Chris Van Dusen, IF I BUILT A CAR, THE CIRCUS SHIP
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:12]My daughter and I are here for a special announcement, which is that Momstone Have Time to Read Books was just nominated for a Webby Award in the Arts and Culture category for podcasts.
[0:22]So please, please vote by April 18, so that I can win the People's Choice component of this award.
[0:28]And now my daughter has a little something to say.
[0:29]Hi, I love my mom so much. She's been working.
[0:33]So they are for this podcast to be on Instagram, and I also want you to do that in love for us.
[0:40]So please, please vote for Zibi Owens, right?
[0:44]This is Momstone Have Time to Read Books, and I love my mom so much.
[0:47]Please vote for Zibi Owens, where do you have words?
[0:50]The website is vote.webbyawards.com.
[0:54]Today's episode has been sponsored by cereal box.
[0:57]Cereal box delivers addictive book content,
[1:00]shortlisten, or read installments.
[1:02]Designed to fit into today's fast-paced mobile lifestyle.
[1:05]Switch between listening and reading with a single click,
[1:08]picking up right where you left off.
[1:09]Learn more at cerealbox.com.
[1:12]S-E-R-I-A-L-B-O-X.com.
[1:16]I am so excited to be talking to Chris Van Doos in today.
[1:19]Chris Van Doos in is an amazing children's book author and illustrators.
[1:23]Someone who I've been reading since my, my big kids were born.
[1:27]So it's been almost 12 years and now my little kids love all of his work
[1:30]anyway, I'm very excited.
[1:31]A native of Maine, Chris has written and illustrated many books,
[1:34]including Down to the Sea with Mr. McGee, his first book,
[1:37]then a camping spree with Mr. McGee and learning to ski with Mr. McGee,
[1:40]the circus ship, which is a huge favorite of many people.
[1:43]King Hugo's huge ego, Randy Riley's big head,
[1:46]Hattie and Hudson, and my two personal favorites,
[1:49]if I built a house and if I built a car.
[1:51]He's also illustrated the Mercy Watts in series written by Kate Di Camilla.
[1:54]He has contributed drawings to magazines,
[1:56]including Nickelodeon, Family Fun, and Disney Adventures.
[1:59]He graduated with a BFA from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth,
[2:03]and Chris currently lives in Maine with his wife and children.
[2:06]Welcome to Mom's time to have time to read books.
[2:08]Thank you so much for agreeing to do this Skype interview with me,
[2:11]and also with my four and five-year-old kids here.
[2:14]Hello.
[2:15]Yeah.
[2:16]I'm glad to be here.
[2:17]Okay.
[2:18]So we wanted to know how do you come up with the ideas for all of your books.
[2:23]Start with if I built a house and if I built a car.
[2:25]Tell us more about the inspiration for those books.
[2:28]Well, the inspiration for those books was really,
[2:31]it was sort of inspired by Dr. Seuss,
[2:33]who was my like my favorite author ever.
[2:36]And Dr. Seuss, there were two books in particular that Dr. Seuss wrote
[2:40]that really inspired this book, and it was one was called,
[2:43]if I ran the zoo and if I ran the circus.
[2:45]And in those books, it starts with this boy.
[2:48]I came with the boy's name is, but it starts with him,
[2:50]and he imagines what he would do if he built a circus
[2:53]and all the different acts and the kind of crazy
[2:56]or crazier and crazier and crazier until at the very end.
[2:58]The last picture is he's back in the same place
[3:01]and he's sort of it's all been his imagination.
[3:03]So I kind of use that as the format for these books,
[3:06]but anyone totally copy Dr. Seuss and do about a circus or a zoo.
[3:11]So I started thinking about the things that I really liked when I was a kid
[3:14]and I really liked cars that if I built a car was the first one.
[3:17]And there was this book I used to take out of the library
[3:20]and it was all about sort of those experimental cars
[3:23]that car companies built and bring around to car shows
[3:26]and never actually go into production, but they're really cool
[3:28]with fins and domes and all this crazy stuff.
[3:32]And so I sort of used that as the basis
[3:34]and then each page of the book becomes another feature
[3:37]of the car until it builds and builds and builds and builds
[3:39]and builds until it's really, really crazy.
[3:41]And then boom, you're back in the dad's car.
[3:43]So that's really what inspired that.
[3:45]And the house book came, it was sort of the same format.
[3:47]Only that time I decided to have mom,
[3:50]Jack's mom be the character that he shows in the house.
[3:54]Awesome.
[3:55]And if I built the school, which I'm working on right now
[3:58]and it's going to come out this fall, I don't know.
[4:01]It's going to have to crank it out, but in that book
[4:04]it's still Jack and Jack shows his teacher through the rooms
[4:09]or so the features of this crazy school.
[4:12]And are you going to weave in the elements
[4:15]from some of the other books?
[4:16]Like is he going to show up at school in his car
[4:18]and if I built a car?
[4:20]The car is in there.
[4:22]The car is in there.
[4:23]Let's see.
[4:24]What else is in there?
[4:26]Is Mr. McGee and his little dog, Dee,
[4:28]are they going to make an appearance?
[4:29]I'm just digging in there.
[4:30]I haven't been in yet, but I was just talking to my neighbors.
[4:33]They came where to see some of the illustrations
[4:35]and I got to put him in there too.
[4:37]I think I got a good place to put him in there
[4:40]because he sort of becomes a Easter egg
[4:42]in all the books where kids find him.
[4:44]Have you guys seen Mr. McGee in some of the other books?
[4:47]Yeah.
[4:48]Do you remember how he found him on the water
[4:50]and how do you and Hudson right, Tati?
[4:52]Oh, she's getting the book now to show you.
[4:54]Yeah.
[4:55]To illustrate.
[4:56]Speaking of illustrating,
[4:58]what do you do first when you're writing your books?
[5:00]Do you illustrate?
[5:01]Do you come up with a storyline?
[5:02]Do you start with a drawing?
[5:03]And then think this is amazing.
[5:05]Let's make it a book.
[5:06]Well, I could show you actually
[5:08]because I'm actually working on another story right now.
[5:10]This is a good example of how I started book.
[5:13]Oh, he's showing us how he starts a book.
[5:15]Oh, I always start with a piece of paper.
[5:17]Let's say the city is showing you how she finds Mr. McGee.
[5:20]Yeah.
[5:21]And if I build a house.
[5:22]Good job.
[5:23]OK, sorry.
[5:24]Shall I let's about a Easter.
[5:25]So now we start with a piece of paper like this.
[5:27]I'm not sure if you can see it,
[5:28]but it's a piece of paper with rectangles on it.
[5:30]And what it is, it sort of describes what's going to happen
[5:33]on each page.
[5:34]Huh.
[5:35]And sometimes this is for a potential new Mr. McGee story
[5:39]that I'm working on.
[5:40]I'd like to bring him back for one more adventure.
[5:42]And sometimes when I do that,
[5:44]I'll do things like this.
[5:45]I will do these little drawings on the page.
[5:48]They're just tiny little thumbnail drawings
[5:50]of what I imagine some of the action might be.
[5:53]And I do this before I even write the story.
[5:56]I just have to figure out what's going to happen on each page.
[5:58]But sometimes I will do little thumbnails before I go right for it.
[6:03]So, but I really have to write the story completely
[6:06]before I do the illustration.
[6:08]So usually the manuscript is completely written
[6:11]before I do the final illustrations.
[6:13]And is that the way you did it for the circuit ship?
[6:15]Tell us about the circuit ship.
[6:16]Yeah.
[6:17]I heard that's based on a true story.
[6:19]That can't be real.
[6:20]Was it really actually based on a true story?
[6:22]Yeah.
[6:23]It was loosely based on a true story.
[6:25]There really was a ship carrying a circus.
[6:27]It happened back in 1836.
[6:29]I put it in the authors note in the back of the book.
[6:31]But yeah, it was a steam ship that was carrying a circus
[6:35]from St. John, New Brunswick to Portland, Maine.
[6:38]And it ran into a big storm right off the coast.
[6:40]I live on the coast of Maine.
[6:41]It was right off the coast of Maine where this ship went down.
[6:44]And actually the real story, the ship caught fire,
[6:46]which was really traumatic.
[6:48]So I basically kind of took that.
[6:50]I read about it first a long time ago in a magazine, the story.
[6:54]And it must have sort of popped back in my head at one point
[6:58]because I thought it'd be a good story.
[7:00]But I didn't want to tell the actual story because it's really
[7:02]traumatic.
[7:03]It was really scary.
[7:04]And they think a lot of the animals perished
[7:06]and people actually died in the shipwreck as well.
[7:09]So I basically said, OK, well, what if we totally reimagine
[7:13]the end?
[7:14]What if this ship carrying a circus really does sink?
[7:16]But then all the animals swim off and make it to an island
[7:20]off the coast of Maine.
[7:21]Then what would happen?
[7:22]So that's basically what I did.
[7:23]I sort of played the what-if card.
[7:25]You know, what if things happen differently?
[7:27]And that's the way I approach that.
[7:29]Yeah.
[7:30]How did you get your start doing children's books?
[7:32]I've read about it on your bio.
[7:33]But tell listeners more about how you got into this
[7:35]and what makes you love it so much.
[7:37]Well, I was an illustrator.
[7:39]I was an art major in college, actually a painting major.
[7:42]I thought I was going to be like a college painting professor.
[7:45]That was my goal.
[7:47]But I took some illustration courses also in college.
[7:49]And when I got out of school, I still was doing paintings,
[7:51]but I started doing some freelance illustration.
[7:54]And at first it was just small jobs like somebody's business card
[7:57]or a logo for somebody.
[7:59]I remember one of the very first jobs I did
[8:01]were swing set instructions for a company.
[8:04]Well, pieces that I had to figure out how to go together.
[8:07]But eventually the more work I got,
[8:09]the more I was able to sort of specialize
[8:11]in what I really wanted to do.
[8:12]And the type of illustration I really love doing were illustrations
[8:16]for kids magazines because they could be really fun
[8:18]and sort of cartoony and bright colors.
[8:20]And so I was doing a lot of magazine work for kids magazines,
[8:24]back in the like the 80s and 90s.
[8:27]And then an idea from my first book,
[8:29]popped in my head.
[8:30]My first book was called Down to the Sea with Mr. McGee.
[8:32]And the idea sort of popped in my head.
[8:34]And that's how I really started.
[8:37]I sort of worked on that in my spare time.
[8:40]Got it.
[8:41]So it really kind of seemed like a book to me
[8:43]and had some friends who were writers read it.
[8:46]And they thought it was pretty decent.
[8:49]And so it just sort of all went from there.
[8:52]I mean, luckily, I don't know how it happened,
[8:54]but I got the book published.
[8:55]And then after that, I never looked back.
[8:57]I've just been doing kids books since then.
[8:59]Wow.
[9:00]And how long does each kids book typically take you?
[9:02]The writing, the painting.
[9:03]And you paint.
[9:04]So you don't draw any of it.
[9:05]You paint it.
[9:06]I paint.
[9:07]Yeah.
[9:08]All my illustrations are done in a paint called gouache,
[9:12]which is G-O-U-A-C-H-E.
[9:15]gouache is a water-based paint.
[9:18]It's kind of like a opaque watercolor.
[9:20]It's kind of like a thick watercolor.
[9:22]And what I do is, hold on, I'm going to show you.
[9:24]I don't know if you can, wait.
[9:26]I'm going to pick up the computer here
[9:28]and see if I can show you.
[9:30]So this is a big bank of flat files over here.
[9:33]And I got all my robots over here.
[9:35]On these, I've got these plastic plates and plastic bags.
[9:40]And all these colors are mixed.
[9:42]And these are all the colors I'm using if I built a school.
[9:46]And I've got them all labeled.
[9:47]So this is the teacher's skin color.
[9:50]And I've got it all labeled and numbered.
[9:52]So I could just sort of go through.
[9:54]And all I have to do is just add a little water to that paint.
[9:56]It'll just come right back.
[9:58]Wow.
[9:59]So I will do it.
[10:00]all my illustration gouache,
[10:01]but together to answer your original question,
[10:04]a book in general takes about a year to do,
[10:08]that's writing it and illustrating it.
[10:11]I did keep track of how long it took me
[10:13]to do the illustrations for if I built a car
[10:14]and it was about nine months.
[10:16]But I'm cranking on this one,
[10:18]I gotta get this one done.
[10:19]Maybe it's like, oh yeah.
[10:21]And have you thought about,
[10:22]I don't know, I probably could have researched.
[10:24]Have any of your books been optioned?
[10:26]I feel like it would be such a fantastic movie
[10:28]or TV show, like any of the characters
[10:31]and any of the books, honestly, they're so visual
[10:33]and you can just immerse yourself in your world so well.
[10:36]Well, there has been interest in the circuit ship
[10:38]and it was a pretty famous writer
[10:42]optioned it to turn it into a screenplay.
[10:44]So in other words, he bought the rights
[10:46]to turn the story into a screenplay.
[10:48]And I was really excited and I talked to him a few times
[10:51]and then it just kind of dissolved
[10:53]and I didn't hear anything.
[10:54]And then the next thing I knew,
[10:55]the rights were, you know, came back.
[10:57]So, but there's still some interest in the circuit ship.
[11:01]Some people are talking about that.
[11:03]And there's been a little bit of talk about
[11:06]one of my other books for an animated movie.
[11:08]But I mean, Hollywood is kind of so fickle.
[11:11]You never really know.
[11:11]I mean, you get it really excited and then nothing happened.
[11:14]But so I kind of, the way I approach this,
[11:17]I'll believe it when I see it.
[11:19]Yeah, it sounds like it.
[11:20]It'd be really fun.
[11:21]It'd be really fun.
[11:22]I feel like it's such a natural.
[11:23]I'd love to watch it.
[11:25]What about doing some sort of like a pop-up installation?
[11:29]I had this idea of like how great it would be
[11:31]if you could actually build some sort of house
[11:33]resembling your dream house,
[11:35]even though obviously some elements couldn't have it.
[11:37]Like how neat for kids to be.
[11:38]Even if you put it like in a children's museum
[11:41]to be able to walk through it or design the car
[11:43]or have it just some sort of real life model of it.
[11:46]Have no crazy.
[11:47]Oh, that's cool.
[11:48]I was wondering what you meant by that question.
[11:50]So I'm glad you explained that a little bit.
[11:52]There's, I live in Maine and the children's museum
[11:55]in Portland, Maine actually surprised me a few years ago.
[11:58]They were going to update their outdoor play area.
[12:00]It's a really nice little museum
[12:02]that they had all sort of interactive things inside.
[12:04]But out and back, it's right in,
[12:06]right in downtown Portland.
[12:07]So they have this little back area
[12:09]and it was an outdoor play area,
[12:11]but it was kind of run down.
[12:12]And so they asked me if I'd come down to the museum
[12:15]because they wanted to propose something.
[12:17]I had no idea what it was going to go on.
[12:18]So I went down and we went into this conference room
[12:21]and they pulled out these sketches
[12:22]and they wanted to turn the outdoor play area
[12:25]to like down to the sea with Mr. McGee.
[12:27]They went to the whole thing.
[12:29]And they showed me all these sketches
[12:31]and what they were going to do.
[12:33]And I said, wow, this is,
[12:35]if you guys could do this, this is great.
[12:37]And next thing I know of like six months later, it opened.
[12:40]And it's still there, the museum is going to change location.
[12:45]They're building a new museum.
[12:46]So I don't know if that's going to go.
[12:47]But the way it is now, you come out of the museum
[12:50]and you're in Mr. McGee's kitchen.
[12:52]They have these chrome tables out on the deck
[12:54]and little hat Mr. McGee hats the kids can put on.
[12:57]And then you go down the stairs into the outdoor play area
[13:00]and they have his, you kind of go around a circle.
[13:03]They got a village.
[13:04]They've got his boat that you can steer.
[13:07]They've got the shipwreck,
[13:09]which is like a big climbing structure.
[13:11]They have these carved whales that spout water.
[13:14]And then right in the middle sort of the centerpiece
[13:17]is an island with a tree.
[13:21]And way up in top, they've built this sculpture
[13:24]that's probably about six feet long of Mr. McGee
[13:27]and his little dog deep sort of look in the boat,
[13:29]looking over.
[13:30]So it's almost like you're walking down
[13:33]and you're walking right into the book.
[13:35]It's really cool.
[13:36]That is so cool.
[13:37]But the new museum, but I don't know
[13:39]if they're going to move it.
[13:40]Oh, I hope so.
[13:41]I would like bring my kids up right now.
[13:42]That would be so fun.
[13:43]That sounds amazing.
[13:45]So how is it that you get all these joyful colors?
[13:49]Like is that, was your intention?
[13:51]Like I want to make these as happy and joyful as I can.
[13:54]Therefore, I'm putting in all these bright colors
[13:56]or are you just naturally drawn to those types of colors?
[13:58]Is that what you were doing back in college
[14:00]or how did it come to be?
[14:02]Well, I was using those colors when I was doing
[14:04]the illustrations for the kids magazines
[14:05]because they were sort of these cartoon illustrations.
[14:08]So they tend to be sort of bright and colorful anyway.
[14:11]But gouache naturally is, I mean,
[14:13]you can get some really beautiful bright colors with gouache
[14:16]and they really pop out.
[14:18]So my colors were always sort of bright.
[14:21]And certain books are toned down a little bit.
[14:24]Some are brighter than others.
[14:25]Like the circus ship, I think, is a little bit more naturalistic
[14:29]in a way.
[14:30]So those colors are a little bit more muted.
[14:32]So it sort of really depends on the book, too.
[14:34]I mean, if a book is kind of crazy
[14:35]and over the top like the one I'm working on now,
[14:38]the colors are pretty bright.
[14:39]And they're kind of those 50s and 60s colors,
[14:42]which I like to use, so sort of pastels and things like that.
[14:45]But for books like the circus ship,
[14:47]which took place back in the 1800s
[14:49]and it had to be a little bit muted.
[14:51]So those colors are a little bit quieter,
[14:53]a little bit more subtle.
[14:54]But it sort of really depends on the story.
[14:56]I mean, you don't want to take a story that's fairly serious.
[14:58]Like I think Haddian Hudson is a fairly serious story.
[15:01]And I didn't want to like,
[15:02]I mean, the colors are still pretty bright,
[15:04]but I didn't want to just go total gaudy on that.
[15:07]So I really sort of muted that down, too.
[15:09]So the colors primarily are like blues and greens,
[15:12]sort of capture that feeling of a lake and Maine
[15:15]and summertime.
[15:16]And so it sort of depends on the story.
[15:19]And the scenes from the 50s and 60s,
[15:22]was that from your life or are those all from your imagination?
[15:25]Like is that the neighborhood where you grew up
[15:27]or is that fictitious all of it?
[15:29]Well, I did grow up.
[15:31]My parents built a, I was born in 1960.
[15:35]And my parents built a ranch house in 1959.
[15:40]And so I grew up in this house.
[15:42]And I wish I could see it now
[15:44]because it did have boomerang for Mike.
[15:46]And it had all these like,
[15:48]I think the countertops are aqua boomerang or something.
[15:52]And so I grew up in that era
[15:54]where they were like those colors and those designs
[15:57]and all that sort of retro stuff,
[15:59]which is really popular now.
[16:01]And I think actually in some of my books
[16:03]that are really sort of really pushed the retro theme,
[16:05]I think parents and adults like them actually better than them.
[16:09]But it's just because that's the way that I grew up with.
[16:13]And that's the stuff I really love.
[16:14]And what you saw the robots over in the flat files,
[16:17]I love the 50s and 60s inspired stuff.
[16:20]So yeah.
[16:21]We designed our little kitchenette here
[16:23]in that same style, the little boomerangs, the blue.
[16:26]That's exact.
[16:26]I'm just, I'll send you a picture.
[16:27]It's exactly that we went like a smacked,
[16:30]brown fridge and the whole deal.
[16:32]So maybe that's why I'm so drawn.
[16:34]Now they sell new refrigerators
[16:36]like aqua.
[16:37]That's what I have.
[16:38]Yeah.
[16:38]It's like, well, I'll show you.
[16:40]I'll send you a picture.
[16:42]It's pretty wild.
[16:43]But.
[16:45]So how does it feel like do you love connecting
[16:48]with the readers of your books?
[16:49]Like do you like being out and about?
[16:51]And like do you go to schools?
[16:52]Like is that, is the real life interaction really rewarding
[16:55]to you or are you more happy to sort of, you know,
[16:58]stay at home and release these amazing books
[17:00]and just sort of let it fly by?
[17:02]Like what's your, what gives you the most joy in this process?
[17:05]Well, I do fair amount of travel,
[17:08]especially if a new book comes out
[17:09]and like the Mercy Watson book coming out,
[17:12]Candlewick Press, the publisher,
[17:14]it's really getting behind it.
[17:15]And so in April and May, I'm going to do a lot of travel
[17:20]and into June, I'm going to do a lot of travel for that.
[17:22]So I like that.
[17:23]I mean, it's a little, it's a little tiring actually,
[17:26]but it's really kind of fun to go back out.
[17:28]In general, what I do is very solitary.
[17:30]I mean, I just basically sit in this back studio
[17:33]and attach to my house and I just work all day long.
[17:36]So school visits are a way to sort of go out
[17:40]and see why you do what you do anyway.
[17:44]And when you're in front of a group of third graders
[17:47]or something and you show them your books
[17:49]and you pull out, I don't know, you know,
[17:52]Randy Riley's really big hit and they go crazy
[17:54]and they say, oh, we know that book
[17:55]or Mr. McGee books or something.
[17:57]I mean, it's just a way to sort of go, oh yeah,
[17:59]this is why I sit back there
[18:01]and work to late at the night to get these things done.
[18:05]But yeah, it's nice to reconnect with your audience
[18:08]every now and then.
[18:09]So I like both parts.
[18:12]But if I'm under a deadline, a lot of times I just can't,
[18:14]I just can't take the time to go out and go on the road.
[18:17]So I really just have to crank away to meet a deadline.
[18:20]And then like I said, when a new book comes out a lot of times,
[18:23]then I'll go out and I'll either go to bookstores,
[18:26]vote the book or I'll start doing school visits
[18:29]and things like that.
[18:29]So you have the new Mercy, little Baby Mercy book coming out,
[18:33]which is really exciting.
[18:35]If I built a school, perhaps the new Mr. McGee book,
[18:38]anything else, secret plans?
[18:40]The music book would be way, way in the future.
[18:43]And that's still in the process.
[18:44]There is another book coming out.
[18:48]I did a book with Balzer and Bray,
[18:50]which is a division of Harper Collins.
[18:52]I did, I did not write Lisa Wheeler wrote it
[18:54]and it's called Even Monsters Need to Sleep.
[18:56]I don't know if he's seen that.
[18:57]He came out and came out the same year as Hattie and Hudson.
[19:00]So what was that?
[19:01]A couple of years ago, 2017, 2017.
[19:05]And it was like a going to bedtime book
[19:07]but it featured monsters and the different places
[19:10]where they sleep.
[19:11]It was really fun to illustrate.
[19:12]But that was a two book deal.
[19:13]So the second one was called Even Monsters Go to School.
[19:16]Which is funny because I'm doing another school book.
[19:19]Oh yeah, here it is.
[19:19]So these are the F and Gs for it.
[19:21]This is good.
[19:23]And it features this little character here
[19:27]that I came up with and all the different places
[19:29]where Monsters Go to School.
[19:30]So this is coming out in June.
[19:32]Can I take a picture of this?
[19:33]Sure.
[19:34]Here's my own.
[19:35]Love it.
[19:36]Thanks.
[19:37]So it's just kind of, you know,
[19:39]it talks about different monsters and where they go to school.
[19:42]Let me see if I, oh, I'll show you one of my favorites.
[19:45]It's actually where the aliens go to school.
[19:47]So for listeners, he's holding up a book.
[19:50]Well, on the cover, it was a little purple monster
[19:52]about to board a school bus, like waving goodbye.
[19:54]Well, not a kind of a bluish purple monster
[19:57]with a purple backpack and all these other monster.
[20:00]There's, it looks like perhaps one regular kid on the bus.
[20:03]In the school.
[20:04]Yeah.
[20:05]And the school bus.
[20:06]Yeah.
[20:07]Those are all the kids.
[20:08]And so it starts the story starts with this little monster.
[20:11]And it's sort of clear from the illustrations that she's a little reluctant to go off to school.
[20:16]And her dad makes her breakfast and he starts telling her a story about different monsters and where they go to school.
[20:26]And that's what starts the story.
[20:28]It talks about how big foot goes off and loves riding in the bus.
[20:33]And it just, then there's Frankenstein has sneakers.
[20:38]And it just, it's just kind of a silly thing.
[20:41]But it was, it was fun to illustrate.
[20:42]So that's coming out in June.
[20:43]So I got the piglet named Mercy by Katie Camilla.
[20:46]That's in April.
[20:47]Even monsters go to school.
[20:48]That's in June.
[20:49]And then if I built a school, which right now they're saying is going to come out and I think August.
[20:55]So I'm going to keep cranking and see if I get there.
[20:58]They're actually going to, that's with dial and they're going to print the book in the United States to save time.
[21:05]So yeah, it's really tight.
[21:08]But we'll see if I can do it.
[21:09]Excellent.
[21:10]And do you ever, do you ever sell the illustrations either, do you ever do commissions for people?
[21:15]Like do people ever say, hey, would you, I don't know paint this for me or my family or do you sell any of the illustrations from your books?
[21:22]Or is that like an ancillary revenue stream for you or anything?
[21:25]I haven't yet sold the, the illustration from my books that I've written just because they're, there's just so.
[21:32]I mean, once they're gone, they're gone.
[21:34]And so I hang on to them.
[21:35]I got them all stored in these boxes in my studio.
[21:38]I do on my website sell prints of my, of some my illustrations because a lot of times, you know, parents will want to buy like a certain picture from the
[21:46]a ship or whatever and put it up in their kids room.
[21:48]So those are for sale on the website.
[21:50]And also on that same tab on the website is some of the original illustrations from the first Mercy Watson series because I have,
[21:58]I don't know, I had like 300 paintings just sitting around and I said, well, I don't really need to hold onto these.
[22:03]So I do sell those.
[22:04]And those are the originals, those are the original paintings.
[22:07]So those are for sale.
[22:08]But as far as my illustrations, my books, I haven't sold those yet, they're just available in print form.
[22:13]And I do sometimes get people to ask me if I do commission work, like they'll want me to do a Christmas card or something for them.
[22:19]And for the most part, I just, I can't because my schedule is so busy, but.
[22:24]So I rarely do commission work.
[22:27]It's mostly just books.
[22:28]And it sounds like you pick and choose which authors aside from the books you write yourself that you want to work with and will illustrate their books.
[22:34]Right.
[22:35]Just so you can only do that sparingly.
[22:36]Yeah.
[22:37]Yeah.
[22:38]Yeah.
[22:39]Yeah.
[22:40]Yeah.
[22:41]Well, I love, you know, I got paired up with Katie Camillo in the first Mercy Watson series and it was such a just, you know, so wonderful to be connected with her.
[22:51]And so, and luckily it's very nice that she's kept that series going with different, you know, that's been off series and now this picture book.
[22:58]So coming up, I do have several more of the Tales from Deku Drive series, which is like this, the second series that you wrote.
[23:07]So I've got it.
[23:08]Let's see.
[23:09]I think I have three of those to do.
[23:11]So, and then I got another, Jesus, well, let's see.
[23:13]And I've got another book under contract with Canada, where I can book, I wrote, but that's probably not until.
[23:18]I don't know.
[23:19]I'm thinking like several years out at this point because it takes a long time for me to do the work.
[23:24]I feel bad now taking up this half an hour with you.
[23:27]You have so much to do.
[23:28]I'm like feeling stressed out for you. Like, go, go, go.
[23:32]Well, that, I mean, that's really it.
[23:34]I just wanted to like get a sense of how you're, where this genius of yours comes from because honestly, my kids and I, I've been reading these books.
[23:41]My older kids are, are almost 12 and I think my older daughter would kill me.
[23:45]If I didn't tell you how much she loved the Mercy Watson illustrations, that was like all she read for a year straight.
[23:50]And the little guys and my older son, everybody, we all just love your, your work.
[23:53]And it's been just so exciting to even get to talk to you about it and see all the little snippets from what's to come in the outline.
[24:00]So I just really want to thank you for your time and for really delighting so many kids.
[24:04]I can't tell you how many parents were beyond thrilled that I was interviewing you.
[24:08]And so anyway, you have a huge fan base here.
[24:10]So if your travels take you to New York City, let me know and we can do some, do some, there's something fun.
[24:16]Okay, yeah, I wish I could have come down for it. I just, I just couldn't fit into my schedule right now, but yeah, that would have been fun.
[24:22]Yeah. Thank you for taking the time and interview me. I really appreciate it.
[24:26]Of course. All right. Well, we'll love to stay in touch and can't wait to see your books.
[24:30]All right. Thanks.
[24:31]All right. Thanks Chris. Take care.
[24:32]Bye bye.
[24:33]Today's episode was sponsored by cereal box. S-E-R-I-L-B-O-X dot com cereal box dot com delivering addictive book content in short listen or read installments.
[24:43]Thanks to Ryan and Steve at texture sound for the audio editing and mixing.
[24:47]Thanks for listening to momstone have time to read books.