The TeachingBooks Blog
I’m not sure if it’s wise to admit it, but I rarely read a manuscript twice before I decide whether or not to illustrate it. If I'm laboring over the decision during that first reading, it generally means that the story is just not speaking to me the way I need it to. It’s like telling a joke: if you have to tell it twice, or explain it, it’s probably not working for the other person. From the start, I liked Swing Sisters: The Story of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm by Karen Deans (Holiday House, 2015; Gr 2-5). Who wouldn’t want to illustrate a story about an all-girl band that rose from such humble beginnings to such lofty heights?
I remember sitting in my sixth grade class at Marian Anderson Elementary in Compton, California, when February rolled around and my teacher, Mr. Johnson, hung up the faces of Black History Month around the room. Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. surrounded us until early March. Each picture had information about the person depicted on the back of the image, and the pictures hadn’t changed since first grade. With no new countenances added each year, it was as if once black Americans had achieved equal rights in the law books, our history was complete.
When I’m asked how I came to illustrate Patricia Hruby Powell’s Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker (Chronicle Books 2014), my most direct answer is that my agent Steven Malk shared the manuscript with me, after being approached by editors at Chronicle. The more magical response would be that Josephine Baker’s life was an inspiration to me long before I read Powell’s text. 
