Thread by @CassFederman

Just got my ARC’s for THIS IS A SEAHORSE! (@AlbertWhitman, 2020) Since people seem curious about the process of making a picture book, I figured I'd write up a THREAD breaking down the choices I made when designing the first book in this series, THIS IS A SEA COW (2019).
1/19

First, a quick jump back in time to 2015 when I attended my first @SCBWI conference. @dsantat spoke about book design. “Form follows function.” It was a lesson that really resonated with me and I became determined to apply what I’d learned to the dummy I was working on.
2/19

That dummy would become my first published book, THIS IS A SEA COW (@AlbertWhitman, 2019).
3/19

If you haven’t read THIS IS A SEA COW, the narrator is a 2nd grader who has to write a school report about a sea cow. But as they write, their imagination takes over, bringing Sea Cow to life.

Now, how to support and hopefully elevate all of this with good book design?
4/19

Naturally, the book should look like the second grader’s report including the supplies they used. That idea came easily, but the execution proved difficult. I had to photograph everything at just the right angle so the digital collage wouldn't have the uncanny valley effect.
5/19

The front endpaper shows the homework assignment that launches the rest of the book— visually starting the story before the written story (the report) begins. (If you attend @SCBWI conferences, you'll learn all about that from smart people like @laurentlinn & @MarlaFrazee).
6/19

I wanted to give the impression that the narrator’s teacher loves what they do, so I used bright chalk colors and included some animal drawings that a teacher might take the extra time to do—especially if they are crafty.
7/19

Because my book’s endpapers were printed separately (book pagination still makes my head explode) I had an extra page between the endpapers and the title page. So I asked myself, what happens between receiving a big homework assignment and actually writing it? … RESEARCH!
8/19

These pages show the (pre-Internet) research the narrator did. These research pages in SEA COW and SEAHORSE really stressed me out because I had to be aware of photo permissions. Luckily I studied manatees in college and gave myself permission to use my own photo.
9/19

A challenge arose with the title page. The publisher's info had to go on the right hand side-- WHERE THE REPORT WAS! I decided that the narrator's mom could write them a note. And she'd use a company post-it. Problem solved! (Except for Mom's pilfering of office supplies.)
10/19

I used the title page + the next page to establish a “rule.” First, Sea Cow is drawn in pencil by the narrator. Next, Sea Cow is talking in color, even though we're still on the same report-page. So the "rule" = anyone alive in the narrator's imagination appears in color.
11/19

Another example of color = imagination, is seen with the land cow. Land Cow is drawn in pencil by the narrator for most of the report. It isn’t until the very end, when Land Cow finally speaks, that she appears in full color.
12/19

More facts about Sea Cow are revealed—facts that Sea Cow (or MANATEE as she prefers to be called) is NOT happy about. There’s a moment when Sea Cow takes control of her own destiny, grabbing a crayon and drawing herself the way explorers once saw her—as a beautiful mermaid.
13/19

Eventually the report ends and we reach the other one of those extra pages due to the printing process. I wanted to make it feel like we were nearing the end of the school day, so I put some images to help signify that—a stuffed backpack. Loose lunch money.
14/19

The final endpaper of the book is another chalkboard. The “Report Roundup” implies that all the students presented their reports to the class that day. This helped to open up the world of the book and gets us imagining what those other reports might have been.
15/19

THIS IS A SEAHORSE (fall, 2020) follows the same design: assignment, research, report, end of the school day, and report roundup. But you’ll have to read it to see what Seahorse’s problem with the narrator is this time.
16/19

If you’d like to order THIS IS A SEAHORSE or THIS IS A SEA COW, visit cassandrafederman.com to buy from independent bookstores, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon.
17/19

I hope this thread was interesting or helpful to some of you out there: #kidlit friends, #educators, #illustrators, #writers, #librarians! If you have any questions, please ask and I’ll do my best to answer or pull someone into the conversation who can.
18/19

Last, but not least, I want to point out that all of this book magic was made possible and made better with the help of my awesome publishing team at @AlbertWhitman. @ChristinaPulles @apheemesser @RickDeMonico @lisawhite
19/19