Wednesday, November 6, 2013

The Idea

The idea to write Boris and Stella and the Perfect Gift first came to me about 15 years ago when my children were small. It was bedtime, and I was looking for a picture book to read out loud that I hadn’t already read a million times. That’s when I found The Gift of the Magi. It was a beautifully illustrated retelling by Lizbeth Zwerger, and a story I loved. My version had a lot of text. It was too sophisticated for my children, so I improvised and simplified it as I read. 

O.Henry’s gentle tale is about the art of gift giving but, it is also about love, generosity, and thoughtfulness. I thought it was a story that young picture book readers would enjoy, and a message that was important.  My only question was, “Will they be animals or people?


Pssst ...  When I first drew Stella, she was a pig.





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