June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012

A recent survey declared Goodnight Moon the best picture book of all time, but for me it begins and ends with The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  I loved that book so much, almost as much as I loved Snowy Day.  It takes a lot of effort to admit that Where the Wild Things Are comes in third, because Maurice Sendak's death is clouding my judgment.  But can you really compare degrees of love?  People don't make you pick a favorite child, so I can't really pick a favorite childhood memory.

It doesn't take a degree in children's literature to declare Wild Things the best of the three.  It's a paean to imagination, it understands children in a way the others don't, and it's a perfect example of using illustration to represent emotion in a picture book.  Sendak was one of the greatest (and easily the most reluctant) children's author / illustrators ever, and the landscape of children's bookselling that he helped create has muted colors over his passing.

As loyal Sweet Readers know, Maurice Sendak has a special place in our hearts that he has enjoyed for some time.  Apart from the homage and the semi-serious pleas in those posts, Becky and I have been working behind the scenes for some time to make a Max tattoo drawn by Sendak himself a reality on Becky's famous arm.  Becky and I work in the book business at an indie with a lot of clout.  We don't know people, but we know people who know the right people, and we wanted to make it happen.

A couple of months back, we got our answer; Sendak said he "couldn't commit to something like that at this time."  I didn't blog about that because we never gave up hope.  Now, well.

I'm not trying to make this about me.  The loss to books is greater but the loss of the dream hits closer to home.  Everyone I've spoken with has their own memory of his work, and their own sorrow at his death.  This is just mine.  We may not have a tattoo to remember him by, but at least we have his work.

On Tuesday night, Becky and I put Dylan to bed with In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and Where the Wild Things Are; all three read just fine.  Mighty fine, in fact.  Dylan did say he was "too sad" to fall asleep, but he was probably just trying to delay his bedtime.  Or sympathizing with his sad sack parents.

Eventually we'll enjoy his work without the taint of sadness.  In the meantime...

The Girl with the Pigeon Tattoo: Meet Cloudette

In case you didn't know, there's something in publishing called a "book trailer."  It's like a movie trailer, except for a book.  Genius, right?  Readers don't need them and booksellers actively hate them.  Still, when moving 5,000 copies constitutes a hit, it never hurts to try to reach outside your core demographic for new readers.

But Hollywood has been making trailers for ninety-nine years; publishing has only made the effort since 2005.  The result is that very, very few trailers make one say, "Wow, I really need to buy that book."  I've enjoyed three book trailers in my life: Carolyn Parkhurst's The Nobodies Album (see the trailer in which authors are funny; now buy the book), Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story (trailer here, rife with cameos; now buy the book), and Kristen Schaal & Rich Blomquist's The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex (trailer with actual comic actors who are also the authors; now buy the book).  Caroyln Parkhurst made me laugh out loud but the book came out two years ago and I haven't read it, Gary Shteyngart amused me but I already owned Super Sad True Love Story before I saw it, and I'll never read The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex - way to go, trailer-makers!

And remember, those links represent the cream of the crop.  If book trailers are movies, you just watched The Godfather, Casablanca, and Citizen Kane.  Except, you know, funny.  Most book trailers look like something your local high school AV club made for their final exam sophomore year.


All that having been said, I love this trailer:

It perfectly captures the mood of Tom Lichtenheld's whimsical, witty Cloudette.

Buy me.  I rock hard.  Well, softly.  I'm a cloud.

My first Lichtenheld experience was Shark vs. Train.  All the the little asides in the Cloudette video ("tee-hee!" "hi!")?  Lichtenheld peppers his illustrations with those.  Half the fun of reading his books is seeing Dylan giggle over those asides - particularly the trash talk in Shark vs. Train.  Finding them, reading them, and getting the joke; it's like watching a pinball machine light up.


Becky met Tom Lichtenheld at his hotel when he came to Miami.  I dropped her off and waited outside in the car so we wouldn't have to pay the $20 parking fee.  Becky emerged about half an hour later.  We're fairly sure the valets thought she was a call girl.  Or a drug dealer.

To capture Cloudette's rough look, Lichtenheld used pencil before tracing over it with Sharpie.

We don't worry about lead poisoning when art is at stake.

Especially cute art.

Somehow, Becky convinced tattoo artist Dicky Magoo to open Tattoos by Lou not only on his day off, but early so she could get back to work.  I don't think Becky has ever heard the word "no."  

Dicky used an extra-fine needle to create the outline and shading.  What looks deceptively simple holds a lot of detail.  Tom Lichtenheld looked very happy with the result.  

For a minute, Becky wanted Cloudette tattooed inside her wrist so she could see it better.  But as we all know, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is the tattoo that started it all.  So imagine them chummily side-by-side on her arm.

Caterpillar fart?

Of course, one could argue that as she lays, Cloudette could be seen as en extra large chuff from Otis that got blown astray.  Nevertheless, we've had fun with Cloudette.  Like the time Dylan decided that Becky and I should have matching tattoos.  He whipped out a pen and went to town on my forearm.

Uncanny, no?

Girl with the Pigeon Tattoo & Anna Dewdney, Too

Yesterday at Dylan's after-care program, two girls with eyes and a flair for the obvious told Becky she was the most beautiful girl they'd ever seen.  As Becky walked away, one of them pointed.

"Llama llama!  Llama lama!" she shouted.

This led to a tour of Becky's arm, a few minutes of book talk, and the near kidnapping of two girls from Dylan's after-care program.  

I'm sorry, kidnapping is never funny.  There was nearly a Forceful Non-Blood-Related Family Expansion, but we had to leave in a hurry to beat traffic.

Llama llama is a character from a beloved series of picture books that have been flying off the shelves for about seven years now.  Is it llama llama's sweet naivety?  The fact that llama llama can always count on Mama?  Or some magical combination of charming rhymes and gorgeous illustrations?  Whatever the secret, llama llama is one of Dylan's most-requested bedtime stories.  When author / illustrator Anna Dewdney came to Books & Books, Becky had the spot on her arm all picked out.


The tattooing has already been covered in depth by Publishers Weekly.  I love the picture I took with Llama Llama Red Pajama in the foreground, tattoo artist Dicky Magoo in the center, and the Miami Dolphins playing in the background.  I especially love that we just returned from our honeymoon and the last name "Curtis" was all over the place.

But since Shannon Maughan was so thorough, I'm reduced to this:

Look how cute!  Buy it.

I said, BUY IT.

Please buy it?

I'll also share some pictures which weren't in Publishers Weekly.

Signed by the artist; that arm is worth money.

There was a good deal of blood involved, but Becky was determined to get llama llama picture-ready.

All that scrubbing was worth it to see the look on Anna Dewdney's face.

This is why Dewdney looks so pleased; sweet job, Dicky Magoo.

The Girl with the Pigeon Tattoo Gets a Tractor to the Forearm

Barack Obama's daughters loved Drummer Boy so much that when Obama wrote a children's book, he picked Loren Long to illustrate it.  The result is Of Thee I Sing:

Buy it, coz.

But toddlers couldn't care less about that.  When you need to entertain a five-year-old, you want something a little more funkengrooven.  You want a friendship between a tractor and a calf.

If that sounds dumb, it's because you're old and your heart is a brittle, numb thing.  It sounded dumb to me when Dylan requested it as his bedtime story, the first time I ever watched Becky put him down. When she read the gentle purring of the tractor's engine that lulls the little calf to sleep, Otis's putt puff puttedy chuff, I fell in love.  Being a family is mostly making things up as you go.  There are very few moments you feel you're getting it right, while they're happening.  That was one.

Also, when it comes to matters of the heart, Becky is my Otis and I am her calf.  In fact, when Loren Long scheduled appearances at Books & Books Bal Harbour and Coral Gables, I wanted to ask for the calf to go with her tractor.  It would have represented her saving me, us as a couple, and the father I became when she brought Dylan into my life.

But I didn't ask, so we'll have to come with another couple tattoo.


You know how this thing with Becky's arm works, right?

First comes the drawing.

While Mo Willems scribbled the Pigeon in about twenty seconds ("The thing is to capture the energy!"), Loren Long was meticulous.  He stopped several times.  He'd stand, step back, stare, erase, and start again.  "I wasn't this nervous for President Obama," he said.

Then comes the tattooing.

Dicky Magoo of Tattoos by Lou (seriously) loves the challenge of replicating other artist's work, trying to get the same effects in tattoo as they did in whatever medium they originally used.  He did Becky's first illustrator tattoo, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and returned to the scene of the ink for Otis.

Side Note: That last link is to the Los Angeles Review of Books, where Lisa Jane Persky writes, "Becky Quiroga’s “Very Hungry Caterpillar,” drawn on her arm by Eric Carle himself, is a piece of body art that soccer moms from Sandusky to Timbuktu would find it [SIC] hard to disapprove of."  But people see what they want.  The more ink Becky gets, the more strangers are wary of the badass tattooed chick.  Few look closely enough to see that they're pictures from children's books.


So it's a tattoo artist's rendering of an illustrator's actual drawing on Becky's arm, get it?  Stop saying, "I guess you'll never wash that arm again."


Becky was able to get Otis between Loren Long's first and second appearances, so he was able to see the finished product.

Pictured: Natural behavior.

Long was soooo nice.  He's the type of nice guy who's so nice that I walk away thinking, "Why can't I be more like him?"  Most people who meet me immediately think I'm an asshole.  Which is 1) not far off 2) why hand-selling books is difficult for me.  So this asshole thinks I should buy "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet;" whoop-dee-freaking-whoo.

The Otis tattoo made Shelf Awareness as well, on September 19th.  Yes, that's how topical I am.  More to the point, that's what Miami Book Fair International 2011 did to me.  It took over all three of my lives, the internet one, the writing one, and the breathing one.

With the presidential credentials on her forearm, can Maurice Sendak's Max be far behind?  Are you listening, Mr. Sendak?  Say the word and we're Connecticut bound.

You Should Read Wildwood

Signed by the author and illustrator.  Estimated value on Ebay?  $52.6 kajillion.

My favorite Wildwood moment was reading the Bandit’s song.  In a flash I was nine years old again, reading the goblin’s song from Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

Bake and toast 'em, fry and roast 'em!

till beards blaze, and eyes glaze;

till hair smells and skins crack,

fat melts, and bones black

in cinders lie

beneath the sky!

So dwarves shall die,

and light the night for our delight,

Ya hey!

Ya-harri-hey!

Ya hoy!

My arms broke out in gooseflesh.  Of course, when you’ve written The Rake’s Song, a few bawdy rhymes aren’t as much of a challenge.  Still, for me, it was a moment which took the book from good to great.  There’s a lot to enjoy in these pages, but the most impressive feat is how Ellis and Meloy reference past Young Adult epic fantasies without being derivative of them.  The Dowager Governess is a villain as instantly timeless as the Queen from Snow White.  Somehow, in the context of the book, she even manages to be scary (this is coming from someone who’s loved Stephen King for almost thirty years).

I suggested you read Wildwood via The Heat Lightning and I mentioned the Wildwood Dinner in my BEA wrap-up but I didn’t tell you that the first person I met at the Harper Collins dinner was the book’s illustrator.  

I walked into the north dining room upstairs at the Savoy - the white linen tablecloths crawling with flowers and vines (and appetizers!), the plates set with signed artwork and Wildwood Irregulars buttons, the place cards featuring different images and quotes from the book.  I wasn’t intimidated, exactly, just humming with that awkwardness bookish types feel when faced with a pre-alcohol social situation.

A redheaded woman who looked not unlike a Bizarro World Martha Plimpton held out her hand.

“Hi, I’m Carson,” she said.  

I gave her my name and told her I was from Books & Books in Miami.  This doesn’t often get a reaction at book conferences, but then I offered the name which always does - our owner, Mitchell Kaplan.

When she didn’t mention her store, agency, or publisher, I chalked it up to a book-lover’s gawkiness.  When she didn’t react upon hearing Mitchell’s name, I should’ve known instantly that she was not in the book business, so the only thing which could bring her to a dinner for Wildwood is that she’s THAT Carson - illustrator Carson Ellis. 

Well, the penny didn’t drop.  We stood there grinning at each-other and looking around the room for someone who looked chatty enough to fill the space we’d reserved for painful silence.  When the waiter put a glass of wine in my hand, my nerves leapt from my body, wrapped him in a hug, then dove inside the glass.

After we’d ordered but before we’d gotten dinner, Carson Ellis and Colin Meloy got up to talk about the process of creating the book.  Listening to them, I realized that the four of us - Carson, Colin, Becky and I - could have been great friends if we lived in the same city.  We’d run in artsy fartsy circles and drown in an orgy of music, art, and books.  During the talk and while they sat with us, they blew me away with their book knowledge.  

About the highest complement I can pay to any reader is this - Ellis and Meloy could have been booksellers.

I also wanted to crawl under the table because I didn’t recognize Carson Ellis when I walked in.  Not that she expected me to recognize her or anything, but to paraphrase Matthew McConnoughey’s character in Dazed and Confused, it would’ve been a whole lot cooler if I did.

I would have told her that of all the Best American Nonrequired Reading covers, that 2007 was my favorite.  I would have asked if she had any advice on how I could support Becky as an illustrator.  I would have told her how every author site in the world links to Amazon but the fact that she chooses personal conviction over commerce by linking only to independent bookstores, is uncalculably badass.

Oh, well.     

What else?  Colin Meloy was bearded and burly.  It looked like the two of them had a great relationship.  I sat with two cool people from Harper Collins, the editor who worked with Margaret Cardillo on one of Miami’s favorite titles, Just Being Audrey, and Emilie Polster, who put the whole amazing dinner together.

Polster also happens to be working on the next offering from Maurice Sendak, who she insists is not as misanthropic as The New York Times would have you believe.  She also thinks he’d dig contributing to Becky’s arm.

Getting Maurice Sendak to draw Max for Becky to get tattooed?  Name the time and place.  

Awkward Moments with Authors Come in Twos

This week Mitchell introduced me to two authors.  Both men, both well-respected, prolific writers whose work I have at home, but neither are authors I've read.

The first conversation went like this:

ME (on the way to clock out): How's it going, Mitchell?

MY BOSS: Good, good.  You want to meet Fred Savage?

ME: Not really, no.  

MY BOSS: Hey, Fred, I'd like you to meet someone.  Fred, this is Aaron.  Aaron, this is Fred.  Aaron is one of our buyers.  He's a big, big fan of your work.

ME (grinning hugely): Good to meet you!  Wow, great stuff this time!

FRED SAVAGE* (not buying it for a minute, not even a little):  . . . 

ME: So. . .

FRED: I like your tattoo, Aaron.

The second encounter went like this:

ME (on the way out): S'up, MK?

MY BOSS: Hey, how's it going?  Do you want to meet Idi Amin?

ME: No, I'm good.

MY BOSS: Idi, this is Aaron.  Aaron, this is Idi.

ME (holding my hand out): Hi, it's good to meet you.

[IDI AMIN** stares past the proffered hand, saying nothing.]

ME (still holding hand out): Uh.... I'm one of Mitchell's buyers.

[IDI AMIN continues to ignore ME's hand, saying nothing.  ME's hand falls, his smile wilts.  A fissure opens up in the ground, and ME steps inside.]

This is why I'll be avoiding my boss in the future.

As further proof of the world of awkward twos, two authors offered to memorialize themselves on my ass.  This is a first for me which managed to happen twice in just a few months.

The first was the mighty Brock Clarke, who I've written about once or twice.  He was in town for the early release of his third novel, Exley.

I'm fucking awesome; buy me.

We drank the night away before I realized he hadn't signed my poster for An Arsonist's Guide to Writers Homes in New England, a brilliant piece of marketing with quotes from the book set up as rules to follow when torching historic homes.  I was thinking it would look lovely with my signed posters for Choke and Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.  Plus, I was going for an even fifty for things I need to get framed.

Two am was a distant memory.  Brock was understandably reluctant for me to run across the street, open the locked store, grab the poster, and run back.

"I'll be back for Miami Book Fair.  I'll sign anything you want, I promise."

Seeing my lack of enthusiasm for this idea, Brock offered his Ace in the Hole.

"I'll sign your ass," he said.

I worked Miami Book Fair, but my ass and Brock's pen somehow missed each-other.

A few months later, this happened:

PHASE 1: This will be awesome - wheeeee!!!  Thanks so much, Lane!

PHASE 2: She realizes she is the most ticklish person who currently exists.

PHASE 3: Lane discovers how hard it is to erase wavy Sharpie Lines from skin.

(and if you haven't already, buy It's a Book now)

After mortalizing the bibliophile monkey inside Becky's biceps, Lane Smith was on a high.  When he found out Becky and I were a couple, he turned to me and said, "How about one for you?  I could put it right on your ass."

Here's what he suggested:

That, of course, is Stinky Cheese Man.

Oh Lane Smith, my favorite jackass***, you know me so well.


* Not.
** Not, either.
*** His words, not mine!

Girl with the Pigeon Tattoo Part II: Not Everyone Gets It

Becky and Eric Carle post-drawing, pre-tattoo

I while back I wrote about the tattoo collection on Becky's arm, but it's time to confess the dark side of  asking illustrators to inscribe caterpillars, pigeons, and monkeys on one's flesh.  There are wonderful, talented illustrators out there who don’t understand why she gets these tattoos, so they look down on her for getting them at all.

Becky moderated a panel of illustrators at SIBA 2010, featuring James Dean, Henry Cole, and Johnny Atomic.  Afterward, everyone stood around chatting.  Becky told the story of her three tattoos, one of which would be featured in the soon-to-be-released (at the time) Word Made Flesh.  When he thought Becky wasn't looking, Cole rolled his eyes and twirled a finger beside his temple – also known as the international symbol for “what a nutjob."  

Cole had already thrown shade at the Books & Books staff during 2010's SCBWI conference, but we were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  Anyone can have an off night, right?  Well SIBA was strike two; why wait around for a third?  

Cole, you’re a hoot at the dinner table and you give a great presentation, but come on.  Why do you feel compelled to spit on someone else’s good time?  I'd think the illustrator of books like And Tango Makes Three and The Sissy Duckling would look at his fellow man with a little more love.  You won’t be part of Tattoo Girl’s Mortal Art Project*, a punishment I doubt you'd care much about.  The real punishment is that with your attitude in life, you’re gonna miss everything cool and die angry.**

Then there's Brian Lies, who decided that bigger meant better.  

Shelf Awareness, the best trade publication in the publishing world, featured Becky's Very Hungry Caterpillar tattoo in their write up of Word Made Flesh.  Lies saw the review and felt compelled to write in the next day to “one up” Becky’s tattoo, as he put it.  

This librarian loved Lies' work enough to have it indelibly inked on her arm, from shoulder to elbow.  

Yes, Lies, that quarter-sleeve from Bats at the Library is indisputably gorgeous, and certainly larger than the Caterpillar, but… did you draw it there? 

To claim petty victory because the librarian’s tattoo is bigger completely misses the point.  So far, Becky carries three pieces of original artwork from modern children’s book masters wherever she goes.  The tattoos are unique memorials of a meeting, a moment, a connection.  They are, like us, permanent markers in an impermanent medium.  Batsleeve is a perfect copy of a pretty picture.       

And if I may, Eric Carle is timeless; those bats are still on the clock.  

Sure this post is petty, but I don't like to see Becky's feelings hurt.  She's a big girl and she recovered, but the worse crime was that these encounters tainted children's books that we used to love.  Except for keeping them in stock because they sell, she didn't have strong feelings about Cole's stuff one way or the other.  But when Becky lamented how much she used to love Bats at the Library, there was real pain in her voice.

Picture books are meant to spread joy.  Now every time we sell one of these illustrator's books, or stock the shelf, or even see the spine, it's a tiny invitation to Bitter Town.

That's why I've resisted posting this for so long; I didn't want to ruin these books for anyone else.  But fuck it, you mess with the Tiger, you mess with the Turtle.

And Turtles bite.

*I made that up to give it grandeur; whatcha think?

** With respect to Patton Oswalt