Tag Archive for Greg Ruth

Book News: “Our Enduring Spirit,” illustrated by Greg Ruth

October 1, 2009 / / 3 comments

My friend, Greg Ruth — illustrator of our upcoming picture book, A Pirate’s Guide to First Grade (Feiwel and Friends,  July, 2010) — just announced that his latest children’s book, Our Enduring Spirit, is now available in stores.

As Greg said in an email:

Using the original text from President Obama’s first inaugural address we endeavored to create a children’s book that could communicate the vitality and ideas of that day in pictures to children and also act as a historical record and a snapshot of that day to the rest of us. As many of you know the opportunity to do this book came out of my ongoing weekly drawing series, The 52 Weeks Project, which makes this event all the more fun and stupendous. It is a work of great fun and deep meaning for me and I am extremely excited and proud to have it finally come out.

Greg is also offering a limited edition of autographed books, complete with “a unique original 9×9″ sumi-ink drawing on paper of President Obama” — for more details on that bit of gift-quality goodness, go here. Please note that 50% of all proceeds raised through this special offer will be donated to Doctors Without Borders.

To see more images from the book, there’s always this.

Congratulations, Greg. I’m proud of you. Somewhere, a not-half-bad former editor named Brenda Bowen is smiling.

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Category: A Pirates Guide (Series) / Tags: , ,

From Sketch to Final Art; Final Art to Cover

August 17, 2009 / / No comments

I’m sure my Nation of Readers will remember this sketch, which I talked about here, fifteen months ago.

Well, lubbers, double quick, set your deadlights on the final art:

“Ahoy, me hearties!” I cried. “Prepare to be boarded!”

Interestingly, in the above final piece the pirates and boy appear rather small, almost lost. But I’m looking at the proofs, which I recently received, and can assure you that, thanks to tight cropping across a two-page spread, it’s anything but the case. You have to see it on the page (a thought to keep in mind during the Dawn of Kindle).

For many artists, rough sketches are exactly that — rough. Sometimes extremely rough — more shape and placement and perspective than detail — to the point when you almost wonder, “Can this person draw?”

Funny, that question never arose when it came to Greg’s rough sketches.

One of the things that editor, Liz Szabla, loved about the art for this book was, in her words, “The pirates look like REAL PIRATES!”

That’s Liz, sometimes she talks in all caps, sometimes italics.

——

The other day I showed you this:

Below, please find the uncorrected, unapproved — read: still fretting the details, tweaking color tones, debating everything, etc. — cover design. A collaborative effort, indeed, involving the skill of many folks whose names do not appear on the front cover. (Please do click on the image, and double click, to see in greater detail.) I think this is part of what we mean when describing a book as “well published.” The tone of the relationships involved, the professionalism and courtesy, which is always hidden from view, plus the attention to detail throughout the entire process. I’ve experienced a wide range of extremes across the previous 20+ years; these days, I’m just feeling fortunate, because essentially all this good stuff happens without any help from me. To which I can only say, over and over again: Thank you.

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NOTE: If this aspect of the creative process is at all interesting to you, and if you are not a long-time reader here, please check out my seven-part series of posts, “What’s in a book cover?” In it, I detail the cover process from concept memo to rough sketch to final cover — including interviews with an editor, art director, and illustrator — of an upcoming Jigsaw Jones title, beginning here.

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POSTSCRIPT: Just realized that this is my 300th post since I started this blog, back in May, 2008. Each one, healthy and nutritious and self-absorbed.

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Category: A Pirates Guide (Series), Greatest Hits / Tags: ,

Cover Art by Greg Ruth for “A Pirate’s Guide to First Grade”

August 12, 2009 / / One comment

One of the ruling ideas behind this blog is to document the working life of a writer. I try to skip the boring parts, of which there are many. But one thing that is never dull is when I first glimpse finished art for a book. About four years after I completed the manuscript for A Pirate’s Guide to First Grade (Feiwel & Friends, Fall, 2010), along comes the final cover art by the astonishingly talented, Greg Ruth. Obviously, art director Rich Deas hasn’t done his part of it yet, settling on a typeface and other design elements. So let me get this out of the way right now: Rich, my name should be bigger! I’m thinking GIANT TYPE, maybe orange neon, maybe with those sparkly bits they used on The Rainbow Fish. Definitely embossed. And, um, can there be fireworks included? Like instead of the letter “L,” there’d be actual bottle rockets? Which kids can light off. I’m just brainstorming here, typing out loud.

That said, take a gander at this:

I wrote the story right around the time Pirates were “hot,” and Jean Feiwel wasn’t sure if it could make it in the cluttered marketplace. She held onto it, and waited. I finally wrote to her and asked, “So . . . ?”

Jean decided to take it — after all, she liked it — and bide her time, determined to pair it with an illustrator who could do something fresh and original with it. She found Greg Ruth. And I was like, “Who?”

I looked up some of Greg’s work, here and here and, amazingly, here, and was blown away. Lucky me, lucky book. Impressively, Jean and Liz decided to let Greg stretch out his illustrations across 48 pages, rather than the traditional 32. Here’s another piece of finished art that will appear in our book, when — “Arrrr!” — the pirate-obsessed boy wakes up for the first day of school. Note: Be sure to click on the art to see it in full glorious detail.

——-

Shiver me timbers, what a slobberin’ moist mornin’!

Me great scurvy dog slurped me kisser

when I was tryin’ t’ get me winks!

To read an interview with Greg, click here. And don’t miss Greg’s new book, Our Enduring Spirit (HarperCollins, Fall, 2009), where he illustrates President Obama’s inaugural address.

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Category: A Pirates Guide (Series), the writing process / Tags: , , , ,

It’s Good to Be Neil Gaiman: Newbery Medal Winner

January 26, 2009 / / One comment

Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard was just announced as the Newbery Medal Winner. Amazingly, it’s about the only book on the long list of potential titles that I actually read. I often thought about blogging on it over the past month — it was an interesting book, and I wanted to talk about it — but I decided that I didn’t really want to review children’s books on this site, especially when Six Innings was mentioned by a (very) few as a potential far-flung dark horse candidate. For the record, I never thought so and didn’t even hope, but I felt very glad to be read and considered. After many years of writing the Jigsaw Jones mystery series, I began to get the idea that no adult or librarian or even (most troubling) the editors in my own publishing company read them critically. So I felt truly honored just to somehow squeeze into that Great Conversation with my first hardcover novel, published by Jean Feiwel at Feiwel and Friends. I’ll forever be grateful to Jean for that leap of faith and the great opportunity she gave me to write the best book I possibly could at the time.

I’m happy for my fourth-grade son, Gavin, who is just now in the middle of reading The Graveyard at my urgent, badgering request. They make a big deal out of the Newbery in school, and I’m sure he’ll be proud to say that he’s currently reading it. Cool factor ten. Gavin started it a couple of weeks ago, and interrupted that twice for the latest Wimpy Kid and Knuckleheads. My oldest son, Nick, age 15, also read it on my recommendation. I also urged Liz Szabla to read The Graveyard, and emailed my friend Greg Ruth with the same recommendation.

Should it have won? I have no idea, given my pathetic reading record, though I’m not at all surprised. As much as I thoroughly enjoyed The Graveyard, I did see it as episodic, with a couple of chapters that didn’t work (for me), in that they seemed kind of stand-alone pieces that were wedged into the larger narrative. I also felt that the Harry Potter echoes were at times too strong. We never really learned why Bod’s family was murdered, and I felt it odd that Bod never seemed to really desire to unravel that huge mystery. He never seemed to ask: Why? But I guess we’ll get that in the sequel.

In the end, congratulations Mr. Gaiman, a writer I truly respect and admire, whose blog is an inspiration. I’m quite sure that young readers (4th grade and up, I’m guessing) will very much enjoy this book. It’s fast, exciting, singular in mood, creative, heartfelt, utterly contemporary, and very well-written. And it has a great first sentence: “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.”

Congratulations also to Honor Winners: Kathi Appelt (The Underneath), Margarita Engle (The Surrender Tree), Ingrid Law (Savvy), and Jacqueline Woodson (After Tupac and D. Foster).

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Category: Current Events / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Greg Ruth Illustrates “Our Enduring Spirit: President Barack Obama’s First Address to the Nation.”

January 23, 2009 / / 2 comments

Back on November 5th, the day after the election, I acted quickly and purchased this remarkable, evocative piece of art from my friend, illustrator Greg Ruth. For the story on that, and where to find other art by Greg, click here and follow the links.

As it turns out, I was not at all alone in my appreciation of Greg’s work. Another old friend, publisher Brenda Bowen of the Bowen Press imprint at HarperCollins, was so inspired by Greg’s work that she signed him up for a wonderful project. Here’s a clip from an article by John A. Sellers in PW’s Children’s Bookshelf:

This October, HarperCollins’s new Bowen Press imprint will release Our Enduring Spirit: President Barack Obama’s First Address to the Nation, a 40-page picture book with illustrations by Greg Ruth.

The book will consist of the President’s speech (adapted for young readers—the entire speech will also be included, in the back matter), biographical notes about Obama, as well as an overview of his first 100 days in office. Graphic novelist/illustrator Ruth (Freaks of the Heartland; Sudden Gravity) had been sketching Obama throughout the Presidential campaign, and when Bowen Press publisher Brenda Bowen, who was on Ruth’s mailing list, saw additional Obama artwork that he had created on election night, she called Ruth and signed him up for this project, in anticipation of Obama’s inauguration.

This pleases me in so many ways I can’t begin to express it. I first met Greg when he signed up to illustrate my upcoming picture book, A Pirate’s Guide to First Grade (Feiwel & Friends, 2010). We’ve exchanged emails, bonded over Magic Realism and Kelly Link, our children and books, our love for Liz Szabla and our fear of Facebook, and many other things. He’s just so incredibly talented — a true artist — and a nice guy, too.

There’s a lesson in this for creative people. Greg was inspired by Obama, filled with hope and excitement, so being an artist he began to sketch. There was no master plan. He wasn’t thinking about books, or sales, or furthering his career. He was simply following his enthusiasms, expressing what was inside, what had to come out, his bursting joy. That it led to a book — and such an important book — came to Greg as a complete surprise. Good things happen when you follow your enthusiasms.

For me, personally, the story deepens because Brenda is an old friend, from back in our days at Scholastic together. We were friends inside the office and out, even belonging to a small, happy reading group together. We’ve laughed a lot. Time passed and these days we rarely have much contact, but those old affections never die; I’ll always be crazy about Brenda. So now all those loose threads come together with this book that celebrates Obama, and the renewed hope that so many of us have for our country.

Lastly, just to add one more thread, I wanted to post a photo that was taken on October 25, 1986, at Brenda’s parents’ beach house on the Jersey shore. A whole gang of us went there for a madcap weekend. It’s a shot of me and Craig Walker, one of the greatest friends I’ve ever known. That night we drank beer and watched Game Six of the World Series together — one of the most stirring, improbable, momentous comebacks in baseball history.

I was always proud and pleased that Craig kept this photo on his office wall. After he died, I visited his office. It was a terrible feeling, walking into that room. I looked around, lost, wanting something to keep. And I took this photo off the wall . . .

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Category: A Pirates Guide (Series), Current Events / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
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