The Making Of “Friendship Carousel”

A BEHIND-THE-SCENES LOOK AT HOW THIS BOOK CAME TO LIFE

If you’ve picked-up one of my books over the years, you probably noticed that they’re fun to hold and flip through. Maybe, you even discovered a surprise or two pop-up between the pages!

I love finding ways to make each book a new experience. It excites me to look for inventive ways to pull people into the story and make them feel like they’re a part of that world. And, I’ve actually been doing this since I was a kid. Even as a 10-year old, I used die-cuts to help tell stories in class projects.

“Friendship Carousel”, my latest book, started from the kid inside me. One day, I was sitting at the table, playing with paper. I was thinking about my sister, Joanna, and our adventures. I had a memory of our favorite K-mart kiddie ride. (This was our reward if we were helpful shoppers.) I could hear the jingly music, and feel the joy of the slow-moving carousel. I began cutting away, and the paper popped into form — a tri-fold set of girls sitting on swans. I named it “Friend-Ship”.

My editor was immediately drawn to the “Friend-Ship” paper creation, and we started noodling ways to evolve the swans.

The first idea was to create a stationery set. I’m a big fan of letter writing, so I jumped to it. I cut and folded mock-ups and drew new pairs of carousel friends. The final stationery pitch was really fun — the stationery would be packaged as an accordion-fold carousel with a perforation at each pairing. You could display the whole carousel, and tear-off the cards one-by-one. But, as I added friends to the group, we realized there was a bigger story to tell. The stationery was put aside, and I was tasked with pitching a book concept.

As I began creating book mock-ups and working on a manuscript, I wanted to capture my childhood joy — the movement, the sound, and the colors going by. Do you have similar memories?

I reflected on the colors I saw as a child, and created a modern-carnival palette. I wanted to make sure every side of the book was irresistible, tactile, and felt like a mini carousel.

My editor and I decided early-on that I would illustrate an array of human characters. I had drawn kiddos in a few early books like Tiny Town and Tiny Farm, but I relied heavily on anthropomorphic animals to create bold worlds in most of my books and products since.

The country had just experienced the death of George Floyd. My creative team was having even more conversations about our Children’s Literature community, and how we could improve representation between the pages. Since books help grow minds and hearts, we wanted to be responsible to our young audience. We began the process of investigating how we were addressing diverse representation in their world. I was also doing my own self examination: What were my blind spots? If I’m going to take-up shelf space, what are my stories to tell? How do I best tell these stories?”.

I admit, I was nervous at the start. I felt a big responsibility to kids, families, and marginalized authors. I was doing my own learning as the creative process was taking place. But, I knew it was important to move forward, knowing there might be some missteps as I grew.

Throughout this period, I engaged with my community of kids as much as I could. During lock-down, I hosted zoom classes. I read articles and books. I took some classes. I had conversations. Then, I drew. I wrote. I drew some more.

When I drew kids in the past, I mainly focused on their personalities and unique quirks to inspire something new. So, to draw a whole bunch of kids that felt reflective of the world around them — that was a different ball game. I knew I could use their essence and joy, but most importantly, they needed to be seen as real kids, in a Suzy way.

To start, whenever I saw kids, I really focused on their faces and hair. Some of the kids in my zoom classes even inspired characters in the book! And, since we were in-and-out of isolation, I spent a lot of time looking at photos of kids playing and hanging-out.

For me, all of the drawing and conversations added a new level of meaning to this book. I found myself being more appreciative of the friendly faces I found along the journey — the friend that helped, the friend that supported, the friend that challenged my perspectives, the friend that made the day magical. Connection and friendship grew for me during lock-down, and informed this book too.

I hope you feel it, and pass it along. Enjoy with your kiddo, yourself, or a friend. xx