Words + Pictures = Magic!  The best picture books are the epitome of the smooth teamwork between author, editor, artist, and art director/book designer. Here’s one case study of such a collaboration.

Many kindergarteners around the country have been successfully averted from first day jitters at school when the alert goes out that a cute little gingerbread boy is lost on the school grounds, and must be found!

Author Laura Murray relates one cookie’s side of the story in The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School, corroborated by Mike Lowery‘s action-packed illustrations.

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Joy Chu:  Tell us about the genesis of The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School. Where did it all begin?

Laura Murray:  I was a teacher before becoming a writer. The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School was inspired by a Kindergarten Gingerbread Man unit I taught at the beginning of each school year.

We compared and contrasted different versions of the Gingerbread Man story and used Gingerbread Man activities for each subject.

JC:  Which versions of the Gingerbread Man story were covered in your class? This is of particular importance to beginning illustration students — that traditional tales can have a unique perspective, dependent upon the story-teller and/or artist.

LM:  The teachers that do the GB Man unit use different versions of the story to compare and contrast, but I personally liked versions that had variations in setting, plot, main characters, illustration style, or culture.  We used Venn diagrams to discuss similarities and differences of each version. The titles I typically used were:

The Gingerbread Man  by Jim Aylesworth (traditional tale)
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We caught up with The Gingerbread Man: Loose in the School, with the help of  author Laura Murray, illustrator Mike Lowery, and art director Cecilia Yung. Join us as we catch up on their caper tomorrow, right here!

Hooray! I am so happy you found me and my friends!

For more details, click here.

If you can draw these (click image to enlarge), you're ready to enjoy our in-class exercises! The Emberley book is our required class handbook.

This is not a children’s picture book per se. Nonetheless, it is a standout in its symbiotic overlap of picture execution, voice, art media, and book printing process. Even the ink on the book jacket glows in the dark!

Lauren Redniss — a Pulitzer Prize nominee for her body of work, created the 2011 National Book Award nominated book about the extraordinary Marie Curie, her pioneering work with husband Pierre, her two Nobel prizes, and the subsequent implications of her work today.

She shares her process on the creation Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout. Catch her presentation below — a gift to all of us — and prepare to be enthralled, enchanted, and inspired…

Peruse the illustrations while Lauren’s voiceover guides us through the evolution of her storytelling approach:

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(click on chameleon or Gingy to enlarge)

This week we’ll sample more selections from The Original Art Exhibit, featuring highlights from the best illustrated children’s books of 2011.

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Jason Chin takes picture book nonfiction into the realm of lyrical realism in his latest book, Coral Reefs.
The jacket gives a hint of what’s to come — a young girl exploring an underwater kingdom. We are presented with real-life marine biological facts through the text, visually told as an undersea adventure.

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Jason Chin:  “The girl in this book is the daughter of a friend who used to live in Vermont, where I now live.”

Jason Chin:  “My illustrations are done in watercolor, the same size as they appear in the book.

To do research for the book, I visited in the coral reefs of Belize and learned to scuba dive so I could experience the reef first hand. . .”

“. . . Being underwater affected me emotionally — it was exhilarating to visit such an otherworldly place, but the reef itself was serene and mysterious . . .”

“. . . After my initial excitement, I looked around and felt very, very small and it was very peaceful.  I tried to bring what I saw, and also what I felt, to my illustrations–to make the images both visually accurate and emotionally honest.”

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from "Swirl by Swirl", illustration by Beth Krommes

Holiday travel is in the air! We’ll look at more Original Art all week, culminating in a field trip to the Laguna College of Art & Design to check out the 2010 Original Art Show on display at their gallery.

from "Blue Chicken" by Deborah Freedman

In other words, you’ll savor selections from both the 2011 and 2010 shows, here at the Countdown. And if you are in the NYC area, do catch the Original Art at the Society of Illustrators.

from "The Woods" by Paul Hoppe

If you happen to be in the southern California region, visit the lovely coastal town of Laguna Beach and check out the Original Art Traveling Show before it closes on Friday, December 16!

from "Brownie & Pearl Take a Dip" illustrated by Brian Biggs, written by Cynthia Rylant

Oh, and be on the lookout for this little guy (below). We’ll have a search party (Hi Laura Murray, Mike Lowery, and Cecilia Yung) out for him here, too. . . .

Follow our posse as we join Laura Murray and Mike Lowery to piece together their search for The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School, plus many more yummy surprises from The Original Art 2011 Show, next week. Spread the word…

It’s a double blessing to encounter Ed Young‘s childhood memoir, The House Baba Built (see my earlier article here); and to follow up with Allen Say‘s memoir of growing up with his mentor, in Drawing from Memory (illustrated below), when selections from both books are also in The Original Art Show.

In his feature in the N.Y. Times Book Review, Terry Hong writes:

“… Both books describe how family can guide artists in their early years. In Say’s case, it was a chosen family;  for Young, the extended family into which he was born …”

From Allen Say's "Drawing from Memory" (click to enlarge)

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Medium: Watercolor, pen, ink,pencil and photography
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Imprint: Scholastic Press
Art Director: David Saylor
Editor: Andrea Davis Pinkney

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A lovely trailer on why picture books matter from Dianne de Las Casas, creator of the Picture Book Month blog.

Picture Book Month 2011 Trailer by Carter Higgins on Vimeo.