Overthinking children's books

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Some of my best ideas come when I am overthinking something. It is technically, I think, a disease to compulsively overthink and have a strong need to categorize everything… But I like to have fun with it.

A chart I made for Betsy Bird’s blog on the School Library Journal

So for an interview about Charts for Babies with Betsy Bird for the School Libary Journal, I answered her very thoughtful interview questions using words and.... you guessed it: charts. The above being my attempt to categorize all the books we read on repeat in our home. I want to tell you what they are, but it would spoil the fun. It’s an IYKYK situation. Big hint: Dr. Seuss, Janell Cannon, Margaret Wise Brown, Jon Klassen, Dorothy Kunhardt, Eric Carle, Crockett Johnson, Esphyr Slobodkina, and Beatrix Potter. There was a crazier version, but sometimes as overthinkers we must simplify.

If you’re at all interested in the process behind Charts for Babies (which is OUT NOW!!!), I highly recommend you read the interview!

We talk through the children’s book process after Betsy shared her (negative) first impression of Charts for Babies(!), then stated that it “might be the most amusing for toddlers AND parents book of the year.” A roller coaster of emotion, it was!

There are many more of these children’s book charts, and I searched through my very unorganized collection of notebooks and paper piles to find a ton of old sketches, rejected covers, a timelapse of brainstorming drawings from Procreate, and more!

I worked SO hard on Charts for Babies, AND on the brand-new charts that I made for the interview! I hope you will read them both!

Farewell and ACHOO!