Side By Side: Five Favorite Picture-Book Teams Go To Work

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Marcus, Leonard S. 2001. SIDE BY SIDE: FIVE FAVORITE PICTURE-BOOK TEAMS GO TO WORK. New York: Walker & Company. ISBN 0802787789

PLOT SUMMARY
Throughout this book, Marcus gives readers some insight into the world of picture book creation, as it happened to five different collaborative teams. He begins with the interesting, and rather coincidental, story of how Arthur Yorinks and Richard Egielski came to publish the book Louis the Fish (Farrar, Straus & Girous, 1980) and several other children’s books together. The next featured team is the husband and wife duo Martin and Alice Provensen. Each beginning their careers as “largely self-trained” artists working at rival story/animation departments, Marin and Alice eventually illustrated over forty books, co-authoring nineteen of them. This books highlights their accomplishment of publishing The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot (Viking, 1983).

The book continues with the detailed account of how Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith began their collaborative author-illustrator relationship, and then brought on Molly Leach as a publication designer for their widely successful book The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (Viking, 1992). Next, Marcus tells readers the story of how the old controversial tale and banned book, The Story of Little Black Sambo (Bannerman, 1899), was remade by collaborators who rarely saw or spoke to each other. Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney worked together on several picture books, but the story of Sam and the Tigers (Dial, 1996) allowed them to bring back joy and the childhood memories of many in this new version of an old tale.

The book concludes with a detailed account of the creation and publication process of The Magic School Bus series, mainly The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses (Scholastic, 1999). Marcus shows readers the extent of the research, rewriting, redrawing, and hard work it took for each of Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen’s books to be of the quality that readers have loved over the years.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This work of nonfiction allows readers to jump inside the process of collaboration in picture book creation. Marcus’ explanation of each teams’ work is clear and includes several anecdotes about how each team came to be or about various steps along their way to the publication of their books. Direct quotes from each team are also included. These small stories and quotes help readers to relate to the authors and illustrators as people and understand more clearly the long and very involved process of creating a picture book. Many readers, young and old, will be surprised at the amount of work each creation took, learning how a picture is not just a picture and a text is not just a group of words. They will see the many aspects that go into each illustration, sentence, even the design of the book.

The illustrations provided in this book are not used to assist in story-telling, but rather to share real artifacts of each collaborative teams’ work. These pictures include photos of each team, copies of finished illustrations found in the highlighted literature, rough copies of sketches, writing, and page layout. These, as well as pictures of authentic dummy books visually break down the creation of each book and help readers to better understand the intense process.

Any student, ages ten and up, with an aptitude of art or a love of children’s literature will be interested in the content of this book. They may find inspiration in the hard work of each team, and having a behind-scenes-look at creating picture books may encourage them to follow their own interests and dreams.

REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: “Humorous anecdotes and personal comments make the figures come alive.”
Starred review in BOOKLIST: “a wealth of interesting details about these creative individuals and their books”

CONNECTIONS
*A great support for teaching students (4th grade and up) about the creation of children’s books. This would most likely work best if read in pieces, not all at once.
* Art teachers could use the description of artist inspiration with their students, discussing the depth of illustrations.
* This title, along with other similar books, could be a starting point in a class where students collaborate (or work alone) to create their own picture books.


*Other books for children about picture book creation by Leonard S. Marcus:

Marcus, Leonard S. 2008. A CALDECOTT CELEBRATION: SEVEN ARTISTS AND THEIR PATHS TO THE CALDECOTT MEDAL. New York: Walker Books for Young Readers. ISBN 0802797032
** to be released on February 5, 2008
**an update of Marcus’ previous work in A CALDECOTT CELEBRATION: SIX ARTISTS SHARE THEIR PATHS TO THE CALEDECOTT MEDAL (1999)

Marcus, Leonard S. 2002. WAYS OF TELLING: CONVERSATIONS ON THE ART OF THE PICTURE BOOK. New York: Dutton Children’s Books. ISBN 0525464905