23, 2026, so be sure to look for it then!

Filed under: Cover Reveal, Interviews