I admit I gave a little sigh of relief when I saw that my publisher classified my book Ling & Ting (Little Brown, 2010) as an early reader. So many times titles for this level are referred to as easy readers. I know I am biased, but to me there is nothing easy about a successful book for beginning readers!Guest Blogger: Grace Lin
I admit I gave a little sigh of relief when I saw that my publisher classified my book Ling & Ting (Little Brown, 2010) as an early reader. So many times titles for this level are referred to as easy readers. I know I am biased, but to me there is nothing easy about a successful book for beginning readers!
Although my books are printed on thinly sliced pieces of tree, they would be utterly impossible without the Internet. Paper Towns (Dutton 2008), for instance, is built around this weird cartographic phenomenon wherein mapmakers intentionally put fake places on their maps.
It was a challenge coming up with a title and a cover image for the fifth and final book in the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” (Abrams) series. I always planned to call this book Rowley’s Revenge, so I sketched what I thought might make a good cover.
Designing the cover is my final step in creating a picture book. It’s only after spending so much time in the interior of the book—realizing the characters and their world—that I can stand back and consider what one picture would best sum up the experience of the story.
Usually, it’s the character I think of first. I never see that character’s face—even when I’ve written for months and the book is finished. Rather, it’s almost as if the character is whispering in my ear, saying, “Hey, this is what I need. This is what I want.”
The incredible thing about comics, to me, is the medium’s diversity. Some people hear the word “comics” and are reminded of newsprint pages filled with superheroes. Others see shelves of manga stacked tight, while some readers are more familiar with hardbound graphic novels and nonfiction volumes. All of these formats and types of books rightly describe comics.