Palindromes

I just returned from an amazing camping trip with friends in the Sierras to some great news from the publisher about an apparent flurry of reviews for the latest picture book project that's out, "Mom and Dad are Palindromes", by Mark Shulman.  An "A" from Entertainment Weekly, great reviews from NY Times Book Review, Publisher's Weekly.  Hardly any of the picture books I've done have gotten many mainstream reviews, so it's really exciting.

At this point, I've sort of gotten used to my picture books dissappearing into the void, so it's really encouraging that maybe this one will grow some legs. It was an incredibly tough job in that there was barely a story line, no character development, and the subject matter was words (101 palindromes had to be built into the artwork).

That said, the writing was great, and of course palindromes are a blast.  Me and my fiance, Cynthia Wigginton (who designed it), had to work together with the publisher to make sure it all flowed properly.  It was fun, but man it was hard.