Jabberwocky: Scary Stories For Kids takes the classic poem by Lewis Carroll and illustrates it in a way that new readers will be drawn into the adventure the young boy goes on. What led you to retell this classic for children?

I have always very much enjoyed this poem. The fact that it contains so many nonsense words inspired me to create a retelling of it that attempts to make sense of each of these made up words to add to the base story. I thought a monster hunt story was perfect for my Scary Stories for Kids series of books. This is the second book in the series. The first book in this series is called Alien Farm, a wordless story about an alien invasion that happens one night on a farm.

Both books use a limited color approach, in this case a black and white book with blue-green accents and for Alien Farm also a black and white book with yellow accents.

I loved the idea of taking this 19th century poem and updating it for kids today.

What was your process for illustrating this poem to give it a scary feeling but not too scary so it still appeals to younger children?

My art has always appealed to kids. Most of my illustration work has been in the children’s market (kids magazines, websites, text books, and other products). I was worried about this story because the main character parades back with the head of the Jabberwocky, which is pretty dark. However it’s all so unreal and it’s certainly less violent than children are seeing in their video games every day.

What experience in your life has had the biggest impact on your writing and illustrating?

Having my own kids has definitely impacted my writing and illustrating. Once I had a baby I read children’s books 5 or 6 times a day every day-sometimes more. Since I had three daughters that meant a decade of reading children’s books aloud all the time. It becomes a study of the genre whether you intended to or not. I was already interested in children’s books and studied children’s book illustration for years at The School of Visual Arts in New York City, so having kids narrowed my focus and made children’s books a central part of what I was doing with my art.

In 2001 my first children’s book was published from Pentland Press and I haven’t really slowed down since. I’ve written and illustrated 17 books and had my art and writing published in Highlights for Children Magazine and Hopscotch magazine and for years did a matching game feature in Whimsy Magazine. I’ve also illustrated numerous books with other authors and have created four comic book series for children.

Do you plan to write similar books using other poetry from Lewis Carroll?

I had a great time creating this book, but not as great a time publishing it. Amazon and other online bookstores have numerous restrictions in place that make listing a book with public domain content more difficult. I doubt I will want to go through the process of creating a book based on Lewis Carroll’s work again only to have  a limited reach once it’s published. However, it was fun to do and I don’t regret it.

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