This picture book follows the most adorable cactus named Felipe. It had me at cactus named Felipe! Also, those rosy cheeks!
Felipe wants something, as the title tells us. A hug. But his family isn’t huggy. You know the kind. Poor, Felipe!
Felipe has to look outside his circle of succulents for a hug. Only that doesn’t work out too great either.
One of the things I like about this picture book—aside from its adorableness!—is that it’s honest. Felipe doesn’t fit in his family. And his family doesn’t change. Instead, he needs to find his own kindred spirit, which is sometimes the truth. So I want to give Simona Ciraolo and Flying Eye Books a great big hug for that!
Eventually, Felipe finds someone else who’s in need of a hug too! And that someone else won’t be bothered by Felipe’s spiny physique! I guarantee the last page of this spread will make you want to give your friend, your child, your partner, or your pet a heartfelt squeeze immediately.
Hug Me is a book about being yourself, getting your needs met, and finding a kindred soul. All in a super cute package. Well done!
Felipe the cactus is oh so cute, I had to craft a cactus character to hug in real life!
And this one’s not prickly at all! A felt Felipe also serves another purpose. That little cactus is a reminder to hug someone you love and not worry about the cacti who are too prickly to give you a fair shake.
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Cut a square piece of felt into a rectangle. (Mine was about 6 x 9.5″)
2. Draw Felipe’s face on the middle lower portion of the rectangle. (I used a fabric marker but I’m pretty sure a Sharpie would work.)
3. Trace two small circles on the tissue paper and cut them out. (I traced the marker cap for sizing.)
4. Cut out a small square of tissue paper and wad it on one end so it resembles a flower.
5. Glue the circles onto the cactus’s cheeks and the flower onto its head.
6. Cut a piece of thick twine and coil it. Then tie a knot around one part of the coil. (There’s a lot of finesse in this craft rather than it being precise. Play around!)
7. Finally, fold and tuck the felt into a cactusy-paddle shape and insert the bottom into the twine. Voila! (I realized afterward that you could stuff the cactus shape with tissue paper if you desire.)
Let’s talk about type, shall we? In picture books. And who better to do that with than picture book designer (and creator) Robin Mitchell Cranfield?
Her studio, hundreds & thousands, specializes in children’s books and has designed beautiful gems like How To and When I Was Small. And she’s created a special series of them herself with Judith Steedman: Windy & Friends (you must see these charming books/soon-to-be stop motion apps!!). To boot, both Robin and Judith have been shortlisted twice for the American Institute of Graphic Arts 50 books / 50 covers for their book design.
This Picture Book Life: Tell us a bit about you as a designer:
Robin Mitchell Cranfield: At the moment, I’m working full time with my Windy partner, Judith Steedman to develop our series of books into interactive stories. We are working with traditional stop-motion animators and with Loud Crow to develop and release the app. We are also partnered with TwoFold films and SheepNoir productions.
TPBL: What are some of your favorite examples of type/font in picture books and why?
RMC: That‘s a hard question! I like a very wide range of type styles. For early readers, there’s a good argument to be made for simple typefaces that have very clear letter shapes. These would be variations on either geometric sans-serif typefaces or a Swiss style typeface. A good example of simple type treatment in books would be Dick Bruna — you’ll often see Mercator, a Dutch sans serif in a similar style to Helvetica, and Volta, a slab serif, in original editions of his books:
RMC: On the *other* hand, I love funny expressive type! So many great graphic designers produced books with expressive type like John Alcorn’s book “Books!”, and Paul Rand’s “Sparkle & Spin” which contain funny, found type specimens as part of the illustrations:
RMC: (I asked my creative partner on Windy, Judith Steedman, also a book designer who is in the studio today. She loves the Bruno Munari’s ABC book with its beautiful Normandia font. I agree!)
And I also love pretty, classic type:
TPBL: How do you go about choosing a type? What factors go into your decision-making process?
RMC: The three main factors are:
1. Who is reading this book? If it’s for early readers, I won’t use a quirky typeface for the main areas of text; it should be accessible to people who are learning the basic letter shapes. For cover type, it’s fair game to use more fun type, though.
2. What will set off the illustration style best? Sometimes, the type needs to be very quiet in order to let the illustrations take centre stage. Other times, funny or pretty type will bring out the illustration.
3. What characters or letters are in the words? Are there any opportunities in the pairings of letters or words to show off a nice aspect of a particular typeface? For example, if there’s an ampersand in the title, you don’t let that go to waste. 🙂
TPBL: What is your favorite font?
RMC: Oh, no! I can’t decide on that. I love so many, I just can’t answer. Probably my most used typeface is Akzidenz Grotesk.
TPBL: Can you tell us about the book HOW TO? How does the font serve the text?
RMC: I’m a big fan of Julie Morstad‘s work and I enjoy working within her colour palette, so that shapes how I approach her work. I always feel very happy when I am looking at it.
RMC: The cover image we used was a very quiet image, and it breaks some almost-rules about cover design in that the figure on the front is small and facing away from the viewer and secondly, there’s a lot of white space. So it was an image that would accommodate a bold and colorful typeface…If type can be large on a cover without overwhelming the image, that is great! The cover of a book is kind of a mini-poster, after all.
RMC: The interior text is much quieter to give the images full reign to tell their story. They are very dynamic and change from page to page, and they also contain subtle emotion. So, for these reasons, I felt it needed something quiet and of a lighter weight that the reader can take for granted and easily read, and allow them to focus on the images and the world being revealed.
TPBL: Anything you’d like to add?
RMC: I’m feeling a real shift in how I feel about contemporary typefaces right now. Up until a few years ago, I was mostly using type from the twentieth century like Rockwell, Trade Gothic, Akzidenz Grotesk, Electra, or classic typefaces like Jenson and Bembo.
But recently I’ve been really enjoying contemporary type, thinking about foundries like Porchez Typofonderie or Grilli Type.
There’s a lot more crossover between printed pages and the screen that is changing how we read. Inexpensive foundries like YouWorkforThem are popping up, and there are a lot of resources for students that weren’t as widely available a few years ago; I think it’s an exciting time for type design. The last few books I’ve done have been all with recently released type.
Thanks to Robin Mitchell Cranfield for emailing with me and for images! What a pleasure to have Robin’s expert answers on the blog today!!
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Speaking of type, how cool is this alphabet wall sticker from Wonderwall Decal on etsy?! Well, Wonderwall is nice enough to be giving one regular sized alphabet decal to a reader of ThisPicture Book Life! I can picture it in a classroom, a kids’ room, or an office. A graphic design studio, an English faculty conference room, a nursery.
So clean and simple and sophisticated, yet, also the alphabet. That wonderful arrangement of letters from which we make words. Aaahhhh.
I’m also super excited about Wonderwall’s polka dot decals! I totally want those. My next favorite is the animal wall sticker because: woodland creatures. (The decals are removable matte vinyl, btw.)
A couple of Saturday nights ago, my dude and I strolled around, peeking into art galleries in Chinatown here in Los Angeles. I love the contemporary art scene on Chung King Road, but I didn’t expect to find anything directly related to my love of picture books. And then I did. Laura Tabbut‘s show, “Flotation Devices,” at Exhale Unlimited gallery consisted of child-sized life jackets hung on the wall. But they weren’t just life jackets. Laura cuts apart classic children’s books and affixes them to each flotation device.
There’s so much to love about this idea besides how cool they look as an installation:
*The way book jackets and life jackets relate as physical objects.
*And especially the way books can actually serve as flotation devices for kids (or adults). Lifesavers. Things that help us tumble along on the water instead of sinking.
Here’s what Laura Tabbut has to say about the origin of “Flotation Devices”:
“…This spring, my family was in the middle of selling our lake home on a tiny lake in Wisconsin. I took a break from packing books into boxes…Kayaking must be psychologically soothing, because in that small space of time in the boat, I was able to relive many fantastic summer memories, most of them with books. During our summers, we’d play on the lake all day, eat dinner, and then crash with a book in the evening. For my family and many friends this repeated pattern of playing and reading balanced our introverted and extroverted lives. It also shaped us uniquely as individuals, because the books we read informed our life choices.”
Laura in a life jacket as a baby.
I love that she fell asleep with those floaties on.
“So the flooding of all of those memories sparked this idea that reading can be a life saver. After I finished paddling around the lake, I went to put away my equipment in the boat house and pulled out a few very haggard children’s life jackets that I could cut up to use for patterns.”
Books AND a float! And here’s Laura on her childhood flotation devices:
“As a child, I initially struggled with reading. I am an auditory learner and developed hearing issues during Kindergarten. But by the end of first grade I was reading fluidly. As an adult I look back at that time and realize how that struggle was critical to who I am today. As a teacher, I am constantly reminded of the value of getting kids to read or be interested in books at an early age.”
Laura’s flotation devices as a child included:
“The Velveteen Rabbit; The Runaway Bunny; The Josefina Story Quilt; A Birthday for Frances (Laura got Frances as a nickname because of this book!); Don’t Forget the Bacon!; The Wind Blew; Amelia Bedelia; Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport; Caps for Sale, A Tale of a Peddler, and Some Monkeys & Their Monkey Business by Esphyr Slobodkina; Little House on the Prairie.”
“When I was asked to show at Exhale Unlimited in Chinatown, I was also asked to use some Chinese children’s literature in my work. So I called my friend Beth, who is currently getting her PhD in Literacy and had taught for a couple of years in China to see what her recommendations would be.”
“I had already created the Maurice Sendak life jackets; those were the first jackets to be at the gallery. For me and for many, Sendak’s children’s literature taps into my wild primal urges and desires. Sometimes these urges contrast with the ‘safety’ of a life jacket.”
If you’re in the L.A. area, Laura has another show exploring banned books for Banned Books Week at APU until September 26.
Here’s to books continuing to keep us afloat and to putting literary flotation devices in little hands!
First of all, I adore the tongue-in-cheekness of the title for a book about women who’ve made a difference. Referring to them as babes is kind of hysterical to me.
click image(s) to enlarge
And this isn’t just a random compendium of historical women to know about. Each one inspires something specific in the reader. (And the reader was originally intended to be the author’s son, which is pretty great!)
Courage, compassion, conviction, commitment, heart, the breaking of rules. All worthy qualities to aspire to—for all of us, regardless of age or gender.
It’s a book of Grace Lee’s gorgeous portraits, each capturing the subject distinctively. And, bonus, you can read the details of each lady’s contributions at the back of the book. I can just picture a young person gravitating toward one of these women and researching more about her.
I discovered that Hedy Lamar was not only an actress, but was also a mathematician! And because the author is Australian, I learned about Mum Shirl who visited Aboriginal inmates and worked to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians.
And Hadijatou Mani, born in 1984 and forced to work as a slave in West Africa at the age of twelve. Irena Sendler who saved 2,500 Jewish babies during the Holocaust.
I love the unexpected entries too, like Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill. As well as extraordinary contemporary heroine, Malala Yousafzai.
Most of these women are activists for peace and human rights, particularly those of women and children. Artists, scientists, individuals who’ve made a difference.
Scribe Publications has generously donated one signed copy of Amazing Babes for a reader of This Picture Book Life! You’ll love this picture book, coffee table book, art book, and women’s history book all rolled into one! Guaranteed to inspire.
Comment on this post and tell us who you’d like to share Amazing Babes with for a chance to win!
I’ll contact the randomly chosen winner by email for your mailing address.
(Open to North American residents only—sorry about that, far flung international readers! Giveaway ends Wednesday, September 24th, midnight PST.)
WE HAVE A WINNER AND IT’S READING WITH RHYTHM! CONGRATULATIONS!
Wolf Erlbruch worked as an illustrator for advertising, but began a career in children’s books in the late 1980s. He does NOT shy away from deep, dark subjects! Like death. In children’s books. Of course, I love them.
And my favorite pieces of his illustration style are the way he captures gestures and his use of white space. Or the opposite, the way a figure will fill a page.
The actual question is never stated. Instead, we get answers from different people (and animals and objects) in this book. But it’s clear the question they’re all answering is, “Why am I here?”
The answer is different for each of them, for themselves and as it relates to a child asking a question like that.
I know, dark right? That skeleton looking figure? That’s death. Death with a capital D actually. But I have to say, I love that figure. Creepy, yes, but not exactly menacing. That tilt of the head. The line of a smile where the jaws meet. There’s a friendly old woman quality to Death as Erlbruch portrays him.
The way both characters gesture is the wonderful thing about this book. Duck with its long neck, beak turned this way and that. The friendship that develops between these two.
They warm each other. Death is not cruel or threatening. Death is just there. Always there. For every duck.
“When you’re dead, the pond will be gone, too—at least for you.”
“Are you sure?” Duck was astonished.
“As sure as sure can be,” Death said.
“That’s a comfort. I won’t have to mourn over it when…”
There have been stage adaptations of Duck, Death, and the Tulip as well. Puppets! Here and here, for example.
And now, from death to procreation. I know, right?! A bear wants to know how to become a Papa Bear.
Various animals give Bear many different answers (all wrong). In the end, he meets a girl bear. And he vaguely kinda sorts get the idea that that’s how he can become a Papa Bear.
This is a book for a worrier. About a worrier. Mrs. Meyer.
But then Mrs. Meyer finds a baby bird who needs her help and she discovers what focusing on something else’s wellbeing can do for your own worry (e.g. occupy it).
She cares for the bird. And then, well I don’t want to spoil it, but let’s just say Mrs. Meyer flies!
Do you have a favorite of his? Have you seen Erlbruch’s books before? If not, enjoy the journey on which he takes you!
Hug Me by Simona Ciraolo.
Amazing Babes
