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Lindsay Barrett George
My first memory of the power and magic of books still haunts me. When I was very young, I believed that animals pictured in books were alive in those books. A photograph of a “sea monster” in my parents’ copy of the Wonder Book of Knowledge looked so real that I wouldn’t walk in front of the book, for fear of being bitten. Oh, the power of make-believe.
I did not know then that I wanted to be an artist. As a child, all I knew was that I wanted to draw, that I needed to make marks on paper. And if paper wa ... read mores not available, any blank surface would do, especially the brown paper bags from the grocery store. Pastel pencil marks looked especially beautiful on that soft, brown background. I became a fine arts major in college and then moved to New York City. In all of my free time, I was in my studio making little handmade books, telling stories with only pictures, no words. Even so, it wasn’t until I moved to Pennsylvania, into a log cabin in the woods, that I realized I had something to say to children in books, and I gave the field a serious try.
I love mysteries. As I start out to create each of my books, I feel as though I have a mystery to solve. Writing the story and designing the book is my way of finding the solution. There is magic for me in creating children’s books. I also love the “aha” moments, when ideas come together and pop. For me, that usually happens while driving the car, walking my dogs, or in the moments just before waking, in the very early morning. I often look for happy accidents or patterns. Inside Mouse, Outside Mouse came out of a personal challenge: to see what I could do with my daughter’s third-grade homework assignment—writing about a mouse in one’s house. I had always liked mice and had several pictures of them on my studio wall. The concept of an outside mouse meeting an inside mouse was intriguing, and using the graphic idea of two lines meeting in the middle felt right. The fact that it took six years to work it out is still a bit of a shock. The word “revision” is my new middle name.
The Secret evolved, thankfully, in a much shorter time. The idea of a line running through every page, combined with the game of Telephone—that was all easy. But the secret, what could it be? Then came the timely playing of the Beatles’ song, “Do You Want to Know a Secret?” on my car radio. That was the gift, the happy accident. The story fell into place, and the look of the book, combining painted images with natural objects, was something new for me, extremely satisfying, and a lot of fun to do.
My next idea for a book? That is also part of the magic for me. Many years ago I asked my friend Vera B. Williams where her ideas came from, and Vera answered, “Ideas are like fairies. They’re in the air everywhere. They could be sitting on your shoulder. They could be sitting on your knee. They could be whispering into your ear. You simply have to hear them.” Here’s to keeping your ears open . . . and a pencil and paper nearby.
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