An Unexpected Phone Call

...and some appreciation for a toothy rodent.

This edition of the newsletter has some actual NEWS. Thankfully, it’s good news. Check out the headline…

If you have followed along with me for some time you might be aware that last year I illustrated a kid’s book all about beavers. It’s called What Goes on Inside a Beaver Pond?Technically it’s for kids, but let’s be honest, do YOU know what goes on inside a beaver pond?

Before I made this book I didn't know a whole lot, but as it turns out, those little creatures are quite something.

What Goes on Inside a Beaver Pond?

Illustrating this book was a long term project. I worked on it for most of a year. During that time, when someone would ask me what I was working on, I sometimes had a difficult time explaining it accurately. I described it as a non-fiction, graphic picture book, for kids, about a beaver family.

Or in other words, imagine one of those beautiful David Attenborough nature documentaries where we follow a certain animal around their habitat to watch how they live, and survive, and interact with their surroundings.  Now imagine that documentary in the form of a book, with multiple panels on each page, read like a comic book.

The story follows a family of beavers over the course of a year. We see them inside their lodge, foraging for food, evading predators, traveling to find new territory, and going through an entire course of the seasons. There are, of course, some very dramatic moments, and there is a brave main character to cheer on.

The book includes maps of the beaver family’s territory, diagrams of their lodges, and lots of side information about things like predators, and the surrounding landscape, and how their teeth grow. It’s one of those books that you want to sit down with and pore over all the small details.

It was a hugely challenging project, that when I started out I wasn’t entirely sure I could execute successfully. It was one of those things that just had to be taken day by day, because if I looked too far ahead and thought about all that needed to be accomplished it was very overwhelming.

In the end, it turned out pretty great. Not only did I learn a lot about beavers, but it pushed me really hard, and my technical skills and illustration chops hit a new level. That feels pretty good.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve. I unexpectedly received a phone call from Joan Burroughs, President of the John Burroughs Association, letting me know that our book had won the 2024 Riverby Award for being an exceptional nature book for young readers. It was quite the surprise.

If you aren’t familiar with John Burroughs, he was an American naturalist and nature writer, and he played a big part in the conservation movement along with John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt. He was friends with Walt Whitman, and Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison. So yes, he kept some pretty good company. He’s one of those historical figures who has schools named after him. There’s a mountain in Mount Rainier National Park named in his honor - Burroughs Mountain. The voice on the other end of my phone was his great grand daughter. She couldn’t have been nicer, or more complementary. We had a lovely conversation, and I was invited to come to New York City in April to attend their annual awards luncheon. How about that?

What an honor that something I played a part in creating, and worked so hard on, is being recognized as something exceptional. (Shout out to the author, Becky Cushing Gop, and to our editors and art directors. It was absolutely a group effort.)

Hopefully this means we sell more books! This is the part we don’t like to talk about, but let’s be honest, selling books is how we make a living. If you haven’t gotten a copy, pick one up at your local bookseller. Or have them order a one for you, along with a few others to stock their shelves.

And if that doesn’t work, you can always get one right here.

In related news…

Just this past week I started work on the second book in this series, which is about WOLVES. The manuscript has been handed over to me, and let’s just say this one will be a bit more action packed. Wolves are predators, after all, so you can imagine what that means.

I’m currently in the visual research and getting-to-know-everything phase, which means I’m looking at tons of photos, and watching videos, and reading up on wolf packs and how they operate. I’m trying to get a feel for their body structures and how they move, and figuring out how I want to draw them.

An early sketch.

This story will follow a wolf pack over the course of the year in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley. The great thing about this is that in real life so many people love to visit the valley with their fancy cameras and spotting scopes in hopes of spotting the famous wolves, so there are a ton of photos and videos out there for me to look at and use for reference material.

I have a loooong way to go on this one! I’ll be working on it for most of this year. Hopefully I’ll be able to share some in progress updates with you as I work through it.