With their latest collaboration, Lenny & Lucy (Roaring Brook, 2015), husband and wife picture book creators Philip and Erin Stead offer readers a contemplative story that sees a lonely young boy who
has just arrived at a new house on the edge of the dark wood overcome his fear and trepidation through imagination, kindness, and a new friend. SLJ chatted with the Steads about writing, art, and whether or not we may all be in the midst of a “second golden age of picture books.”
Lenny & Lucy is your third collaboration together. Has your process of working together evolved since A Sick Day for Amos McGee (2010) and Bear Has a Story to Tell (2012, both Roaring Brook)? How so? How did this new book come together?
PHILIP STEAD (PS): Surprisingly little has changed since our first book together. The stories that I write for myself are always a struggle. They go through countless revisions. It can take years before a text is ready for illustrations. But for some reason the stories I write for Erin always seem to show up fully formed, or almost fully formed from the moment of birth. A Sick Day for Amos McGee, Bear Has a Story to Tell, and Lenny & Lucy were all written in a single day in a moment of clear thought. All three needed edits of course, but the edits were mostly cosmetic, not structural. Compare that to, say, A Home for Bird (Roaring Brook, 2012), which took six years to write and I still don’t know if I got it right.
Once a text is done it belongs completely to Erin. I never give art notes, and I try not to even imagine what the characters or setting might look like. If anything, once the illustrations begin to appear we’ll often have to go back and adjust the text to better suit the reality that Erin has made. It’s almost like the first draft is a suggestion of a story and Erin’s illustrations are the response (or even the rebuttal) to that suggestion.
In all three of the books you’ve done together, there is a common theme about the power of kindness and friendship. Amos cares for his friends at the zoo, and they, in turn, care for him in
Philip and Erin Stead. Photo credit: Nicole Haley
his time of need. Bear is such a steadfast and thoughtful friend, and his buddies help him remember when he forgets. In Lenny & Lucy, Peter is literally and figuratively in a dark place. There’s fear and loneliness. But in the end it’s friendship that brings the light that keeps the darkness at bay. Why do you think these messages are so important for children?
PS: To be honest we don’t make much distinction between messages meant for children and messages meant for humanity at large. Kindness is kindness, and it’s important. How much easier would life be if we would remember to say “Please” and “Thank you” and “Would you like a marshmallow?” We’re all in this together, after all. The purpose of art is to transmit some kind of power and magic into the world, and nothing is more powerful and magical than a small kindness.
I’m reminded of a scene I witnessed on the New York City subway more than 10 years ago. The doors opened at 42nd Street on a rush hour train. An impossibly old woman stood at the train door unable to make the giant leap—maybe 10 inches—to the safety of the platform. People rushed past unaware. Amid the chaos one man stopped and before entering the train simply held out his arm. The woman steadied herself and took a step forward. The two never spoke, and in an instant the moment had passed. But in the noise and confusion of the subway, that moment was like the clear note of a bell. We would like our books to strike that same note.
Did either of you move as kids? If so, did that affect how this book came together? How did you come up with the idea of Lenny and Lucy, these delightfully lumpy and gigantic guards?
ERIN STEAD (ES): I did not move as a kid. Actually, my parents are still living in the house I grew up in. This book came more from a feeling that comes and goes for everyone (I would imagine), big or small. It’s the loneliness that comes from the feeling that your life is running away from you—when circumstances are not ideal but you’ve got to figure out how to make them better. In the end, it can be the small victories that add up to help you feel more at home.
PS: I didn’t really move as a kid, either. My parents are also still living in the house I grew up in. Erin and I have moved plenty as adults, though. We lived in four different homes during the making of A Sick Day for Amos McGee. [As with] Peter in Lenny & Lucy, one of those homes was along a bumpy road in the dark, unfriendly woods—both literally and figuratively. Lenny & Lucy is actually our second book to draw on that experience. The first, A Home for Bird, was another book about finding and understanding “home.” In a sense, both books are less about moving than about being feeling conspicuous and uncomfortable in an unfamiliar place—a feeling all kids are acquainted with. Adults, too.
As for where the characters of Lenny & Lucy came from, we have to tip our hat to one of our favorite 
picture books, The Story of Frog Belly Rat Bone (Candlewick, 2003), by Timothy Basil Ering. Frog Belly was celebrating its 10th anniversary a couple years back, and we picked it up to revisit it after letting it sit, lonely, for many years on the shelf. The book was very important to both of us in art school. Rereading Frog Belly put the idea of a handmade protector figure into my head, and it soon became an idea I couldn’t shake. It was important to us that Lenny and Lucy, like Frog Belly, be real, not imaginary. They are golemlike figures—animate creatures made from inanimate material.
The illustrations in this book are stunning. There’s the eerie coldness of a winter landscape surrounded by those ominous dark woods and those gorgeous, almost claustrophobic, giant flowers on the walls in Peter’s room. Can you tell me about how you created these images? What is “carbon transfer printing,” and how does it work?
ES: Well, thanks! I wish I could say I made those flowers from scratch, but they are actually made from wallpaper that I found and manipulated. Let me tell you how.
The illustrations were made using charcoal pencil for the line work, egg tempera for the color, and “carbon transfer printing” for the patterns and other ghostly gray textures. There are patterns and various grays throughout the book, and most of these were made with this printing method. This method requires no skill to repeat, just the willingness to deal with some toxic chemicals in a (hopefully) ventilated space. It’s a common art school trick. I’d love to tell you it is very hard and you should be very impressed, but that would be a lie, and we just went on and on about being kind.
The stripes in Peter’s sweater, the plaid in Lenny’s blanket, the ridiculous floral wallpaper—they were all found somewhere, scanned in, printed backwards on a Xerox machine, and then transferred onto my illustrations in the shapes necessary for Peter’s belly, or Lenny’s arm, etc. I applied a solvent to the back of the Xerox to get the toner to release from the paper and adhere to the drawing. The fields of flat gray that you see throughout the book (the trees, the road, the river) are transferred the same way, with the only exception being that I would draw the shapes (by hand, not on the computer) instead of using found textures and patterns. Those drawings would then be reversed and Xeroxed like the others. I would place the photocopied images onto the illustration and transfer the gray using the solvent and the pressure of my hands—hopefully not screwing everything up, and hopefully attaining the soft, textured gray that this printing method is known for.
I make a lot of mistakes. But when an image transfers well I can draw and paint directly on top using charcoal for line work, and egg tempera for color.
Phil, you usually explain my art method better than I do. How’d I do?
PS: Actually, that was pretty good. It sounds complicated but it’s actually quite easy (albeit toxic). A quick Internet search of “wintergreen oil transfer printing” will reveal several tutorials to anyone interested in trying this at home. Wintergreen oil is one of the many liquids that can be used to release toner from a photocopy. Just remember to keep a window open!
Erin, you worked at Books of Wonder (a New York City children’s bookstore) for a time. Did that experience inform your artwork at all?
ES: Huh. This question stumps me more than you’d think it would. I am going to have to think about this. My job at Books of Wonder informed my bookmaking self very deeply. I can’t imagine doing my job without my time spent there. And without the education I received there, I can’t imagine that I would be here answering interview questions about my new book. Working at the store introduced me to the things I love most about making books—pacing a story, design, word choice. If you want to make books, you can’t underestimate the value of having read hundreds and hundreds of them. Phil often says [that] we went to art school but we could’ve gotten our education more cheaply by applying for a library card downtown.
PS: If I may interrupt, I would like to add that hand selling books taught Erin (and, in turn, me) that a book need not have universal appeal for it to be valuable to a specific child. It’s a lesson that has guided us many times through the fog of bookmaking.
Philip, your prose in this book is simple, spare—almost deceptively so—because it packs in so much information and emotional resonance—and allows the artwork to fill in the gaps. One of my favorite spreads is the one with the line “And no one slept at all.” Here Peter shifts from losing sleep because he’s scared of the dark woods to losing sleep because he’s worried about his friend being alone. Fear turns into kindness—and then into positive action. How many times do you revise your text to get it just right? In that spread, for instance, did you always know that line would be on its own spread, with Erin’s illustrations so cleverly showing Lenny through the window, all alone?
PS: Geez. Your question is so beautifully written and sums up my intent so well that I almost hate to ruin it with an answer. But here goes! The passage you’re referring to was unchanged from the first draft all the way to the final book. I don’t tend to give much thought to meaning as I write. I just go where the story wants to go. But in hindsight I see that portion of the story as the critical moment—the moment when Peter begins to take control of his situation. It isn’t the act of making Lenny that saves Peter; it is the act of worrying about and caring for Lenny. I don’t think I recognized the significance of that moment early on, but I think Erin did. It was her choice to pull that small bit of text out and let it breathe on a big, full spread. I am really lucky to work (and live) with someone that can edit my hodgepodge thoughts into something meaningful. No joke, I don’t know how people do this job without a buddy.
I’ve heard it said that we are in the midst of a “second golden age of picture books.” Do you think that’s true? Besides each other’s work, are there other contemporary picture book creators who inspire you?
PS & ES: In some way, yes, it’s possible we’re smack dab in the middle of a golden age of picture books. Creatively, it’s an interesting time. Years ago, when we first read Dear Genius (HarperCollins, 1998), a collection of letters between children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom and her many artists we wondered: Did all of these people really know one another and collaborate with one another? There seemed to be a lot of cross-pollination going on. Since at that time we knew almost no one in the book world, we were skeptical. But now we see that it’s actually possible. There is an amazing batch of artists and authors working today—too many to even begin mentioning them all. We may not collaborate in ways that people can see, but still we know each other and we communicate. We help each other out. We listen to each other’s frustrations. We get excited for each other’s successes. We are occasionally jealous of what others have been able to produce, and that healthy jealousy leads to more good work all around. It is an ongoing conversation about what picture books can be. And that’s exciting. This kind of bookmaking ecosystem has probably existed in every decade since Nordstrom was writing her letters to those artists. The only difference now is that picture books, and books in general, are perceived to be in crisis. And because of that there is a more acute focus on the value and worth of the picture book.
Unfortunately, that reality of perceived crisis could also be used as an argument against this being a golden age. How can this be a golden age of picture books unless all kids have unfettered access to quality books? School libraries are being defunded. Branch libraries are disappearing. Bookstores are in danger of becoming a privilege of the upper middle class. A book can have the power to transform a life, but only if it is available and presented at the right time. I wish we had concrete answers to these problems. The best we, and our fellow bookmakers, can probably do is to continue to make the best books we can while other, smarter people work to find creative ways to get our books into the hands of children.
What are you both working on now?
ES: We can’t tell you! We’re not allowed yet. Intriguing, though, isn’t it?