These are some of the small book dummies I made to send to my dearest editor at Chronicle Books, Ariel Richardson and to the books' s art director, the wonderful designer Amelia Mack. We were trying to figure out if the layouts would work out fine for the reader to interact.
In this first dummy, I was testing the option of asking the reader to TURN the book to the left so I could "fill" the whole page with water. In the story, Bunny jumps from the boat to go snorkeling underwater. We ended up deciding that it might be confusing for the reader and decided instead to move the horizon line to the top of the page.
So in this second dummy, I tested the way it would look if I moved the water line to the top of the page. This is the option we went for at the end.
This scene didn't end up being part of the book. Bunny would tap on the clouds to make rain, son the page would fill up with water.
"As a long time story reader at the bookstore where I work, I can
tell you that there are not enough GOOD books on the shelves that offer
what Huff & Puff does. Much like the gap in quality
reading material that seems to exist at the third grade reading level, there
seems to be a gap between the simplistic and instructive board books and
traditional picture books. Simple, short story books aimed at toddlers
that have a well written story and engaging illustrations are out there (Eric
Carle's Head to Toe and Peggy Rathmann's Goodnight
Gorilla are my go-to books when I have toddlers at story time) but
there is certainly room for more, especially if they are as superb as Huff& Puff.
Folktales have always changed to reflect the moral standards of their times as well as help shape them. They are not meant to be static and fixed. It's in their bones...And if they weren't constantly reissued, I would have missed out on some fabulous new books. My new favorite is Huff & Puff by Claudia Rueda. This interactive retelling of the Three Little Pigs is so cool. It has holes in it and children can play the part of the wolf by blowing through the holes.
