An Upside-Downy World

When I was a kid, I loved this scene from Follow That Bird. Granted, it has no relevance to anything I’m about to write about - it’s just that every time I recite the title of my next book, my mind immediately goes to this song.

ONE UPSIDE-DOWNY DAY is my next picture book, and has nothing to do with actually being upside down. It’s more like, “Hey, what the heck, YESTERDAY was a wonderful day… why is everyone so grumpy TODAY?” The emotions have turned figuratively upside down, how do we fix this?

You remember what the summer of 2020 was like, right? Pandemic. Politics. Protests. A series of events that made me feel mad and disappointed. That was the state of the world…but adding to that, in our tiny house bubble my daughter was almost 4 years old and having LOUD, confusing tantrums (which taught me about adult tantrums – a real thing).

My work usually stems from joy. My characters are always smiling and leaping with their eyes closed, not a care in the world. But ONE UPSIDE-DOWNY DAY was born out of rage.

I feel weird admitting that because it feels off-brand.

The first page shows a character waking up “on the wrong side of the bed.” It’s a continuation of ONE SPRINGY, SINGY DAY, which ends with a sweet kiddo, sleeping, smiling, and snuggling her stuffie.

In many ways, this book is more important than ONE SPRINGY, SINGY DAY. Teaching young children about emotions can feel a bit like talking to a rock, but I have to imagine that the more we do it, the more they absorb. Growth.

And through the years, with real life experiences and social practices under her belt (aka– school and therapy) we have seen our daughter become able to calm herself down and talk about her feelings. Hence the last line “It’s all going to be OK on this upside-downy day.”

That’s more of a message to the grown ups than it is to the kids, if I’m being honest. ☀️

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The process of making a book is like weeding a garden. Though I usually save process art for school visits these days, I thought it might be kind of nice to document it here too.

Since ONE UPSIDE-DOWNY DAY is a companion book to ONE SPRINGY, SINGY DAY, it sort of came with a predetermined formula:

• 40 pages

• illustrated endpapers

• 2 spreads per character (10 characters)

• dust jacket with surprise case cover

• playful rhyming text in which I confuse the copy editing team at Abrams because I kind of made up my own words

I didn’t make thumbnails for UPSIDE-DOWNY, so I thought I’d show you the early stages of SPRINGY, SINGY instead. Starting from scratch is the hardest part, and it literally looks like chicken scratch:

(If you look closely, you’ll notice the previous working title was “YOU”)

This was all done to solidify the pacing of the page turns, but for the rest I pulled a lot of inspiration from what was going on in my life. Zoey had just turned 2 when I started writing the first book:

My daughter’s baby monitor montage inspired the pattern on the endpapers.

And even though she was a few years older the second time around, nothing changed for UPSIDE- DOWNY, I still pulled from real life (the characters even aged up a tiny bit):

Here are a few sketches from my pitch. I hope you’ll check out the book when it publishes on August 15th to see the finals!

All my sketches were done in Procreate and this one started off as a sketch for another book entirely 🤣! Halfway through it’s almost like she wakes up and gives me a “leave me alone” face:

Luckily, I only had actual photo reference for the slide scene. The rest was all memories and observations:

Nothing is enough, not even the promise of a sweet, sweet playground:

I really wish I could have used the following image for the cover, but it was decided that perhaps it’s not appealing to show too many hard feelings on the front:

I still put them on the back, though:

Don’t worry, as many mothers do, I have erased all the bad memories from my brain and moved on. Until the next phase, the vibe is kinda like this:

(the book’s dedication)

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I’m happy to share that ONE UPSIDE-DOWNY DAY already has some good press: a feature as one of the best books coming out this summer on Book Riot and a lovely Kirkus review:

UPSIDE DOWN WORLD

“Come fly with me in an upside down world
There's so many strange things to see
There's upside down people who walk down the street
With upside-down shoes on their upside down feet
In an upside down world

It's fun to be in an upside down world
There's fish that fall out of the sea
There's upside down clocks that make everyone late
Upside down food that won't stay on your plate
In an upside down world

There's upside down everything all over town
It all looks so funny that I've got to frown
'Cause a frown is a smile when it's turned upside down…”

-Ernie and Bert

• FUN FACT: In writing this post, I discovered that while filming Ernie and Bert's "Upside Down World" song, Jim Henson and Frank Oz were actually in an upside down biplane eighteen feet from the ground. (Everything Jim Henson did was gold.)

• I also discovered The Inverted Jenny, a famous postage stamp misprint from 1918.

• 123: I’ve been listening to this playlist while I finish up Mermaids’ Song to the Sea

• Gab ‘N Doodle: An old friend of mine, the extremely talented author/ illustrator Mark Hoffmann, hosts a really fun IG Live every week called Gab ‘N Doodle. It’s essentially an interview, but both artists create art while it’s happening. I stayed up way too late watching and listening to his sesh with Andy J. Pizza.

• Andy accidentally made me buy new colored pencils. TBD what I make with those.

• I was on Mark’s Gab ‘ N Doodle once too!

• GIVEAWAY! I’d love to send a copy of ONE UPSIDE-DOWNY DAY to 3 people when my author copies arrive. Just leave a comment on this post to be entered into the giveaway and I’ll choose 3 at random!