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Side by Side: Five Favorite Picture-Book Teams Go to Work
Have you ever wondered how a picture book is made? The process is similar to the way we play a team sport, put on a play, or build a sandcastle-through collaboration. Writers and illustrators collaborate in a variety of ways. Sometimes they start as friends who choose to work together. Sometimes they become friends through the work they do. And sometimes they find that their feelings and styles change to the point where they can no longer work together. Each collaborative team and venture is unique. Side by Side focuses on five famous author/illustrator teams and favorite books they have - Arthur Yorinks/Richard Egielski & Louis the Fish - Alice Provensen/Martin Provensen & The Glorious Flight- Jon Scieszka/Lane Smith/Molly Leach & The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales - Julius Lester/Jerry Pinkney & Sam and the Tigers - Joanna Cole/Bruce Degen & The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses Personal anecdotes, edited manuscripts, sketches, and dummy book pages show the give-and-take that goes on between authors, illustrators, editors, and designers as they are working on projects they feel passionate about. By taking readers behind the scenes of these works in progress, Marcus gives us insight into how teamwork, cooperation, and friendship play a role in shaping the creative process, and will inspire readers to view their own team effort in fresh new ways.
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
34 people want to read
About the author
Leonard S. Marcus
72 books68 followersLeonard S. Marcus is one of the world's leading writers about children's books and their illustrations. His many books include The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy; Funny Business: Conversations with Writers of Comedy; Dear Genius; and others. His essays, interviews, and reviews appear in the New York Times Book Review, among other publications. Leonard S. Marcus lives in Brooklyn.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 28, 2012
My job as a teacher librarian is to get the bouncing bundles of energy to cuddle, stroke, and lick their books. Okay, maybe not lick, but I need to ignite a reading fire inside them. I was reading Bink & Gollie Two for One and laughing hysterically at the illustrations (along with three parents who sat down to listen), changing my voice with the text and mimicking the movement of the characters in the text. I'm no actress, believe you me, but it was such a gas reading this story I was completely caught up in the joy of the plot, characters and pictures. We all had laughing stomachaches by the end. When I finished I thought how much fun it would be to hear the collaboration story of illustrator Tony Fucile who worked on The Incredibles (I think Bink looks like Dash) and writers Kate DiCamillo and Allison McGhee. This story oozes fun. It is a brilliant piece of collaborative work. One you might even lick!
While this book by Leonard Marcus was written before the collaboration Tony, Kate and Allison, it is special in that it touches on great collaborative efforts between artists and writers in the 1980s and 1990s. You get to see picture book-making as an art form and what went into the creation of some unique books. I want to pass this on to my students and it is really hard for me to find books that are helpful. Don't miss this gem! It is a short bugger and while sometimes I wished for more details, other times I appreciated that it wasn't a thick textbook that would take me hours to read.
First off, ArthurYorinks and Richard Egielski. I'm not familiar with their book, Louis the Fish, but I'm gonna fish for it on the shelves tomorrow. I don't even know if we have own a copy. Arthur Yorinks and Richard Egielski borrowed from Franz Kafka's, The Metamorphosis, (one of my favorites) when writing Louis the Fish. I can't imagine turning Kafka's odd piece of work into a picture book so I'm anxious to see it. The artwork is in watercolor and the aerial view of Louis in his bed was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's, Psycho. Sounds like a dark book, doesn't it? Mwa-ha-ha-ha.
The next collaboration between the husband and wife team of Alice and Martin Provenson has some great sketches of the dummy which is more cartoonish and funny than the final polished product. I found it fascinating how Alice describes their collaboration as one similar to the Medieval illuminated manuscripts made by many monk-artists. Everyone contributed to the end product and no one took sole credit for any part. She then explains how the two worked on the same picture with one doing the costumes and the other the airplane. I think my husband and I get along but I'm not sure we'd work that well together. It's not exactly the same as sharing a dinner.
The third slice of insight is with Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith, and Molly Leach. Marcus shows how much work these three put into their books. Wow! Wow! Wow! Molly's expertise was in magazine design and I found this particularly interesting how she influenced the look with placement of text and font. It harkens back to my journalism days. Actually it reminds me of how I didn't really understand design, but hey, I knew what Marcus was talking about in this chapter. Dily Evans has a book called, Show & Tell: Exploring the fine Art of Children's Book Illustration!, where she goes into more detail on how surrealist art influenced Lane Smith as an artist.
Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney had quite a tangle of mixed emotions as they went about retelling of Helen Bannerman's 1988 book called, The Story of Little Black Sambo. Considered by many as prejudice toward blacks in its caricature illustration and the derogatory use of the name, Sambo, Pinkney and Lester not only turned the tale into their own, they avoided the controversies and kept the charm of the story as the main focus. Great storytelling and illustrations!
Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen of The Magic School Bus series were the last collaborators explored by Marcus. Their combination of nonfiction facts with fantasy elements was extremely complicated and difficult to pull off. Degan was faced with presenting a myriad of facts and drawing the body anatomically correct - not an easy feat. But as you know, they not only pulled it off, they made it a highly successful series.
A great book to add to your knowledge-base of picture books, if that interests you as a reviewer, artist, writer, or teacher.
While this book by Leonard Marcus was written before the collaboration Tony, Kate and Allison, it is special in that it touches on great collaborative efforts between artists and writers in the 1980s and 1990s. You get to see picture book-making as an art form and what went into the creation of some unique books. I want to pass this on to my students and it is really hard for me to find books that are helpful. Don't miss this gem! It is a short bugger and while sometimes I wished for more details, other times I appreciated that it wasn't a thick textbook that would take me hours to read.
First off, ArthurYorinks and Richard Egielski. I'm not familiar with their book, Louis the Fish, but I'm gonna fish for it on the shelves tomorrow. I don't even know if we have own a copy. Arthur Yorinks and Richard Egielski borrowed from Franz Kafka's, The Metamorphosis, (one of my favorites) when writing Louis the Fish. I can't imagine turning Kafka's odd piece of work into a picture book so I'm anxious to see it. The artwork is in watercolor and the aerial view of Louis in his bed was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's, Psycho. Sounds like a dark book, doesn't it? Mwa-ha-ha-ha.
The next collaboration between the husband and wife team of Alice and Martin Provenson has some great sketches of the dummy which is more cartoonish and funny than the final polished product. I found it fascinating how Alice describes their collaboration as one similar to the Medieval illuminated manuscripts made by many monk-artists. Everyone contributed to the end product and no one took sole credit for any part. She then explains how the two worked on the same picture with one doing the costumes and the other the airplane. I think my husband and I get along but I'm not sure we'd work that well together. It's not exactly the same as sharing a dinner.
The third slice of insight is with Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith, and Molly Leach. Marcus shows how much work these three put into their books. Wow! Wow! Wow! Molly's expertise was in magazine design and I found this particularly interesting how she influenced the look with placement of text and font. It harkens back to my journalism days. Actually it reminds me of how I didn't really understand design, but hey, I knew what Marcus was talking about in this chapter. Dily Evans has a book called, Show & Tell: Exploring the fine Art of Children's Book Illustration!, where she goes into more detail on how surrealist art influenced Lane Smith as an artist.
Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney had quite a tangle of mixed emotions as they went about retelling of Helen Bannerman's 1988 book called, The Story of Little Black Sambo. Considered by many as prejudice toward blacks in its caricature illustration and the derogatory use of the name, Sambo, Pinkney and Lester not only turned the tale into their own, they avoided the controversies and kept the charm of the story as the main focus. Great storytelling and illustrations!
Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen of The Magic School Bus series were the last collaborators explored by Marcus. Their combination of nonfiction facts with fantasy elements was extremely complicated and difficult to pull off. Degan was faced with presenting a myriad of facts and drawing the body anatomically correct - not an easy feat. But as you know, they not only pulled it off, they made it a highly successful series.
A great book to add to your knowledge-base of picture books, if that interests you as a reviewer, artist, writer, or teacher.
July 4, 2010
This is an excellent and very well written book about the creative process and about collaborative teamwork.
I love behind the scenes type tours, and that’s what this book is.
I might have enjoyed it even more had other/more writer-illustrator teams been included.
The 5 teams featured are:
Arthur Yorinks and Richard Egielski: Louis the Fish
Alice Provensen and Martin Provensen: The Glorious Flight
Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith, and Molly Leach: The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney: Sam and the Tigers
Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen: The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses
Each of the teams has a section where they talk about how they came to be a team, details about their style of working together, work in progress is shown, some information about their lives in general is given, and at the end a partial list of their books is given, so the reader sees those too, not just the most featured book. The work in progress pictures are fascinating.
There is also a short, but useful, glossary in the back of the book, and an index too.
I’d love it if Leonard S. Marcus created other books such as this, with other picture book teams, and I’d love to read more such books either by other authors or about other types of collaborative efforts.
I love behind the scenes type tours, and that’s what this book is.
I might have enjoyed it even more had other/more writer-illustrator teams been included.
The 5 teams featured are:
Arthur Yorinks and Richard Egielski: Louis the Fish
Alice Provensen and Martin Provensen: The Glorious Flight
Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith, and Molly Leach: The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney: Sam and the Tigers
Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen: The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses
Each of the teams has a section where they talk about how they came to be a team, details about their style of working together, work in progress is shown, some information about their lives in general is given, and at the end a partial list of their books is given, so the reader sees those too, not just the most featured book. The work in progress pictures are fascinating.
There is also a short, but useful, glossary in the back of the book, and an index too.
I’d love it if Leonard S. Marcus created other books such as this, with other picture book teams, and I’d love to read more such books either by other authors or about other types of collaborative efforts.
July 27, 2013
This is a good book about how authors and illustrators work together to create children's books. I found it interesting that some authors and illustrators don't have much contact with each other and others want to work together during the illustration process.
This book would be good for students to read in a writing class to show what can be accomplished when people work together.
This book would be good for students to read in a writing class to show what can be accomplished when people work together.
April 20, 2015
This is another great "behind the scenes" book about authors and illustrators of children's books. It provides interesting and little-known background details that can be shared with students when reading aloud books by the well-known picture book teams highlighted.
April 23, 2012
This book tells about how a collection of authors wrote some of their most famous pieces. This will help you guide your students how to find their creative voice in their writing.
March 18, 2016
This was more of a 3.5/5 rating. It was interesting to learn more about the various ways authors and illustrators come together to create picture books.
January 8, 2022
64 pages.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews