I ran into this poster while cleaning up my hard drive. I had forgotten all about it. I know that the idea of books taking you to new places is an old idea but here is my interpretation. Enjoy!

Here is a detail.

My life in children’s publishing has been in a confusing place for a while. One book is published and book number two has eluded me. I have one manuscript out to a publisher. When I sent it I felt really good about it but the longer the wait the less hope that I have that this book will be my second book. In addition, there are five book concepts that I like but still have major problems to solve. So here I am in the Valley of Publishing. It is hard to look forward and it is hard to tell how book number one is doing. So it is time for me to start climbing out of this valley.

Scale is the smallest dragon in the world. His favorite thing to eat is dandelion blossoms. Life as Scale knows it is about to change. One of his scales can bring wealth beyond dreams to the one who possesses it. Scale is helped by some new friends along the way. The end as you know will never be reveled because this is an UnBook by Scott E. Franson.

On Monday evening my family shared a nice dinner with my parents. As the meal came to a close one of my children asked the adults to tell an experience from when thy were young. My mother volunteered the following.

One day at church my mother noticed that my brother and I had big wads of gum. She asked us where we got the gum. To her horror, we responded, “The drinking fountain”. Being the good mother she was the gum was quickly disposed of.

We had a good laugh and I can honestly say that I don’t remember looking for and then chewing pre-owned gum as a child.

I have heard some illustrators say that they show their work to children and other illustrators that never show their work to children. The picture book market is interesting because adults make the purchase and then children are the consumer. Who knows what will be successful and attract adults and is also “kid friendly”.

For myself I have discovered that a child can give helpful feed back but not in words. When I first show an illustration to a child (usually one of my children) I pay close attention to their immediate response. I watch their face and never explain the illustration. It needs to communicate on its own. I have found this to be good information.

If I start asking them questions, the comments are almost always nice because they know me and want to be kind. This information is less valuable.