We made it somewhat in reverse, and it was a challenge all along the way. Do you have a favorite collaboration?Įric: Giant Squid-because it began with a storyboard before there was any text. You have worked together on several books. Since we both lived in the Chicago area, we started talking and meeting for lunch.

We discovered we shared a lot of opinions about children’s books. I knew his work, of course, but hadn’t met him. Things moved forward as they sometimes do.Ĭandace: We’d both been invited to speak on a panel about picture books. can you tell I long for a more interesting origin story? We met at a book event in Chicago and, because it’s a relatively small world, we saw one another over time. How do two such creators, successful in their own right, work together on their own terms? Candace and Eric took the time to share their creative process.Įric: I saved her from a pouncing leopard, never once considering my own safety. Though Candace works with words and Eric, pictures, their research processes are not all that different-perhaps because, after all, they both have the same aim: excellence in storytelling. Not only have their careers taken similar paths (both award-winning, both collaborating), but their initial stages in approaching a book share parallels as well. The couple met while each had established careers in children’s publishing, but they have honed their craft together on wide-ranging topics, from giant squids to an upcoming account of Hollywood’s first canine movie star, Strongheart: Wonder Dog of the Silver Screen (Schwartz & Wade, 2018).

Photos courtesy of Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann.Īs an author, Candace has published books for children ranging from picture books to young adult titles and has been recognized with two Boston Globe Horn Book Awards ( The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia and The Lincolns), the Golden Kite Award ( Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart), and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature ( The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia), as well as others.Īs an illustrator, Eric has won the Caldecott Medal in 2003 for My Friend Rabbit, a 1995 Caldecott Honor for Time Flies, a 2017 Sibert Honor for Giant Squid, and, like Candace, he has worked with a range of styles and genres, including wordless books, and has even authored his own illustrated stories.

A Kitten Tale by Eric Rohmann