Myrick Publisher Preview: Spring 2024 – Red Comet Press, Scallywag Press, Soaring Kite Books, and Tapioca Stories (Part Six)

Myrick Publisher Preview: Spring 2024 – Red Comet Press, Scallywag Press, Soaring Kite Books, and Tapioca Stories (Part Six)

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No time to linger! The spring is upon us and we’ve so many more books coming out to cover! This season you’ve already seen Part One here, Part Two here, Part Three here, Part Four here, and Part Five here. Onward to Part Six!

My Book and Me by Linda Sue Park, ill. Chris Raschka

Publication Date: June 4, 2024

ISBN: 9781636550947

It seems to me that if a Newbery Award winner pairs with multi-Caldecott Award winner, the end result warrants a gander. Gander away then! This is a book love, plain and simple. Not much more to be said about that! It is what it is what it is.

Aloha Everything by Kaylin Melia George, ill. Mae Waite

Publication Date: April 23, 2024

ISBN: 9781636551128

You can’t really tell here, but not only is this cover gorgeous, it’s also sparkly. Author Kaylin Melia George is Indigenous Hawaiian while illustrator Mae Waite was adopted from China and grew up in Hawai’i. I actually have a friend who’s a schoolteacher there, and you can bet that I’ll be recommending this book to her. Essentially, the title is all about the story of the hula and Hawai’i. In the course of the writing, it covers culture and history, all in the context of the hula. I’ve already alluded to the stunning art, but there is also some great backmatter to be had too. What more could you want?

Umbrella Elena Arevalo Melville

Publication Date: April 2, 2024

ISBN: 9781915252371

I’ll give you a moment to get that Rihanna song out of your head before we proceed. All good? Excellent. So artist Elena Arevalo Melville is from Guatamala and she won my current favorite award with this book. You wanna hear the name? Why it was the 2020 Queen’s Knickers Award of course! That’s almost too delightful. In this book a girl encounters a talking umbrella and magical things happen when you tell it what you desire. People are made happy left and right, until a greedy fox (it’s a fox, right?) wants the umbrella to make him rich. That goes . . . poorly.

When Creature Met Creature by John Agard, ill. Satoshi Kitamura

Publication Date: May 7, 2024

ISBN: 9781915252470

Is that Satoshi Kitamura I spy? It’s been a minute since I’ve seen a new book from him, so isn’t this a treat? Guyanese playwright, poet and children’s author John Agard brings us the story of two creatures. One does not use words and must communicate nonverbally. The other is full of words. When you get right down to it, this is a story that showcases the different ways of communication, including being non-verbal. And just LOOK at the colors in this thing!

A Ramadan to Remember by Marzieh A. Ali, ill. Najwa Awatiff

Publication Date: January 2, 2024

ISBN: 9781958372142

We see a fair number of books about Ramadan on the one hand, and a bunch of picture books about kids having to move somewhere new on the other. Seems to make a lot of sense to me to combine the two narratives together, yes? In this story, a kid moves to new place and discovers that the Ramadan traditions he finds there are different. Naturally, he’s quite frustrated about that. After all, now he’ll have to make new traditions, and that can be hard. Fortunately, he comes around (had you any doubt?). Part of what I like so much about this book is that at the end you have info on Ramadan around the world with some colorful backmatter. A clever idea for a tale.

Marcelo Martello Marshmallow by Ruth Rocha, ill. Ana Matsusaki, translated by Tal Goldfajn

Publication Date: June 11, 2024

ISBN: 9781734783995

Talk about timing! In this next book we have an illustrator who very recently received an Ezra Jack Keats Award nomination for her work on that kooky and delightful book The Collector of Heads. Now if you were a kid that grew up in Brazil, this book would need no introduction. Considered a classic of Brazilian literature from the 1970s, this particular edition will contain a blurb from Roger Mello since it was a favorite of his growing up. Now Ana Matsusaki adds her original collage illustrations to this tale about a kid who makes up their own new language. A delightful and weird book (the two things are not exclusive to one another).

Future by María José Ferrada, ill. Mariana Alcántara, translated by Kit Maude

Publication Date: May 14, 2024

ISBN: 9798988749905

Imagine a cover made out of silvery, shiny metallic ink and you’ll have a better sense of what this book resembles. The images I might be showing here may look gray, but they’re actually quite sparkly. Now this whole book is about the future and how you, the child, can influence it. With its Chilean author and Mexican illustrator, little wonder that they’re releasing it in both English and Spanish (woohoo!). Look for it. I don’t think you’ll be able to miss it.

Like a Kid in a Candy Store: A Talk with Seymour Chwast About His Eric Carle Museum Exhibit

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Take a trip to Amherst, Massachusetts and undoubtedly you may find yourself in the vicinity of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art at some point. Home to many an entrancing exhibit, the one I’d like to focus on today concerns a certain Mr. Seymour Chwast. Called Kid in a Candy Store: The Picture Book Art of Seymour Chwast, the show is slated to run until April 14th of this year and is, “the first museum exhibition to focus on Chwast’s books for children.” Or, as the press release said of him:

“The legendary career of graphic designer Seymour Chwast spans nearly seven decades. Beginning in 1954, as a co-founder of Push Pin Studios, Chwast and his colleagues revolutionized entire categories of visual culture ranging from book jackets and poster design to product packaging and illustration art across all media. Throughout this fertile period and beyond, Chwast created more than 40 picture books and today, at the age of 92, has more on the way! His profound contributions to graphic design, however, have long overshadowed the picture book side of his career—until now.”

The show has been curated by the great children’s literature historian, Leonard Marcus, who also wrote an entire essay about Chwast that you may read here. For my part, I had a chance to ask Mr. Chwast some questions about all of this. After all, it seems to me that if you get your own exhibit, it would behoove the rest of us to hear what you have to say:

Betsy Bird: Mr. Chwast, thank you so much for taking some time to answer my questions. And congratulations on this, your first exhibition focusing solely on your picture books for children. How were you initially approached about this show?

Seymour Chwast

Seymour Chwast: The curator for the show, Leonard, has been following my work for many years and asked me if I wanted to have a show and I said “Great! I wanted to have a show for quite a while.” 

BB: You’ve alluded to the fact that the show was curated by Leonard S. Marcus. Had you a sense of the overarching themes in your children’s books over the decades until this point? 

SC: A sense of play is very important. Design is always important to me, especially in poster design and I apply a lot of what I’ve learned to my children’s books. I like to put unexpected verbal or visual concepts that will engage the readers. I have been inspired by many artists. For instance Lothar Meggendorfer, a great 19th century artist who perfected the idea of pop-ups in books. I also draw inspiration from the innovative Italian illustrator Bruno Munari, and from Maurice Sendak, André François, and Maira Kalman. At one time Ezra Jack Keats and I were neighbors and I used to enjoy watching him doing four color separations. I admired his patience and ability. What he did was labor intensive and it was worth it because the results were beautiful and inspired me. He did The Snowy Day, for instance, which became a classic.  The students of children’s book illustration should be required to study the work of these artists. 

BB: And what is your assessment of Leonard’s selections?

SC: I could not have done a better job myself. 

BB: The show consists of 30 original illustrations from nine of your picture books. Out of curiosity, how do you prefer to store your picture book art? 

SC: At the time when we were planning the exhibition the art was piled neatly in flat files in my studio. It was easy for Leonard to access and we spent many hours looking at it together. More recently, my work has all become part of the permanent collection at Washington University of St. Louis. 

BB: Did you have any difficulty locating some of the pieces Marcus requested for the show?

SC: Two or three books were out of print and I no longer had a copy. They were difficult to find. Many of the books were done before digital art, and so my editorial assistant Camille Murphy and I had to digitize the older books so that we could enlarge the images for the gallery walls. 

BB: I only just now realized that your editorial assistant is my husband’s cousin, Camille. Doggone it, it’s a small world we live in!

Now the limitations of the 32-page picture book form are upended in a variety of ways with many of the books that are in this exhibition. I’m thinking specifically of the six-foot-long Keeping Daddy Awake on the Way Home from the Beach (1986), the three-dimensional paper-toy animals of Paper Pets (1993), or the gatefold in Traffic Jam (1999). When you were creating such books were you inspired by any other artists or designers or did these come entirely out of your own head? 

SC: When I first saw Bruno Munari’s books I realized that the form of a book could change and become an object — almost anything I wanted that the budget would allow.  The idea for books that unfold, in particular, came from Harriet Ziefert, with whom I have done many books. The story is revealed as you unfold the book to one long illustration that is five feet long. 

BB: The list of picture books you’ve produced over the years begins in 1970 and only ends as recently as last year with two separate publications. How do you feel that your children’s book style altered and changed over the decades? 

SC: I don’t feel my sensibility and drawing have changed. But, the technique has gotten somewhat looser and more spontaneous. Now, I draw on paper and the computer is used to collect the work into book form, make changes and add color. I design as well as illustrate my books and submit them ready for the printer. Work coming out of the computer is also useful for sending the proposal around to publishers. 

BB: Finally, will we be seeing more children’s books from you in the future? What’s next on your plate?

SC: I have another children’s book coming out called Nosey (All about the Nose) with Creative Editions along with an illustrated book for grown-ups called Mark Twain’s War Prayer with Fantagraphics coming out in May. The message in that book is anti-war, and brings together some of my drawings and paintings over the years on the subject. I’m still not done doing tricks with my books and I have a few more ideas that I want to render into children’s books.

A big thank you to Mr. Chwast for speaking with me today (and I’m still a bit floored that his assistant is someone I’m related to). Thanks too to Sandy Soderberg and the team at the Carle for helping to bring this together. The exhibit Kid in a Candy Store: The Picture Book Art of Seymour Chwast will be up until April 14th, so you still have time to see and enjoy it. Make a day of it!

Using Well-Placed “Humour” As a Trojan Horse for Information: An Interview with Philip Bunting About Ants!

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In the backmost corner of my brain, down the hall from the water cooler, the whiteboard, and the various cubicles producing god-knows-what-all, there is a list. It’s not a particularly noticeable list and, I suspect, you could probably walk right by it without giving it a glance. Nevertheless, it’s a list I consult with great frequency. Scrawled in crayon, right at the top, are the words “PEOPLE I WANT TO INTERVIEW”. And prominent amongst them, for a number of years, has been the name “Philip Bunting”.

Does his name ring a bell? If you’re an American it might not, and that’s a pity. I bet you’ve seen some of his books before, though. Chances are, if you’ve seen them, laughed with them, or shown them to a kid, you’ve probably an affection for them. Phil himself is Australian, but his books, with their irreverent nonfiction topics, touch on international themes. He’s one of the few author/illustrators I included twice on my 31 Days, 31 Lists for two separate titles. And now I find that he has a new book out March 19th. Called The Wonderful Wisdom of Ants, it joins a surprising number of other ant-related picture books due to come out in 2024. If you can pick only one, though, I think you know where to look.

Today, I get to talk to Mr. Bunting for the very first time. And not simply about ants either:

Betsy Bird: Philip! Long time reader, first time interviewer. I’ve been a huge fan of yours for a number of years. Your propensity for placing eyeballs in objects and living beings that do not, for all intents and purposes, actually have eyeballs is fantastic. You bring a much needed irreverence to the world of nonfiction books for kids. Just out of my own curiosity, how did you get wrapped up in informational books in the first place?

Philip Bunting

Philip Bunting: Exactly for that reason—so many nonfiction books are a little too heavy on the reverent, the earnest, the literal. They tend to take themselves too seriously. Falling back on the local parlance here (Queensland, Australia), much of children’s nonfiction is ‘as dry as a dead dingo’s donger.’ Perhaps when I was growing up—pre-interweb 😉 —very literal nonfiction had its place, but it is a less relevant form today, in my humble opinion. Particularly when dealing with nonfiction, well-placed humour can behave like a Trojan Horse for information, allowing the ideas to get in by stealth. 

BB: Just adding “dry as a dead dingo’s donger” to my list of phrases I didn’t expect to encounter today. You know, walking that balance between what is funny and what is real can be tricky. Yet I never find that I have difficulty parsing truth from fiction in your books. Is there a lot of trial and error when you’re adding humor to your books (a lot of editing down) or do you tend to nail the landing the first time you create a manuscript?

PB: No, I never nail the landing (and anyone who claims to is probably spinning a bit of a yarn)! Distillation to the point of being able to produce a presentable picture book manuscript requires rounds of editing. The same applies to both fiction and nonfiction, but my goal is always to present the information or story as simply—and in as few words—as possible. I keep a copy of Orwell’s Six Rules for Writing on my wall as a reminder to keep it simple (and refrain from trying to become Conan the Barbarian).  

BB: That right there is the sound of hundreds of people running to look up Orwell’s six rules. No shade (ha ha) on other tree communication books but your GENTLE GENIUS OF TREES really is the standard bearer when it comes to books for kids that explain the whole process. You’ve followed it up with THE WONDERFUL WISDOM OF ANTS, which is fantastic, but it gets me to wondering. We’ve a million bee books for kids out there, and surprisingly few ants. What made you choose the little sugar lovers over the pollen lovers?

PB: Well, thank you, that’s very kind. Ants are indeed underrepresented and underappreciated! I had kept a few disparate notes and facts on ants, across a few equally disparate notebooks. There came a point where I’d collected enough random data to see a through-line for the book—that being the somewhat anthropomorphised ‘lessons’ we hairy humans could take from ants. 

BB: Out of curiosity, what kinds of reactions do you get from kids to your books? 

PB: Kids’ reactions tend to be as wonderful and unique as they are. But anything a little rude or cheeky that makes it through the final edit tends to get the most attention from the kids. I set aside a few hours each week to reply to messages and emails from children, teachers, parents, and more, and those few hours are often the best part of my working week—the feedback is incredibly humbling. 

Image courtesy of Crown Books for Young Readers

BB: You snuck a bit of a nice environmental message at the end of ANTS, I noticed. Your books are funny and informative but is there an inclination to also raise the occasional consciousness when it comes to this Earth we all live on? 

PB: Most good contemporary nonfiction inherently promotes positive environmental messaging—if not explicitly, it does the job simply through positive association. We fight for what we love, and discovery—through good literature—is often the first step in that process. The message at the end of my Ants book is pretty literal, but I don’t see the application as exclusively environmental—it’s an ethos that can be applied to every decision, every moment, to help benefit the greater good. If we each endeavour to make the world a little better—with every decision, in each moment—then we help to nudge the dial in the right direction, just a little.

BB: And were there any ant facts that you weren’t able to fit into this book?

PB: Way too many! Fire Ants get a bad rap, but they exhibit some incredible behaviours. My favourite behaviour is that when they are faced with a river, or sudden flood, a colony of Fire Ants will join together to make a living raft . . . and float to safety. Look out, humans!

There were also ‘hive mind’ allegories I had to leave out, and even quantitative comparisons between the number of neurons in an ant colony vs the number of neurons in a human brain, which were really interesting.

Image courtesy of Crown Books for Young Readers

BB: Zut! I would have loved to have learned more about that one. What kinds of books are you working on next? I know you often have a number of irons in the fire. 

PB: I’ve most recently finished a book about human reproduction—How Babies Are Made—which will be published by Scholastic here in Australia, in June (2024). I make books primarily for my own children, and the older two (age 10 and 8) were beginning to ask questions. A picture book seemed like the best way to answer. 😉

BB: Finally, this one’s just for me. I have to know. In one of your books (which shall remain nameless) I swear to God I found three Simpsons references. I could be wrong but just let me know: Were they intentional?

PB: Having grown up in the 90s—the golden era—I just love the Simpsons. It is the most wonderful anthology of comedy, silliness, and heart. I don’t think any of my references would have been intentional, but equally I don’t think I could have helped it at this point. The writing from that show has formed a significant part of my subconscious! 🙂

BB: As is right.

Image courtesy of Crown Books for Young Readers

Big time thanks to Philip for taking the time to answer my questions today. Thanks too to Sarah Shealy of Blue Slip Media for helping to put this together. You can find The Wonderful Wisdom of Ants on bookstore and library shelves everywhere March 19th. Find it! Read it! And enjoy the fact that 2024 is clearly the year of the picture book ants.

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner

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Originally released in 2003, Skippyjon Jones is a fascinating study of a picture book that was controversial prior to the rise of We Need Diverse Books. When first it came out, the book received loads of praise and awards … and then loads of controversy. While still in print today, we identify the probable reasons why this book doesn’t have a Netflix show, a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a live-action film, etc. Let’s just say there may be a reason why the last book in this series came out in 2014. We discuss what may be one of the oddest Kirkus Reviews I’ve ever read (and I do it twice on the show), the name “Siamese cats”, and why the book is trying to keep the hero “out of the closet”.

Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, PlayerFM, Audible, Amazon Music, or your preferred method of podcast selection.

Show Notes:

If you would like to read the entry I wrote in 2009 when Skippyjon Jones appeared on my entry for this book on the Top 100 Picture Books Poll, you can find it here.

A lot to pick apart with this image. There’s the mixed media, and that works just fine. But the choice of titles on the books on the shelf are so odd. “Puss n’ Boots”? No notes. That’s fine. But “Rats” and “Meow”? I suspect that “Puddy” may be a reference to Tweety Bird’s “I thought I saw a puddy tat,” but maybe I’m extrapolating too much.

Again, I’m willing to go along with mustard turned into a cat’s “moustard”, but “Miracle Nip”? I think she’s referring to the “nip” part of “catnip”. Bit of a stretch, that one.

I also have a whole justification for why these beans in the bee’s stomach aren’t partially digested and it has to do with why they vomit honey. I tell you, this book is making me think odd things.

Kate wonders why a birthday pinata would be filled with dog toys for a cat. Meanwhile I’m wondering why, if you were going to hide a kid’s birthday pinata, why would you put it in his closet in the first place?

Is the E.B. White Readaloud Award still given out? It appears to have been given out from 2004-2019. So no longer.

Kate Recommends: I Remember You by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir

Betsy Recommends: Anatomy of a Fall, now streaming on Prime, but don’t watch it there. There’s a weird 5 second delay between what people say and the translated words on the screen and it’s intolerable. Save yourself the pain and stream from AppleTV instead.

The War in Ukraine, Part Two – Cover Reveal: A Star Shines Through by Anna Desnitskaya

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Today marks the second post commemorating the fact that two years ago today Russia invaded Ukraine in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Yesterday we looked at a wordless Ukrainian picture book that was released in 2023. Today we are revealing the cover of a picture book not available until August of 2024. A Star Shines Through by Anna Desnitskaya is fiction but was inspired by Anna’s family’s real-life experience emigrating to Israel (then Montenegro) from Russia upon the outbreak of the Ukrainian War. You may remember Anna from the truly original and beautiful picture book On the Edge of the World released by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers just last year (and included in my 31 Days, 31 Lists roundup of 2023 Unconventional Children’s Books).

In remembrance of the day that this author/illustrator first received the news of the escalation, please take a moment to read the Author’s Note from Anna that accompanies her latest:

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Anna Desnitskaya

For my entire life, I lived in Moscow, and I cannot describe how much I love that city. It’s a city where I have always felt at home.

On February 17, 2022, my children and I went to Cyprus for a week: a gift for my son’s tenth birthday. For a whole week, we had a wonderful vacation—we enjoyed the blooming trees, the sea, and the sun after an icy February in Moscow. We swam, rode bicycles across the hills, and explored ancient ruins. On February 24, we were supposed to fly back home. At six in the morning, my youngest daughter started whimpering and fussing; I got up to feed her, glanced at my phone’s screen, and saw that it was filled with notifications: “Russia has launched an invasion of Ukraine,” “Russia is shelling Kyiv with ballistic missiles,” “Russian troops have landed in Odessa.” At that moment, I realized that we would not be going back home.

Since then, my husband and I, our three children, our cat, and our dog (the animals arrived later) have been searching for our home. It turns out that emigration is very difficult and challenging. Even in the most wonderful places, everything feels so different, and you feel like a stranger to yourself.

In Moscow, cardboard stars adorned the windows of our house: they were always visible from
afar. When we found ourselves in Israel, in a tiny and uncozy rental apartment, the first thing I
bought was the same star we had back home. We placed it in the window, and I realized that the place became a bit less foreign to us. And I also realized that I wanted to write a book about it. This book was a part of my farewell to my home: when I finished it, I understood that our former life had irreversibly ended.

But now we are all together—my husband, our children, our animals, and me—and the star is in the window. We slowly settled into a new home, and then another, and then we moved to another country, taking the star with us.

— ANNA DESNITSKAYA

A thank you to Anna for sharing this note. And the cover:

Thanks too to Amy Burton Storey and the good folks at Eerdmans for sharing this cover reveal with us today. A Star Shines Through is out on shelves everywhere on shelves August 20th. Be sure to look for it then.

The War in Ukraine, Part One: A Yellow Butterfly Interview with Oleksandr Shatokhin

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On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that started in 2014. We now find ourselves at the two-year anniversary of that war, and so for the next two days I’ll be featuring posts that discuss that war and the children’s books that have come out of it.

When Yellow Butterfly by Oleksandr Shatokhin was first released it received multiple starred reviews and raves from journals, like Kirkus calling it, “Provocative, powerful, breathtakingly beautiful,” and PW saying it was an, “unflinching response to current events from the perspective of a single child.”

I also included the book in my 31 Days, 31 Lists round-up of Wordless Books of 2023. In my review I wrote:

“Much like the rise of picture books about refugees that came out in the wake of Syria’s crisis, so too have Ukrainian picture books proliferated in the last year or two due to the Russian invasion. Finding a way to appeal to notoriously apathetic American consumers and their children is a challenge for any publisher, so perhaps wordless books really are the smartest method of conveying information about war. Oleksandr Shatokhin, a Ukrainian artist who is, according to this biography on the back bookflap, still living and working in Ukraine, does something infinitely clever with this title. It’s really all about the imagery. Unexploded bombs. Barbed wire. And, of course, the yellow butterfly. The book begins in black and white, which means that when the butterflies swarm upon the lines of barbed wire against the blue sky, the final effect bears resemblance to nothing so much as the Ukrainian flag (clever). Red Comet Press made sure to include information at the end on how to share a wordless book, as well as tips for guiding a conversation about the war. A clever way to bring a hard subject to the youngest of readers.”

Two years into the war, I spoke with author/illustrator Shatokhin about the book’s creation, reception at home and abroad, and more:

Betsy Bird: Oleksandr! Welcome and thank you so much for answering my questions. Yellow Butterfly has, in many ways, become the quintessential picture book during this time of the invasion of Ukraine. I never knew how you came up with the book, though. What inspired you to create it in the first place?

Oleksandr Shatokhin

Oleksandr Shatokhin: It all started with a drawing, which later became one of the book’s illustrations. It’s an image of a girl behind the barbed wire whose eyes we cannot see. It was a drawing, but I did not have an idea it would become a book about the war. When the full-scale war broke, and I all the horrible crimes committed by the Russians with my own eyes, I felt the urge to draw a wordless book about war, hope, faith, and ultimately light and victory. That’s when the drawing of the girl came in handy—I just added symbolic butterflies, and the story started plotting itself.

BB: Wordless books have a universal quality to them, capable of reaching across different languages. When you made this book without words, did you have in mind the fact that it could reach more people that way?

OS: No, I didn’t think about that. I am into wordless books and like the format. It’s the kind of format that comes both a challenge and a real adventure for the illustrator. When I got an idea for the book, I already knew it would be wordless—not for the sake of reaching as many people as possible, but to emphasize the topic of war, that would resonate even without words, where the viewer, the reader focuses on the emotional component of the story and reflects on it. Only when other countries started publishing the book, did I realize the advantage of its wordlessness. It’s a very strong format that is without borders and speaks everywhere.

BB: What are some of the responses you’ve received from people outside of Ukraine since the book’s publication? I know there are editions in Japan, Canada, and several other countries now.

OS: Honestly, I have no idea how readers from other countries react to the book. I hope it will help draw attention to what is happening in my country and will be correctly understood. I would love that.

BB: How have people in Ukraine felt about the book? Have you received any responses from there as well?

OS: Such topics as war in picture books have always been treated with caution, especially when it’s a war of here and now. Children live in it, feel it, and see it. But I believe we should not distance ourselves from such important topics. On the contrary, we must discuss and feel them. I wanted to draw a book about the hope and light that will surely come, regardless of the darkness and fear we all experience together. I know teachers, psychologists, and librarians are using my book for classes with children, and they perceive it with understanding and warmth. I am grateful for that.

BB: What else have you been working on? Are there any more picture books in your future?

OS: I continue drawing thanks to our soldiers who protect us and with the support of our friends from around the world. I am also interested in more wordless books and hope to continue to move in that direction. I have just finished drawing my new picture book and am already thinking about a new one. It’s a strange feeling. In times of war, something inside me works in a completely new way, and I try to live with this experience and express it in my new books.

Thanks to Oleksandr for answering my questions today. And I was told by his publisher that he has a new book coming out in September 2024 that, “shows the lighter side of his creativity.” It’s called Little Hare Finds a Gift and is a Christmas story about gifts and giving, so be sure to look for it then.

Many thanks to Angus Killick and the team at Red Comet Press for helping to make this interview a reality today. You can find Yellow Butterfly on bookstore and library shelves wherever the finest of books are sold.