A Just Right Q&A with Torrey Maldonado

I live my life by a strictly regimented calendar. Due to the inner workings of my particular little brain, that is how I keep everything sorted. Right now my brain is entirely focused on 2025. 2024 no longer exists and sometimes it seems as if 2026 may exist, but I don’t have much time to consider it. 2026 may have wonderful books, but currently I don’t have the mental capacity to deal with the information…

… and then I see a book like Just Right by Torrey Maldonado and all at once 2026 starts to look a lot more interesting.

You all know Torrey, right? He’s the Brooklyn teacher behind Hands and What Lane?, and Tight. Of course, those were all middle grade novels. Just Right (out January 20th) is his picture book debut and it’s a doozy of an interesting book. Lemme see if the publisher description does it justice:

“Toby can always count on his amazing uncle to step up and make him feel loved.

Toby’s mom always says there are people that make you feel just right. And while his dad can be hard to please, it’s a different story with his uncle. Uncle showers Toby with smiles, hugs, and kind words, and his garage is like a second home to Toby—there’s even a chair with Toby’s name on it next to Uncle’s desk! Yes, Toby can always count on Uncle to make him feel just right.

Torrey Maldonado’s heartwarming picture book celebrates loving caregivers and highlights the powerful impact they can have on the life of a child.”

Long story short, this is a story about a boy with a dad that just kind of sucks, whereas his uncle is amazing. I have very rarely seen a picture book that honest about family relationships before.

Yeah. I had to talk to Torrey about this.

---

Betsy Bird: Torrey! Always a pleasure and a delight to get a chance to talk to you! So to say that I was blown away by your debut picture book JUST RIGHT is a bit of an understatement. To be perfectly frank, I’ve never really seen a book quite like this one before. We’ll get to its central message and how unique it is in a moment, but first and foremost I want to know why you’ve chosen to write a picture book at all. And why now?

Torrey Maldonado: I’m shocked I have a picture book, and extra shocked to hear you were blown away by my first try. Thank you! I’m also shocked I wrote Just Right when I did. Back then, I had almost zero willpower to write. The world felt upside down, shut down, and so many were down because the COVID pandemic just hit. Then, out of nowhere, my mom died. To put things in perspective, my single mom stepped up to be both my dad and mom and my biggest champion. I felt far from just right. As I share that, I wonder if folks might think, Oh, Just Right is about death or the pandemic. Nope. Just Right isn’t about either. It’s about how I needed my mood flipped from down to up, so a story about a boy’s mood flipping to just right poured out of me. Just Right is also about amazing mothers and uncles who uplift kids. I couldn’t have written it without setbacks I had to bounce back from. For decades, I’ve published middle-grade books, but this time, the picture book format chose me. Picture books break down BIG feelings and ideas in quick, easy ways. The format helped me break down my big feelings. Upliftment—that’s what Just Right is about. Your feedback is uplifting too. I’m grateful and hopeful I can offer something to world right now to help us feel better.

BB: One theme that shows up in your books, both picture and middle grade, is father figures that step up for kids. In this particular book it’s the uncle who gives Toby that emotional support he needs. You’re an uncle yourself. So what’s the origin story behind this particular book? And the uncle?

Torrey: I’m Toby. Toby’s uncle is similar to a garage-owner who adopted me. When I was Toby’s age, on our way home, my mom passed a garage. I still remember the owner joking with her, “You tell Torrey you my sister?” then he told me, “So you my nephew. Stop by anytime.” And I did—almost every day. While he wasn’t blood-related, he became my uncle. His garage became a safe space, where I felt free and celebrated. For all those feel-goods, Toby visits his uncle’s garage in Just Right. There, his uncle shows him love, turns the world right-side up, and flips his mood way up. I really needed that, especially since my dad, like Toby’s, was checked out. I probably wouldn’t be who I am without that uncle. I might not be here talking with you if I hadn’t had him. I most likely wouldn’t be the uncle I am either. If you ask my niece, she’ll say I’m the uncle of Just Right and just like my garage-owner uncle. My niece had a dad like mine and Toby’s, so I stepped in. As an adult, she asked me to walk her down the aisle and calls me her “favorite person.” That’s Toby’s uncle—one of his favorite persons. Many of us have amazing uncles who are our favorites, and Just Right celebrates them.

BB: Often when someone writes a picture book for the first time they’ll do something relatively safe. Nothing too groundbreaking. Apparently, no one ever gave you the memo on that, though, because here you are with this story about disappointing fathers, finding father figures in other people, and the killer message “If a person ain’t right, they won’t make you feel right. But to the right people, who you are and what you do are just right.” So apparently when you go picture book you go HARD! Was this how you always envisioned the story from the earliest draft?

Torrey: Thank you for saying you’ve never seen a book quite like Just Right before, and for calling it “groundbreaking.” I appreciate you and others for also praising my middle-grade books as unlike others. Mine may be unlike other books because I didn’t get a chance to like other books. My schools turned me off from reading—actually, schools almost killed me as a reader and writer. Like generations of family and neighbors, I was born and raised in a book desert. We lived on the other side of the tracks, attending schools that whitewashed required reading, and we were unaware of amazing books that kids with decent educations enjoyed. I grew up in Brooklyn’s Red Hook projects, surviving failing schools that the state shut down. Life magazine called Red Hook “One of the Ten Toughest U.S. Neighborhoods.” Only a few kids graduate high school each year. I’m the only person in my family to graduate college (shoutout to Vassar College, where I was recently the commencement speaker). How does my upbringing connect to my writing? I put my stories out there without using stories that are out there. I meet authors who use phenomenal books as molds to shape their writing. I used to feel bad not knowing those model-texts—until a well-known author told me not to use other books to shape mine. She said when it came to the canon the voice of my communities was kept out so my writing stands out. So, with Just Right, I did what I always do—I wrote from my heart. I listened to her advice, and this book is from my heart to readers who feel it’s missing, to a younger me who needed it, and to share what we haven’t seen before. Just Right is what it was from the earliest draft.

BB: You are clearly a man of many superpowers, but the one I’m going to focus in on right now is your ability to somehow manage to encapsulate a huge story in a scant number of pages. That’s been a hallmark of your novels over the years. It just seems logical that you’d be able to do that for picture books as well, and lo and behold, that’s what happened! What was the process like for you? Was it familiar? Unfamiliar? Uncanny valley?

Torrey: I see readers react to books like a young me—“Do I have to read this? Will it be quick?” I’m a native New Yorker, and folks say things move in a “New York minute,” fast. Where I’m from, we’re hardwired for fast-paced, riveting stories. Traveling through Brooklyn, buskers talk quick and must be gripping because if they don’t grab us in seconds, we keep walking. That upbringing helped train me to story-tell quick, gripping tales readers call unputdownable. Kids need these stories now more than ever. How heavy is today’s world kids live in? How fast is their media and social media content? So, that’s the energy of my books—light and fast, and that was a goal with Just Right. Fingers crossed that kids finish it fast and feel way up, like they rode a rollercoaster. I’m grateful you and others say my writing offers that to readers.

BB: And the dad in this book is kind of fascinating. He’s just… disappointing. Like, not abusive or physically intimidating or even horrendously mean. Just very very realistically an emotional dud of a man. And I have never ever seen a dad displayed in this way in a picture book before. I mean, this guy 100% exists. He’d rather scroll on his phone than pay attention to his kid when he’s being given a gift. Gotta ask it then: Whence this dad?

Torrey: The dad in Just Right is my dad. They don’t look alike, but that’s him. Toby’s dad resembles countless adults in lives of students I’ve taught in nearly thirty years. Those reading this have someone like that dad in their lives—an emotional dud, not because they lack Toby’s uncle’s pizazz, but because they don’t care to try. Emotional duds can deaden kids. They can snuff out a child’s light. It happens SO fast Toby’s dad doesn’t even catch it. Cue caregivers like Toby’s mom and uncle to the rescue! They’re the opposite of emotional duds—they’re the compassionate connectors and sages of sympathy we all know who enliven kids how Toby’s uncle supercharges him. Our world is just right with them in it, so I show their contrast to Toby’s dad.

BB: I love that. Now you can write a great picture book text all you want, but unless you get the right illustrator by your side it’s only going to go so far. Teresa Martínez is one of those illustrators who has a fun yet realistic style that is instantly interesting to a kid’s eye, but is capable of harsh realities when called up on to do so. Did you know Teresa’s work prior to writing this book? How do you feel about the final product? Did she do anything that surprised you?

Torrey: I was lucky and given a list of illustrators where it was impossible to pick one. Teresa’s portfolio impressed me because she drew everyone from the rainbow of humanity. I wanted that mix, and it’s beautifully seen in Just Right. My joy about her diverse cast is just one joy. I love each page’s art, yet what struck my heart like Cupid’s Arrow was she honored my request with the skin tones of the mom and uncle. My mom had the darkest skin tone of her siblings, resembling her dad’s (my grandpa was nicknamed Satchmo because he passed for Louis Armstrong, the jazz maestro). Ma’s siblings treated her like the ugly duckling because of her skin. Racism has a long history in the Puerto Rican community. My mom married an African-American man, and in our Black community, racism also is a longstanding sickness. I remember hearing a jingle as a child from a 1947 album: “If you’re white, you’re right/ If you’re brown, stick around/ If you’re black, get back.” My mom knew that song, and it hurt me that racism made her believe she wasn’t beautiful. Fast forward to an NCTE, right after she died, I was dining with my editor, Nancy Paulsen, and publishing sisters from other misters. Nancy asked, “Do you want to see the art for Just Right?” She pulled it up on her phone, handed it to me, and I started to cry when I saw Toby’s mom. While she and mine aren’t exactly alike, the skin tone and mannerisms were so spot on I knew Ma was smiling in heaven, seeing a heroine painted darkly her color. In today’s climate of anti-Blackness and anti-Brownness, I love how the two main heroes of Just Right are richly melanated. I hope readers with similar skin tones see them and feel the James Brown lyric: “Say it loud. I’m Black and I’m proud” or my remix: “Say it loud. I’m Brown and I’m proud.”

BB: So have you gotten a taste for picture books now? Do you have ideas for more in the future What’s next for you? What else do you have coming out?

Torrey: I have a few projects I’m excited for to be public. While I can’t discuss some, I can discuss my picture books. Confession: Just Right isn’t my first—it’s the first out. For my first, I must spotlight Floyd Cooper. Floyd is Kidlit royalty and an icon who Dolly Parton included in her Imagination Library program. He illustrated and wrote over one-hundred picture books. We became friends, and soon family-close. We called each other brothers, yet our age-gap made Floyd more my uncle. I nervously joked with him, “We should make a picture book”. When he replied, “Let’s do it. Tell me when you get the contract,” I leapt into writing it. Soon, with contract in-hand, I messaged him the good news, but he didn’t respond. Side note: I should read message-threads more carefully. Here’s why: after zero replies from him, I told mutual friends and they highlighted what I missed in our message-thread—Floyd was battling stage four cancer. Before he died, we spoke, and he urged me to find another illustrator. He changed my life. I probably wouldn’t have written that first picture book if he hadn’t said yes. That’s partly why he’s in its dedication. Guess what the picture book is called? Uncle. And, whoa, Bea Jackson’s illustrations! She captures Brooklyn and iconic spots in such eye-popping ways that Uncle could be sold in museums, visitor centers, tours, gift shops, cultural centers and anywhere selling souvenirs, merchandise, and snapshots of authentic Brooklyn life. When Floyd agreed I should write a picture book, I hoped for rain—for just one to pour out. You know the saying “When it rains, it pours”? Three books Niagara Falls out—Uncle, Little Artist, and Just Right. Little Artist is about how a mom, grandma, and community make a boy feel his drawings have magic, and how he, in turn, makes them drawings to feel magical. Speaking of magic, Reggie Brown did a magic trick because his incredible illustrations come straight from my childhood but we never spoke or met. I’ve had unbelievable success because of my mom, my grandma, and adults who made my concrete jungle feel less rough. Lots of us had or have these heroes around us and my picture books are love letters to those champions.

---

Boy. He’s like a breath of fresh air, right? Hey, let’s end this all with a look at that Vassar commencement speech he mentioned, eh?

I can’t thank Torrey enough for taking the time to talk to me today. As I mentioned before Just Right is out January 20th, so be sure to look for it then! It is completely and utterly unique as 21st century picture books go.

Filed under: Best Books, Best Books of 2026, Interviews