Grief Picture Books with Patrice Karst

We are so excited to have Patrice Karst join us today to share about her picture books!

Patrice Karst is the bestselling author of The Invisible String – over 1 million copies sold! – The Invisible Leash, The Invisible Web, You Are Never Alone: An Invisible String Lullaby, and the co-author of The Invisible String Workbook. She is passionate about spreading her message of love across the planet. Born in London, England, she now lives in southern California and is the mother of one grown son, Elijah. Patrice invites you to visit her online at www.patricekarst.com.

The irony is that I literally fell into the children’s book world.

I had started off writing and publishing adult books (Spiritual and Self Help): GOD MADE EASY and THE SINGLE MOTHER’S SURVIVAL GUIDE. 

I had no inclination or even interest in writing for children.

That all changed when my son was in pre-school and as a full-time working single mom, he cried when I had to drop him off at school.

One day, I told him what was obvious to me: that we were connected all day long by an Invisible String made of love.

The moment he heard of this wondrous, magical, all-connecting String, his separation anxiety vanished into thin air. 

Soon all of his classmates wanted to know about the Invisible String.

And I knew that I had something special.

I sat down one day and wrote about THE INVISIBLE STRING as a children’s story. I knew nothing about book dummies and formats and 32-page limits and plot point changes and character analysis and all the stuff that I finally heard about through SCBWI (The Society of Book Writers and Illustrators), which I joined many years later.

But as they sometimes say, ignorance can often be a good thing. 

I did not think about it, I just wrote it, and thank the good Lord I did.

I went to a very small publisher that I knew and presented him the story.

He liked it and published it in 2000.

It did quite well for many years (with very little distribution, marketing or advertising),  but then it exploded about ten years ago by sheer word of mouth, and even more so when an amazing new publisher (Little Brown for Young Readers) launched a paperback version with new art in 2018. It then became the go-to book for the pandemic, and honestly, shows no signs of ever slowing down. We just hit the big milestone of a million copies sold, and it has been translated so far into 15 languages.

Used by the military, foster agencies, adoptive families, grief groups, hospitals and hospices, the prison system, therapists and social workers, teachers, rabbis, pastors, librarians, gift-givers at celebrations of love like baby showers, parents on the first day of school, and loved ones on Valentine’s day, it is a book to bring comfort for loss and separation and to bring joy at the understanding that love transcends time and space! 

Adults buy it for each other too! 

It seems to have a grace and a destiny that is more than anything I could have consciously conjured up.

It is all way bigger than me, and I am just a lucky, blessed woman.

I think it is a tangible concept for an abstract idea and a universal truth that we all need to remember.

It has one page that deals with grief, but it has turned into one of the top books for children’s grief all over the world.

As a hurting little girl from an unfortunately abusive childhood, the concept of realizing that you are never alone could have helped me and brought me much comfort. Maybe, on some spiritual level, it is the book that I wrote for my own “inner child.”

So what, then, is my advice about writing a picture book?

First off, there are a million places where you can learn all the “proper” stuff to do.

But I say write about what matters to you passionately, what brings you utter joy to write about, what world you want to hang out in deeply for a long time to come.

To me, there is no other way to do it.

See it come alive, and how does it make you feel? 

Write a book that thrills your being, and you will never regret it.

The rest is up to the book gods and karma, destiny, grace, and plain old good luck.

Hard work helps too, but without the above, all bets are off.

Good luck, and happy inner writing travels.

The world of picture books is MAGIC!!!

Love,

Patrice Karst

Thanks so much for joining us, Patrice!

You can find more about Patrice and her books on https://patricekarst.com.

Picture Books about Grief and Death

We are so excited to have Susan Claus join us today to share information about Children’s Picture Books about Grief and Death.

Susan Claus is a children’s librarian, writer, and illustrator from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is happiest outside on slightly rainy days. Susan makes sure to let her inner child out every day to play.

“Anyone old enough to love is old enough to grieve.” Alan Wolfelt

The Reference Question Librarians Dread

It happens about once a month. A family comes into the library. The parent shoos the children off to look at the fish tank or the guinea pig, comes up to the reference desk, then leans in close and asks me a barely audible question. I know the signs and am already pulling up one of two booklists in my head: books on Where Babies Come From; or books about Death. 

If it’s Death, the book request is usually very specific. Most often, death of grandparent or death of a pet. Less often, more heartbreakingly, the death of a parent or sibling.

Picture book authors have tackled the subject of grief and death from many different angles: Death of a Grandparent, Death of a Pet, Death of a Parent, Death as a Part of Life, How to Remember Someone Who Died, Funerals. Few picture book authors seem willing to tiptoe into the minefield of theories about the afterlife.

Parents and caregivers should introduce some of the following books about death and grief into the reading life of young children BEFORE they have a personal reason to need them. Picture books give children a scaffold on which to build their knowledge of the world, and that includes how to think about, or talk about, death and loss. 

The Dead Bird by Margaret Wise Brown, Illustrated by Christian Robinson

ISBN 978-0-06-028931-7

An unsentimental classic that perfectly captures children’s fascination with funerals for small animals.

Badger’s Parting Gifts by Susan Varley

ISBN 0-688-02699-0

A gentle story about a community of animals grieving for their friend Badger and comforting each other by remembering all the things they learned from him. Varley portrays the end of the elderly badger’s life in a hopeful and happy way that children can easily understand, without preempting a parent’s role in explaining belief in an afterlife.

Mom’s Sweater by Jayde Perkin 

ISBN 978-0-8028-5544-2

Told in the first person by a girl living with the loss of her mother, the varied emotions of sadness, anger, and even jealousy play a part in her grieving process. She learns that grief may not ever go away, but life will get bigger around the grief, and she will be able to handle it.

Cry, Heart, But Never Break by Glenn Ringtved, illustrated by Charlotte Pardi 

ISBN 978-1-59270-187-2

Beautifully illustrated in watercolors, this Danish story has black-robed Death as a visitor to a household headed by an ailing grandmother. The children ply Death with coffee to try and keep him from taking their grandmother but come to realize that far from being an evil monster, “Death’s heart is as red as the most beautiful sunset and beats with a great love of life.”

The Phone Booth in Mr. Hirota’s Garden by Heather Smith, illustrated by Heather Wada 

ISBN 978-1-4598-2103-3

Set in Japan, this is the story of one community’s creative way to grieve together and heal after losing loved ones to a tsunami.

My Nana’s Garden by Dawn Casey, illustrated by Jessica Courtney-Tickle 

ISBN 978-1-5362-1711-1

A gentle rhyming story that uses the continuity of seasons in a garden as a metaphor for death as a part of life.

Psychological Aspects of Grief in Young Children

Children process death and handle grief differently than grownups do. Preschoolers may know the word “dead,” but they are unable to understand that death is a permanent condition. They know the person or pet is gone but expect them to come back at any minute. A loved-one’s absence is an inconsolable loss, whether they are gone forever or just went to the store.

Sometimes sadness at a loss takes a backseat to the anger that grownups around them are preoccupied or that schedules are disrupted. [As a kindergartner in November, 1963, the country may have been in mourning and glued to the broadcast of the Kennedy funeral, but I was a cranky mess because The Mickey Mouse Club had been preempted.]

Young children have a short “sadness span.” Even children old enough to understand the permanence of death cannot maintain focus on a sad event for very long. Without long years of life experience, children have a limited capacity to endure emotional pain. Pain is too painful. They deal with it in little chunks of time. They grieve a bit, then put the sad away and play a bit.

Young children also lack the vocabulary to understand or express what they’re feeling, partly because adults have a hard time talking about death and grief with children. Also high on the list of things adults would rather have a root canal procedure than talk to kids about? Sexuality and Finances.

Resources for Information about Children and Grief

Child Mind Institute: childmind.org/guide/helping-children-cope-with-grief/ and childmind.org/article/helping-children-deal-grief/

Highmark Caring Place: Highmarkcaringplace.com/cp2/grief/grievingchildren.shtml

Center for Loss & Life Transition: www.centerforloss.com

Thanks so much for joining us, Susan!

You can find Susan here:

Instagram @fernpondart

Facebook @fernpondstories

Website

Interview with Hervé Tullet

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Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Well, my most recent book is called I Have an Idea. I’d say this pretty much sums up what I’ve been thinking about for a long time now—the power of an idea and how an idea can change your life. 

I know you've had a long career as an artist. What made you switch gears to writing and illustrating children's books?

It happened by chance, actually. I worked in advertising for more than ten years, but it didn’t feel like the right place to grow old. So I began working in various aspects of illustration. Of all my projects, children’s books were the most interesting—I love melding ideas and entertaining various possibilities to express those ideas. Not only that, but I realized that as an author I could have an impact in children’s lives, especially those weighed down with difficulties. That element of writing/illustration is what ultimately changed my life.

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How did you first come up with the concept for Press Here? Was it immediately well-received or did it take time to find the right publisher?

An important part of the process of creation is finding the right publishing partner. I’ve worked with several publishers, and I’ve always tried to be faithful to those publishers. In so doing, I seek to create an environment of comfort and trust in which we can both freely share ideas, think out loud, push an idea, or merely simplify text in order to propel the reader from beginning to end. 

In short, I take my time to search for a publisher that will trust me and stick with me and my vision for communicating with children in new ways. With such things in place, Press Here came naturally. 

That being said, the huge success of the book was totally unexpected! 

Can you explain your process for creating books? Do you come up with the text first and then the illustrations? Or the illustrations first? Or a combination?

First, I wait for an idea to trigger something in me that propels me to move forward on it.  Keep in mind, sometimes these ideas work, and sometimes they don’t, and that’s okay. When they don’t, I wait again (in my studio, in a plane, on a train, in the street, in a museum-- really, just about anywhere!) for another spark of inspiration that I can jot down in my notebook. 

Once the inspiration is there, I focus that energy into building the books. At first, I don’t think about page numbers or the illustration details-—I just try to ride the wave of the initial emotion. While I craft my workshops with the precision of a conductor. when I create, I’m more like a jazz musician, improvising and riding the emotion the best I can. 

What has been the most satisfying thing about your career?

Looking back and watching the progression of where I started to where I am now: participating in installations, partnerships with museums, and the Ideal Exhibition. 

Interestingly enough, despite their diversity, all of these experiences seem to stem from my first book. In fact, sometimes I think that I could explain all my work with my very first book. 

What is the most important habit you have developed for continuing to create books?

Perhaps my only habit is that after a project is complete, I attempt to get rid of everything quickly (the paperwork, drawings, email , and so on). This allows me to get bored, to free up that space inside me that will allow me to act on the unexpected.

You are working on a project called the “Ideal Exhibition.” Can you tell us about it? 

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I’ve included links to videos which visually explain the Ideal Exhibition better than I can verbally describe it. The Exhibition is based on the idea that you can create it yourself, with or without me, thanks to the help of short videos. In order to access the videos, all you need to do is apply (it’s free!), and you’ll receive a code to view them. The entire project is free, with donations used to enrich the project in various ways. For example, donations help pay for dubbing the videos into various languages (English is on its way!) or helping schools without the means to purchase the materials needed.

The experience itself can take place in both large and small venues (from museums to schools to a bedroom). We’ve got participants all over the world—teachers, librarians, art schools, museums, and even retirement homes are getting involved! The best part of the Ideal Exhibition is that there are very few parameters or restraints—get started on it when you feel ready and finish when you decide you’re done. It’s organic and exciting. We even have an Ideal Exhibition planned at a museum where the visitors will create the exhibitions, rather than me! (I may try to drop in at the opening, though!) 

We’d love to have you get involved!

www.lexpoideale.com

www.facebook.com/lexpoideale/

www.instagram.com/expo_ideale_herve_tullet/

www.pinterest.ca/expo_ideale_herve_tullet/

https://vimeo.com/expoideale

Where can we find you online? 

http://www.herve-tullet.com

Thanks for visiting us, Hervé!  

Interview with Hannah Holt

Hannah Holt is just your everyday children’s author… with an engineering degree. Her books, The Diamond & The Boy (2018, Balzer+Bray) and A Father’s Love (2019, Philomel) weave together her love of language and science. She lives in Oregon with her husband, four children, and a very patient cat named Zephyr. She and her family enjoy reading, hiking, and eating chocolate chip cookies.

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Can you tell me a little about yourself?

First, thanks so much for hosting me! From the time I was little, I enjoyed writing and telling stories. In fourth grade, I wrote forty pages of my first attempted novel. As a teen, I created elaborate bedtime stories for the children I tended. However, my family is full of scientists and engineers. I didn't know the first thing about writing as a career, so I majored in engineering. It wasn't until years later that I submitted my first manuscript to a publisher.


Can you tell me about your new book coming out?

My book, A Father's Love, celebrates animal dads around the world. There's also a secondary layer of exploring colors in different habitats. From the jacket flap:

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Throughout the animal kingdom, in every part of the world, fathers love and care for their babies. This book takes readers around the globe and across the animal kingdom, showcasing the many ways fathers have of demonstrating their love. Whether it's a penguin papa snuggling with his baby in the frosty white snow, a lion dad playing with his cub in a yellow field, or a seahorse father protecting his young inside his pouch in the deep blue ocean, we see that a father's love comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

Kirkus calls it, "A sweet bedtime book about fathers and how their “love is everywhere.”

I dedicated this book to my husband, but really it's for all dads.

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What were your books inspired by?

As I mentioned earlier, my family is very science-focused. In fact, my first book, The Diamond and the Boy, is a biography of my inventor grandfather, H. Tracy Hall. Maybe science is in my DNA. Maybe I'm just curious about the world, but the manuscripts I write tend to be nonfiction or informational fiction. There's so much to explore about the world, and I want to know it all.



How have the illustrations for your books matched up with what you originally imagined them to be?

I usually don't have a firm vision for what the illustration style should be. My illustration ideas are more like a dream--vague ideas of what could be. I feel very lucky to have been paired with amazing illustrators like Jay Fleck and Yee Von Chan.

Did you always want to be a children's book writer?

No. Despite my love for writing and storytelling, I didn't believe I was very good at it. I applied for honors English almost every year in high school and was rejected a lot. My senior year, I didn't even apply for the program. My handwriting and spelling lagged behind my peers, and my teachers let me know it.

I thought I would spend my life designing bridges. If you told me twenty years ago I would be where I am now, I probably would have laughed. I didn't know "professional children's book writer" was a possibility for me.

What is your favorite picture book?

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Instead, can I tell you about a book that hasn't been released yet? I first heard about A Small World by Ishta Mercurio back when it sold. The book description is lovely, and I can't wait for it be released this summer:

When Nanda is born, the whole of her world is the circle of her mother’s arms. But as she grows, the world grows too. It expands outward—from her family, to her friends, to the city, to the countryside. And as it expands, so does Nanda’s wonder in the underlying shapes and structures patterning it: cogs and wheels, fractals in snowflakes. Eventually, Nanda’s studies lead her to become an astronaut and see the small, round shape of Earth far away. A geometric meditation on wonder, Small World is a modern classic that expresses our big and small place in the vast universe.

Where can we find you online?

Twitter: @hannahwholt

Website: https://hannahholt.com/


Thanks for joining us, Hannah!

Interview with Stacy Innerst

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Stacy Innerst is an acclaimed artist, illustrator and arts educator. He was born in Los Angeles and studied Art and History at the University of New Mexico.

His picture books for children have earned a host of starred reviews as well as numerous awards, including a 2017 NY Times/NY Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Book Award (for Ruth Bader Ginsberg), the 2017 SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Picture Book Illustration (for The Music in George’s Head), the BCCB Blue Ribbon, two Parents’ Choice Gold Medals and recognition by the NY Society of Illustrators, the Smithsonian and the American Library Association, among many others. M is for Music was named a 2003 Best Book of the Year by the School Library Journal and Levi Strauss Gets a Bright Idea was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2011. His paintings and prints have been exhibited widely in New York, California and throughout the United States and abroad. He lives in Pittsburgh.

The artwork for your pictures books is very unique. How did you develop that style of art?

I’ve always had a painterly, loose style and I studied painting and printmaking in college so that carried over into my work as an illustrator. I never really set out to develop an illustration style, per se, but I suppose I have over the years.

It’s more a function of doing what comes naturally and making pictures that I find pleasing rather than settling on a style. I love the way paint looks when it’s brushed onto a surface so that dictates pretty much everything I do.

How much planning and research do you do before you actually start painting?

The research component of my nonfiction picture books is actually quite time-consuming, but it’s also quite fun. The historical research leads me in directions that I might not otherwise go in picture-making. Part of my process is watching films that are set in the period I’m illustrating or researching the art and music of the era.

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Which picture book was your favorite to work on?

I’ve liked them all for different reasons, but The Music in George’s Head was especially gratifying. I really liked being able to visually represent Gershwin’s music. It was a kind of visual poetry for me.


Who is your favorite illustrator?

If I have to pick just one children’s book illustrator, I’d say Edward Ardizzone or Leonard Weisgard, I think, but it’s tough! Tough question! It changes from day to day. A few of my favorite artists and illustrators, in no particular order: Vladimir Radunsky, Quentin Blake, Robert Lawson, Carson Ellis, Wanda Ga’g, Sydney Smith, Edward Gorey, Eva Bednářová, Roger Duvoisin, William Joyce, Oliver Jeffers, Lopez Rubio, Leonard Weisgard, Antonin Clave, Pablo Picasso, Edward Ardizzone, Ludwig Bemelmans, Sean Qualls, Willem de Kooning.

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Do you have any upcoming books?

I’ve recently completed two picture books and the cover and interior illustrations for a middle grade chapter book. They should all be out next year. They are:

Saving Lady Liberty: Joseph Pulitzer’s Fight for the Statue of Liberty, by Claudia Friddell, Calkins Creek

The Book Rescuer, by Sue Macy, Simon and Schuster

The Mostly True Story of Pudding Tat, Adventuring Cat, by Caroline Adderson, Groundwood Books.

I’m super excited about all three! They’re wonderfully written books by excellent authors.

Where can your fans find you?

I’m on social media-- mostly on Instagram but also Twitter and Facebook --@stacyinnerst. My website is stacyinnerst.com.

Thanks so much for joining us, Stacy!!