PB PROJECT X - The Balance of Text and Art
So PB PROJECT X keeps getting more and more interesting. After receiving the pdf dummy, I followed in my agent's footsteps and printed up the book on my home printer. I cut out the pages, folded them and pasted them into a tiny booklet. "COOL!" my kids said. And then something happened. I opened the book as if I were reading it to a child, and began flipping through the pages. I discovered, to my horror, that my text was not working. In my effort to create this different-sort-of-book I had pared away too much text. Now, it's true that a picture book can have practically no text. I mean, hey, Paul Fleischman, the creator of SIDEWALK CIRCUS (Kevin Hawkes illustrated it) invented a story concept with almost no words. Interesting that you can be the author of a book without using words, and without being the illustrator. He had done it well. But as I flipped through the pages I realized that my book had worked in manuscript form because my illustration notes wer...