Tag: picture book

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GKP Writing News

Very Unusual Book

The St. Louis Post dispatch Sunday has a page of book reviews. I took a page to my library and asked about one of them not realizing it was a very unusual book.

“Bunns Rabbit” by Alan Barillaro sounded like a typical middle grade quest book. Cute, relaxing, easy reading, reminiscent of “Watership Down”. The library bought a copy and I checked it out.

rabbit for very unusual book
Cottontail rabbits tend to have shorter ears as this cottontail shows. Yet, the domestic breeds developed from European rabbits have ears of many lengths. This is an important aspect in “Bunns Rabbit”.

Big Surprise

When I opened the book, I thought it was the beginning of a graphic novel. Each page was one picture with comments in bubbles.

It is not a graphic novel.

Ruby-throat Hummingbird
Bunns Rabbit rescues and makes friends with a hummingbird which breaks a taboo of her rabbit warren.

The first chapter looked like the beginning of a picture book. These pages were big pictures with text.

It is not a picture book for middle graders.

As the first hundred pages flew by, I found this very unusual book blended graphic novel with picture book with illustrated book. The illustrations remind me of a softer version of those from Peter Rabbit.

Gray Fox
Bunns Rabbit is searching for the Fox Spirit. In the book the fox is a red fox, but only gray ones live around me.

No Surprise

The short review I originally read was right. It is a middle grade fantasy quest book Bunns Rabbit is a young rabbit born into a warren of very conservative rabbits. She has short ears when the norm is longer ears.

The warren elders plan to banish Bunns and her family. Her only hope is to seek the Spirit Fox to get a wish so she can rescue her family. Along the way she meets many other animals who also have problems needing solutions.

Worth Reading

Many adults seem to feel reading books for younger ages beneath them. They are missing out on some lovely books. “Bunns Rabbit” is one of them.

The story is simple, cute and aimed for middle grade readers. That doesn’t make the questions it raises any the less valid or the solutions less important to consider.

Besides, this very unusual book has such wonderful illustrations.

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GKP Writing News

Writing Illustrated Books

A lot of authors are writing illustrated books now. Perhaps these books are popular because people love to watch television and movies and find books of nothing but words boring.

Of course, books for very young readers are filled with pictures. Some have no text at all or very little. As these readers get older, they may like to have those pictures.

I came across such a book. “Matilda” by Roald Dahl seems like a typical book and has an interesting story. What sets it apart are the illustrations by Quentin Blake scattered through the text telling the story.

Writing illustrated books like Ducks Love Hats
Picture books are a kind of illustrated book. “Ducks Love Hats” has no text so the images form the story.

What Are Illustrated Books?

Picture books are listed as illustrated books. These books are in a special category as the pictures tell the story. Even if there is text, the pictures convey the story.

An illustrated book uses pictures to augment the story. Usually, if all of the pictures are removed, the text would tell the story.

"For Love of Goats" is an illustrated book
This image from “For Love of Goats” goes with the entry for E for Electric Fence, but the text is needed to explain what is happening. This is an illustrated book.

Graphic novels are a third type of illustrated books. They trace back to comic books, but now tell much more elaborate stories. These use the pictures to tell the story, but have text and dialogue to add details. Removing the pictures removes the story, just as removing the text would. Both must be there.

Writing Illustrated Books

How an author approaches writing such a book depends on the type of book. Picture books are primarily pictures. When I write a picture book, I see it as a series of pictures. Any text is added later, although I may write out the text before beginning to draw the sketches.

In an illustrated book the pictures are an afterthought. As I write about Ship Eighteen of the Carduan Chronicles, I know I want to have illustrations heading each chapter. The pictures aren’t necessary, however, they will enhance the story.

I have read several graphic novels. It is an interesting format, but one I haven’t used.

Instead, I will continue writing illustrated books mostly as picture books.

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GKP Writing News

Reading Picture Books

This year I’ve been reading a lot of picture books. This has given me a lot of ideas about writing my own.

Yes, I have written a few of my own (“Waiting for Fairies”, “The Little Spider” and “At the Laundromat”) as well as collaborating on “Ducks Love Hats”. However, new ideas help with planning new ones because writing picture books is fun and challenging.

Reading picture books can be different
In “The Little Spider” I used the text to mimic how the little spider goes up various things only to come back down with the text doing the same.

Planning Picture Book Text

Books for adults are little more than text. Picture books are mostly about the pictures. The amount of text can vary from none to a short story with illustrations.

Reading picture books without text
“Ducks Love Hats” has no text so the illustrations must tell the story. These are challenging to create, but can get a child’s imagination to work.

If there is no or very little text, the illustrations must tell the story. I like this approach and often try to use it. A number of authors do this.

“Wolf in the Snow”, “Tuesday” and Mr. Wuffles” are good examples of picture books with no text. Another technique is used in “The Most Boring Book Ever” where the text and the illustrations tell related stories. The stories give lots of play to a child’s imagination, although the illustrations do have a narrative sequence.

A baby goat kid used as a model for a picture book
I work from photographs when I do illustrations for a picture book. Two projects start with baby kids so I have pictures of baby kids.

Other picture books are really stories with pictures. These stories can be read without the illustrations and do well. The illustrations only back up the tale.

Most picture books fall in between these. Some, like ones by Jan Brett, can combine the two. Her main story is an illustrated one. Her sidebars can tell another story than is related to the main one.

Another goat kid pose
It can be hard to get perspective right so I use many pictures from many angles. The different kids over the years give me a lot of material to work from.

Picture Book Illustrations

Reading picture books shows what a wide range the illustrations can have. They can be little more than line drawings with color to illustrations good enough to hang in an art gallery.

The youngest readers haven’t had an art education yet and so accept this wide range easily. They can even help the readers develop an appreciation of various art styles.

Highly detailed illustrations can encourage the reader to study them to find all the details. Doing this makes the reader slow down and actually see the illustration instead of glancing over it.

What Will I Do?

I’m not sure yet. With my first two picture books, the text came first and the illustrations were planned to show the text. In the book about Agate, I have no text yet. All I see are the illustrations.

Reading Picture Books

One thing reading many of these books does tell the writer is that each one is approached separately. Even those part of a series with a standard illustrative approach must be done separately to become a successful book.

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GKP Writing News

Writing About Goats

My High Reaches Nubian goat herd keeps getting smaller. Although this is intentional, it isn’t easy. One way of coping is writing about goats.

Last June marked fifty-one years Nubian dairy goats have been a part of my life. Losing them will put a big hole in it as they are my milk source, my manure and mulch source, my friends.

Writing About Goats Isn’t New

My first book, “Goat Games”, was about goats. More books with goats in them followed: “Dora’s Story”; “Capri Capers”; “Hopes, Dreams and Reality”; and “For Love of Goats”.

When I wrote these, goats were in them because they fit well. I was writing about something I was familiar with. It’s different now.

Now, when I am writing about goats, I am remembering them. It keeps them in my life, even as they fade from my barn.

High Reaches Nubian dairy goat herd
At one time High Reaches had over 40 goats in the herd. Now it is down to ten counting Kingpin.

Opal and Agate: Partners in Adventure

Both Opal and Agate are real goats. Only Opal is still in my herd. Their fictional counterparts are more than they have been. They are stand ins for the many kids that have been a part of my High Reaches herd over the years.

Kids are kids, whether they have four legs or two. Goat kids are cute – just check out some of the many videos and pictures online. That makes them good subjects for picture books.

Best Intentions

I started the year with six books to work on. None of them are done and the year is racing to a conclusion. Life got in the way as it likes to do.

“Ducks Love Hats” happened. I am working my way through the publishing steps with it now.

Ship Eighteen from The Carduan Chronicles was going well. I had plans to move on to Life’s Rules and finish that draft. Instead, there is a major problem with the Ship Eighteen draft. Correcting it will take careful planning and a major rewrite.

Sketches for the first Opal and Agate book are in my sketchpad. I hope I can get more of them done soon. I will, if life doesn’t get in my way again too soon.

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GKP Writing News

Finishing “Ducks Love Hats”

Don’t let anyone tell you picture books are easy to write. All they are doing is showing how little they know about writing. And I really know this is true finishing “Ducks Love Hats”.

At First

There was no plan to really write a book in the lesson plans for Creating Picture Books. Even the original idea sounded flimsy, not nearly enough to fill 32 pages.

How could so few people even dream of creating a book? This was especially true as we only met four times formally. Still, we latched onto the dream.

Finally !

Every page of this little book took hours of work to complete. As these pages were assembled out of pieces done by class members, some of these pages took over 20 layers for the backgrounds, the ducks, the people and the hats.

I am slow with this. Each item had to be created, resized, added to the main page. Did it need to be above or below the other items? Those messy edges had to be erased.

"Ducks Love Hats" cover
Meet the cover of the new picture book “Ducks Love Hats”. It is illustrations only so you can make the tale as complex as you want. The book will be available by the end of September, 2025.

Covers and Title Page

I read around 200 picture books a year. They have a wide variety of illustration styles, many approaches to covers and title pages.

All the book collaborators decided on a color scheme, a title, illustrations. I began with the title page, except it worked better as the cover. What to do for the title page?

Perhaps I could repeat the cover which is sometimes done. However, a different design is better. The new design didn’t match the color scheme, so it changed.

Finishing “Ducks Love Hats”

When working on a book project, it’s easy for a writer to get so involved mistakes sneak in unnoticed. You see or read what you think should be there, even when it isn’t.

The final step is for other people to look the pages over. Then the book will truly be done.

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GKP Writing News

Editing This Picture Book

Finishing a picture book isn’t so different from finishing a novel. Of course, “Ducks Love Hats” has no text, but each and every illustration must be checked and rechecked. If I’m lucky, I will catch any mistakes while editing this picture book.

How the Illustrations Were Done

The Creating Picture Book course started with five young people. Family problems took three of them away just as we were starting to draw the parts of the illustrations.

What I was left with were the four ducks in a variety of poses and eight hats. I had already volunteered to do the backgrounds. What I lacked, and two of those who had to leave were good at, were the people. People are a big challenge for me.

All of the ducks and hats were scanned into my computer. All of the background pages were scanned in.

Next, I did people outlines. There were two family groups of parents and two children. They did various things so I needed lots of different poses for each one. One saving part was being able to reuse some of the poses as the families came at different times in the story. Once the outlines were scanned in, I painted the people.

Using layers each person, duck and hat were put into the illustrations. I like using layers for this as I can resize and move them as needed.

"Ducks Love Hats" page
A happy duck family swims away with their hats in “Ducks Love Hats” by Karen GoatKeeper and others.

Assembling the Picture Book

The layered illustrations are merged, saved and inserted into the book. The book itself is a Word document with 0.1” margins.

Then editing this picture book began. Hats were missing. Ducks were missing. People weren’t in the right places.

This is why I save the layered illustration as well as the merged one. I can open the layered one, make the needed changes, merge and insert the corrected illustration.

Final Touches

Title page and cover are the last things I do. However, editing this picture book will go on as several people look over the pages of the book itself without the title page and cover. I’m hoping they don’t find any more mistakes.

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GKP Writing News

Class Picture Book

Presenting the Creating Picture Book class was challenging, but I’m glad it’s over. Except it isn’t really over yet. The class picture book isn’t done yet.

Getting Started

The class was supposed to last five weeks. However, no one came the first week. There were many reasons. Still, I was left loafing in the room enjoying the air conditioning, reading and working on the first Agate and Opal picture book.

Five people came the second week. There were seven, if you counted the two mothers. Three were young. Two were high school age and serious. We spent the time looking at picture books, discussing the range of illustrations and text.

Then the class decided on a topic for their book. We started a rough draft of pages.

Frustration

Any novel or picture book needs a plan. It’s possible to do a rough draft without one, but actually putting the work together requires some sense of what is happening. For a picture book, this is a story board.

That third week was supposed to complete the story board, but it didn’t happen. Without a plan, the class couldn’t do any prep work over the next week.

I spent the week trying to organize the ideas the class had into a storyboard. Luckily I knew two of the participants and saw them later on. We went over the plan I came up with, made a few changes.

Class Picture Book: Do Ducks Steal Hats?
The Creating Picture Book class picture book started as a cute idea and is turning into a cute book.

Disaster

Family emergencies happen. Still, this one took three people out of the class. The two remaining still wanted to do the class picture book, so everyone pitched in to draw the ducks, hats and people for the story.

The problem was time. Because there were so few of us, the class picture book was going to be mostly done on the computer. It takes a very, very long time to create 32 pages.

Our class picture book “Do Ducks Steal Hats?” (tentative title) will get done. It will take longer than the one week I had before the last class.

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GKP Writing News

Preparing for Class

My Creating Picture Books class is now being advertised. I have flyers up. I left some at the local schools. The local paper carried a press release. The local radio station announced it. That leaves me preparing for class.

I procrastinated. There were no names on the sign up sheet. A feeling of relief vied with disappointment.

cover for "Waiting For Fairies" by Karen GoatKeeper
This was the first picture book I finished. The text was written years before I found the courage to do the illustrations.

Someone Signed Up

The first person is signed up. That leaves the class has an event. I am now preparing for class for real.

Anticipation is now vying with an intense desire to cancel the class. Yes, I have completed three picture books, three illustrated books and illustrated activity books. Does this make me good enough to teach this class?

Changes in the Course

The original course has worksheets to hand out. I was going to charge for the course which would pay for running off these worksheets. That turned into too big a hassle so the course is free. The worksheets may have to be cancelled.

Perhaps the library meeting room is set up for a powerpoint presentation. I haven’t done one in twenty years, but can probably manage one? Hum. Are my nerves and insecurities moving in?

Once I finished the first picture book, I dared to do the illustrations for the other text sitting on my computer for years.

Tackling the Fears

Such fears seem to plague many writers. Books never get finished or languish unpublished because of them.

Teachers can get these fears too. I always dreaded the first day of school. All those new faces, names to learn, new lesson plans were so terrifying.

My Creating Picture Book course will happen. There will be people taking it. The fears may be there, but they need to be squelched.

Preparing for class will help. Either a powerpoint presentation or poster board presentation is needed. A list of picture books to look through on the first day needs assembling.

The course is ready. I have edited and rewritten it more than once. All I have to do is hold on and walk into the room on that first day.

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Latest From High Reaches

Ozark Winter Strikes

All day small bits of snow drifted down. Remnants of ice and snow vanished as the snow accumulated. So this year’s Ozark winter strikes.

As the snow accumulated, future plans moved into wish territory. Driving to town is not impossible. But the reasons for risking an accident aren’t enough to try.

Ozark Winter Strikes with snow
The ice started to melt. Then five inches of snow fell turning the road into an expanse of white. Branches held layers of snow on them. Brush had snow attach to the ice still coating them. This was a picture book in black and white.

Picture Book World

When the snow started, the temperature was in the mid-twenties. That makes a dry, powdery snow. The temperature rose to thirty and the snow stuck on the branches, anywhere it could.

After the snow stopped, milking time came up. The temperatures were cold, but they seemed warm after days of teens and twenties. I left the door open to look out across the white fields.

I read a book about the north woods in winter. It was illustrated with pen and ink drawings. The trees were black patterns in a white world. This was the scene I saw out the barn door.

Ozark Winter Strikes with ice
Freezing rain is a winter hazard in the Ozarks. If the ice is half an inch thick or more, branches and trees can break under the weight. Only a quarter inch coated the trees this time. When the sun comes out, the ice turns the world into crystal.

Ozark Winter Strikes Down Walking

The chickens are resigned, not happily, to staying inside. They refuse to go out in the snow. I leave their door closed.

The goats tromp around the side of the barn to stand in the sun. They bask. Then, it’s back into the barn for hay.

The snow was perfect for snowshoes. We left them up north. I walked around a little, but slogging through five inches of wet snow is hard work.

Cabin Fever

That leaves us inside too. We have plenty to do. Cabin fever isn’t having nothing to do, it’s being stuck inside doing it.

We stand at the windows and look out as today’s sun knocks snow off the branches. I shoved it off my truck. The snow on the ground dimples and sinks.

Tonight the snow will freeze into ice. I have no ice skates and don’t know how to ice skate anyway. Walking to the barn will be treacherous. Dawn will bring more sun, more melting.

That is one thing about when an Ozark winter strikes: It is often gone in a few days.

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GKP Writing News

About Picture Books

I’ve published three picture books and have a series in mind. Still, I don’t know that much about picture books.

Reading

One way to learn is by reading picture books. I’ve always liked to browse through them, rarely listing them on my reading list. There are so many good ones, I wanted to share those I’d read.

My Goodreads blog was a way to do this. I now read and review four to six picture books from my library weekly on my blog.

Another reason for reading so many of these books is to see the range of text and illustrations in them. Ones I’ve read run from ones with only pictures to one with no pictures at all.

The illustrations can be highly detailed, elaborate ones to those looking like museum paintings to casual comic book images. They can be painted, collages, line drawings, photographs or combinations.

My preference is watercolor. Recently I read a book about Tasha Tudor (“The Private World of Tasha Tudor”) and have requested some of her books. She uses watercolor and the images I saw in the book are highly detailed which takes great skill with watercolor.

cover of "For Love of Goats" by Karen GoatKeeper
Although people usually think of illustrated books as picture books for young readers, they can be for any age. “For Love of Goats” is illustrated, but is for older people who love the sounds of words and goats.

Research

Another way to learn about picture books is to read books about how to create them. I am reading one now (“Writing With Pictures”).

The basic steps are what I already knew. This book is expanding on these, adding details and suggestions.

Planning and Implementing

There are a few sketches done now for my Agate and Opal series about two adventurous Nubian kids. As I look these over and consider others for these first two books, one about Opal and one about Agate, introducing them, I’m using the knowledge I’ve gained.

First off, my sketches don’t need to be perfect. This is hard for me as I constantly fight the mantra of not good enough. They only need to be true to my Nubian goat kids.

Secondly, I want to do a picture book series, not illustrated stories. That changes how I will do my text. The pictures tell the story. Text only adds a few bits of information.

Most of the text will be reserved for the information page at the end.