It is my pleasure, honor, and privilege to present a very special interview today with Lisa Brown, author and illustrator most recently of The Moving Book. The first book in this series, The Airport Book, holds a special place in my heart as one of the first books I ever shared on this site, back when I was doing my undies reveals flat on a table! Lots of things have changed since then, but Lisa's books haven't lost a single ounce of that specialness. I'll let Lisa take it from here!
About the book:
Moving can be sad and scary—but it doesn’t have to be. The kids in this book have done it many times before, as the older brother reminds his sister. They reflect on favorite memories from each of their past homes, and the boy talks her (and the reader) through all the steps to expect, from taping up boxes to riding in the car behind the moving truck.
Let's talk Lisa Brown!
LTPB: Where did the idea for The Moving Book come from? How does it fit into the larger series with The Airport Book and The Hospital Book?
LB: I am interested in journeys. In my two previous books starring the same family as The Moving Book—The Airport Book and The Hospital Book— I portray the kinds of journeys that many kids (and adults) will go on at some point in their lives. The spaces my characters move through, (airport, hospital), are “passing-through” places where diverse folks of different ages, genders, and backgrounds gather. They are spaces that are both universal and specific.
The Moving Book is my third book about that family, and my most personal. My family moved five times before I was seven years old. We lived in apartments, multiple family homes, and single-family homes. We moved close to my grandparents and extended family and then far away from them and then close again. We moved back and forth across state lines. We lived in a city and a suburb and a smaller suburb. Things felt vastly different every time: neighborhoods, bedrooms, food, backyards, people. At least they felt that way at the time.
So, The Moving Book is about a journey, of course, but, even more than that, it’s about memory. It’s about how things stick in your head, or don’t. About how one person might remember something you do not. And about how things change, and how that is okay. It might even be good. (Although this Brooklyn-born but Connecticut-raised author still can’t handle New England pizza.)
LTPB: What differences have you found between creating a picture book on your own (text and illustrations) versus illustrating someone else’s text?
LB: It’s actually very similar. When I paginate the book, I start to separate the text into pieces, with particular attention to incentive for the reader to turn the page. And then when I begin to draw, I revise the text, editing out what the pictures are handling all my themselves; I am conscious of creating an interplay of word and image. As Uri Shulevitz says in his brilliant Writing With Pictures: “The picture says what the words do not. And if the picture says it all, no words are used.”
In other writer’s books, of course, editing the text becomes a little more complicated! But most creators are open to that collaboration that happens between the “visual author” and the “textual author.” And of course, I occasionally illustrate my husband’s books, and he’s easy for me to boss around.
LTPB: How do you keep your process fresh with every new book? Are there any topics or stories in particular you’re still hoping to explore in the future?
LB: My ideas come from all different places, including doodles! and often float around my head for years. Of course, because my series of books that include The Moving Book are all of a piece, I have to work in more or less the same style, which becomes a little stifling, if I can be honest.
Many of my books, including the above, have been non-narrative; I tend to think in lists! I’d love to explore some different ways of telling stories in the future.
LTPB: What did you use to create the illustrations in this book? Is this your preferred medium? How does your process change from book to book?
LB: The Moving Book was created with pen and ink and watercolor on cold press watercolor paper, with some digital collage. I feel like this style is kind of like my handwriting, I come to it naturally and use it all the time. However, I’d love to brand out an experiment with different media: physical collage, more expressive mark-making with a variety of materials, less line, more paint.
LTPB: What are you working on now? Anything you can show us?
LB: I am (much too) slowly working my way through my second full length graphic novel, (the first was called The Phantom Twin), which is tentatively titled “Ghost School,” about two misfit students in a failing boarding school during the early 1970s, who can see the ghosts of the former students and teachers who haunt the decrepit building and grounds. Here are some of my sketches, which I’m creating on the iPad.
LTPB: If you got the chance to write your own picture book autobiography, who (dead or alive!) would you want to illustrate it, and why?
LB: Oh, my lord what a question. I am such a huge fan of so many living creators, that I absolutely refuse to choose anyone. So I’ll go for Adrienne Adams, an amazing artist who died in 2002 at the age of 96. She wrote and illustrated one of my favorite books as a child, A Woggle of Witches. I’m afraid that I’ve stolen a lot from her through the years. As I have from the late great Edward Gorey.
A moving truck-sized thanks to Lisa for talking me through her process! The Moving Book publishes from Neal Porter Books on July 22!
Special thanks to Lisa and Neal Porter Books for use of these images!
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