posted: January 23, 2014

"Winter is for Snow" is a book that grew out of a picture. I'd created this image, in a rougher version, as a pro bono Christmas card for a hospice. I sent some cards out as a promo, and Rotem Moskovich at Disney (Hyperion Books) pinned it to her bulliten board- for five years. Meanwhile, Dolly's Bookstore in my little ski town wanted me to do a winter book - the tourists are always asking for winter books by local authors. Dolly's is a wonderful indy, Dolly being the cat. They have lots of everything printed and the smell of paper, fresh ink and chocolate fills the air- a chocolate factory is up front. They carry all my books. "Winter" is for Rotem, my editor, & Dolly's, my bookstore. Without further ado, here's what the NY Times Book Review had to say:

“Winter Is for Snow” is a tale of two siblings — a brother who loves the icy flakes pouring down outside their apartment window and a sister who is cranky about it all — by the prolific children’s book author and illustrator Robert Neubecker. These two start out like Desi and Lucy, disagreeing about everything. “Winter is for fabulous! Winter is for snow,” sings out the copper-haired brother. “Winter is for lots of clothes! And I don’t want to go,” deadpans his younger copper-haired sister. (Her blasphemy recalls a Carl Reiner quip: “A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.”) These small urbanites argue back and forth in delightful, singsong rhyme, the brother joyfully throwing his arms up and kicking his legs out to add emphasis to his argument, which grows more elaborate with every page. “Winter is for glaciers, with walruses and seals,” he pleads, “diving in the icy sea for scaly, fishy meals.” Slowly but surely, he manages to dress his sister and edge her outdoors into a cityscape colorfully and whimsically depicted with a park jam-packed with people frolicking in an excellent variety of snow hats. Though she has resisted her brother’s — and winter’s — charms, even turning her attention to a beeping electronic device (at which point lesser brothers would have given up), we eventually see him pulling her along on a sled. And then, a little too easily, she finally changes her mind, declaring, “I love snow!” It’s nice to see her hardworking brother win the argument and to see them both out enjoying the fresh air. But she was such a good curmudgeon — I missed her old self a little when she was gone.

  This is something completely different. When my Joey was small, she was learning to read with these little paperbacks with simple words and funny, badly drawn outer space creatures that had virtually no story or any real content. They were serviceable enough, I guess, but I wanted to do something more. So I devised a series of history texts using only a few words per page and involving a red dragon who pulls the kids into the computer and roams the internet for knowledge.
 I dummied up five books, Boom, Zoom, to the Moon, stuff like that, dropped them off with my agent, Linda Pratt of Wernick & Pratt, and she showed them around. No takers at first, but Linda was behind the project 100% and kept showing it even after I'd moved on to other books and other things.
 Then, as it turns out, Scholastic was looking for just such a project, and we had it in hand. I'm working with the delightful Jenne Abromowitz and she's a wonderful editor. We upped the reading level to level two- from about level 1/2... and I got to add more detail... It's still edited very simply and I try to show as much, more, information with the pictures as with the story.
The first introduces Red, the Time Dragon, and we chose the Middle Ages to start because, he's well, a dragon. It's distilled way down, but if you want to know where my information comes from, "A Distant Mirror" by Barb Tuchman & "A World Lit Only by Fire" From William Manchester are a good start. Marketing liked "Days of the Knights" for a title, but I preferred my own "Me de Evil?"
The second book is the incredible story of the Flying Cloud, a clipper ship, piloted by Eleanor Creesy, that set the world sail speed record from NY to San Francisco in 1853 and it stood for....138 years. My primary reference for that is "Flying Cloud" by David Shaw- an excellent adventure. 

posted: September 26, 2013

I've been buried in book deadlines, and I've been missing Drawger. It's funny how editors ruminate over layouts and sketches and then everything is due all at once. I'm clear for awhile, so I'll be digging through all the fun posts. The book work has been really fun, but you're never really off duty until the entire book goes to press. That's a later post...
The lovely thing about editorial is that it's finite. One or two pictures and out! Done! Here's some of my more recent editorial efforts...

Selected drawings from a series in Marquette Lawyer Magazine about individual paths in education. Douglas Frohmader, A.D.  This was fun.

posted: July 9, 2013

My new book, Linus the Vegetarian T-Rex, was released today. I had a lot of fun with this from the character design to the painting... I used a textured background over an ink drawing and layered color on with photoshop. In some of the spreads, I scanned some real plants, and I used special brushes that I made from plant drawings to fill in some of the jungle.
  My editor on this is Andrea Welch, Beach Lane Books, Simon & Schuster. I started with the idea that Linus was just too friendly to eat his friends, which really upset dinosaur expert Ruth Ann. Later, he saves her from the velociraptors because, after all, he is a big T-Rex. It went from very dramatic and wordy to the more subtle and simple version that we finally published.

posted: June 6, 2013

  Good Morning! A few weeks ago I proposed that us Drawgers could exchange prints of our work, especially children's book art, for our various charities’ fundraisers. Well, Steve Kroninger, Rob Dunlavey and Leo Espinosa stepped up and contributed signed prints from their books plus a signed copy of the book. I had them framed and added one of my own. We put them in the silent auction for our school’s Spring Arts Fair fundraiser, a fairly small event. The event brought in more than $37,000 - grand totals are still out...with almost $2000 coming from the framed prints. Great work, guys, and a warm thank you from The Weilenmann School of Discovery!
Weilenmann is a public charter school, K-8 !