It's a magical process. A writer has an idea. She develops it into a story. A publisher likes the story and finds an illustrator. The illustrator reads the story and translates the words into visual images. Each person in the process brings her own perspective, style, and history. Together, all these elements fuse and a book is created.
When the process works well, the results are seamless and natural. That's the case with Cameron & Me, written by Joan Harris and illustrated by Marilyn Mets.
For Harris, the author of numerous children's books, the concept arose, like many of her ideas, with a real event. This time, to her surprise, the final product was very close to the reality. "It's not often," she says, "that you get a story handed to you intact."
It all began when her second grandson, Cameron, was born. At his arrival her first grandson, Zachary, was jealous and resentful. Here was a rival whose every move was applauded and praised. Zachary, who'd already mastered all Cameron's new steps-smiling, sitting up, walking, and talking-was angry that his achievements did not receive the same delighted response as Cameron's fledgeling attempts. It was only when another new sibling was born that Zachary forged an alliance with Cameron. As grandmother and writer, Harris watched this drama unfold, went home, and turned it into a story.
Not all her stories have had such a strong reality base-certainly not her earliest efforts. When she was a child of five growing up in Kobe, in Japan, Harris was an avid reader of fairy-tales. Her first stories were based on her reading. "I copied the style of a lot of fairy-tales," she recalls with a laugh.
Upon returning to Canada with her family at the onset of World War II, Harris continued school and eventually graduated from the University of Toronto as a languages major. She then taught for a few years in France and in post-war Japan. She also worked as an editorial assistant in a publishing house and got married.
But it wasn't till 1966, when her children were growing up, that she began writing again. And, as with most of her subsequent work, her first published book was inspired by observing an event in her life: her son Doug playing with a doll house. She sent out that story, Mouse House, seventeen times before it was picked up by the English publisher Frederick Warne. And Frederick Warne found a wonderful illustrator for the book, the well-known artist Barbara Cooney. Harris wrote two more "Mouse" books but to her amazement, Warne did not ask Cooney to illustrate them. "They thought she was too `old-fashioned'," says Harris.
She continued writing other books, and in 1983, Scholastic came out with Don't Call Me Sugar Baby, inspired by an event in Harris's life. It's a story of how a teenage girl copes with diabetes. Harris had been deeply touched by a friend's teenage daughter's plight as a juvenile diabetic.
That manuscript was also not picked up immediately. "It went out twelve or thirteen times," says Harris. "Publishers said they didn't think young readers would be interested in diabetes." But they were. Don't Call Me Sugar Baby has sold steadily for over ten years and it's still going strong.
Over the years, Harris has written on a variety of themes and for different age groups. She's as comfortable addressing the picture-book audience as she is writing for young adults. Her newest book, Cameron & Me is, of course, for a young audience and she is delighted with the illustrations Marilyn Mets has produced.
Like Harris, Mets has worked on a variety of projects. She has explored a number of different styles from realism to cartoon.
For Cameron & Me, Mets decided on a painterly, realistic style. She used gouache, an opaque, grainy watercolour, to give the drawings texture and luminosity.
Like Harris, Mets was drawn to her future career in childhood. "I was a shy kid with outsiders," she says. "I remember how much I was drawn to the painting table in kindergarten. I loved painting."
That love has not faded, nor has the excitement in discovering new techniques. "I started putting it all together in my forties," says Mets. Of course, along the road from kindergarten painter to mature artist, she experimented, practised, and took courses, beginning in high school. There she applied for a special art program. "My parents thought I was limiting myself," says Mets. Despite their initial opposition, she persisted and attended the program. "The course was wonderful. I loved it," she says. "I felt like I was living in heaven. We did all sorts of stuff, life drawing, silk-screening-everything."
Later Mets spent a year at the Ontario College of Art and one year at Sheridan College. But soon she felt eager and impatient to find a job. Her first job was in the promotion department of the Toronto Star. She also began doing freelance work for educational publishers like Ginn and Gage. Her first children's book was a craft book for Kids Can Press. And the first book in which she used her realistic style was November Boots, by Nancy Hundal (HarperCollins). It's a style Mets loves, although "it takes aeons and aeons," she says, and "it's hard to keep your consistency." When the opportunity to do another book in that style came along with Cameron & Me, Mets leaped at the chance.
But Cameron & Me was a special challenge to illustrate because its narrative is based more on feeling than on action. Mets used dramatic lighting to accent the characters' emotions and reactions, in particular Zachary's struggle to deal with his new sibling. She also added picture elements, like funny hats, boots, and masks to the story. Both Harris and Mets found creating Cameron & Me a satisfying experience. They both hope their readers will find it satisfying too.
Frieda Wishinsky is a freelance writer. Her latest book is Jennifer Jones Won't Leave Me Alone (HarperCollins)
