Beth Krommes & Caldecott Medal book The House in the Night

Hi Santiago,

I'm so happy that you like the pictures in "The House in the Night". I will tell you a little bit about how this book came to be.

You may know that most children's books start as words. The author writes a manuscript and sends it to an editor at a publishing house. If the editor likes it, she and the art director put their heads together to decide on an illustrator whose style best compliments the manuscript. When my editor, Ann Rider, accepted the manuscript for "The House in the Night" from Susan Marie Swanson, she immediately thought of me as the illustrator. She knew I wanted to do a book in black and white, and it seemed to her that this little "goodnight" book would work well in black and white. It was Ann's idea to add the gold color. She remembered a book called "Goodnight, Goodnight" by Eve Rice, published in 1980, that was illustrated in black and white with touches of a rich yellow-gold. She thought that adding gold to our book would make it shine.

It was up to me to tell the story through the pictures because the text is like a simple nursery rhyme. I sat for a whole day thinking (brainstorming, actually) about what this story could be. The manuscript had the words "key", "house", "light", "bed", "book", "bird", "song", "dark", "moon", and "sun". I knew that there had to be a main character who had to somehow get from the house out to the moon and sun and then back again. I thought this character could do this on the back of the bird. I knew that on the last page the main character would be tucked in bed, as a proper "goodnight" book should end. I wrote out what would happen before I started drawing.

I made the main character a little girl instead of an animal, because I didn't want our book to be compared to "Goodnight Moon", whose main character is a bunny. Although I have two daughters, I chose to base the main character on myself as a little girl so neither one of my daughters would be jealous. I included Scamp, the dog we had when I was young. There are many objects in the pictures that are meaningful to my family: the violin (my husband and daughters all play violin), the shell mobile that we made after a vacation at the New Jersey seashore, my teddy bear, and the doll that I made for my daughter, Olivia.

I loved drawing the scratchboard illustrations for this book. Scratchboard is a board, or panel, with a thin layer of fine, white clay covered by a layer of black india ink. The drawing surface is completely black when I start. I draw by scratching on the black ink to show the white underneath. The more lines that are drawn, the brighter the picture becomes. The tool I use to scratch with is a regular pen holder with a scratchboard nib inserted. This sharp point removes the black ink easily. It's a bit tricky to make a scratchboard drawing because you have to think backwards. When you draw with a pencil you draw a black line on white paper, but with a scratchboard tool, you draw white line on a black surface. This can be a little complicated, especially when doing faces, but it's a good challenge. An easy way to learn scratchboard is by starting with scratchmagic paper. This paper is completely black and when you draw (scratch) on it with a sharp wooden stick, bright colors appear. You may have used this drawing paper before.

Good luck to you and your friend Pierre with growing your library. It is a wonderful idea and I am inspired by your hard work. I love the picture you drew for me, and I enjoyed reading your blog. It was fun to see the beautiful artwork by John Parra, your father, and you. I would be happy to send you a few of my books for your library. Can you please send me an address?

Your friend,

Beth

Dear Beth,

When I was little I used to tell my Dad that paintbrushes were magic wands.

When we first saw The House in the Night at the bookstore my Dad told me-now this book is magic.

The librarians who gave you the 2009 Caldecott Medal in that wooden treasure box were right because this book is so, so beautiful.

Thank you for sending me your photo with your medal so kids can see what a real one looks like. Now I feel very happy and lucky to know more about how you made this book and I especially like the wonderful sketch you sent. I like seeing how your idea grows from a drawing. Your letter is fantastic because at school we are learning how writers, illustrators, editors and publishers work together. Thank you for giving us your books for our library peace project.

Isn't it so cool to know that artists can put little pieces of themselves into their books. It is such a good idea to have treasures like the seashell mobile and handmade doll and to draw pictures of the things you love in your pictures. Like your beautiful daughters who play violins. I can't wait to show my friends the printed pages in your book and the sketch you sent us because your first drawing was like making a map for the final art. I am going to ask my parents to get some scratchboard magic paper so I can try this. Then I would like to try scratchboard when I am ready to feel what it is like to think backwards. It does sound tricky. We had a workshop at school with my dad where we filled the whole paper with crayons and painted over it with a paint called tempera. Then we scratched the black surface with push-pins and could see the colors underneath-it was really fun. With scratchboard you made so many details in your paintings that my eye wants to look everywhere.

I really like the picture where you were a kid riding out your window on the back of a bird across the starry sky. Great idea! Your dog Scamp looks like he wishes he could fly. Don't you think it is amazing how both the artist and writer are storytellers in books?

It is magic.

You can see more incredible work from Beth Krommes at:

http://www.bethkrommes.com/