KLP Chat - Behind the Scenes! Author-Illustrator Process with Brooke Graham and Kristen Willis

And so, Brooke, you are not new to the kidlit scene.

You actually have two published picture books behind you, both published by EK Books and both illustrated by Robin Tatlow-Lord.

And the first book was Go Away, Worry Monster, which was 2021 CBCA shortlisted for Robin Tatlow-Lord's illustrations so that is a huge booster for the book isn't it that's

correct yes

because of that it ended up in so many

libraries children's libraries as

well oh that's so amazing and then your second picture book nova's missing masterpiece came out in 2024 again illustrated by robin So you are steadily moving ahead in the kidlit industry and you now have Family Feast coming out with Kristen Willis, which is so exciting.

I would love to hear about your journey throughout like those first two picture books because you were new to the world of writing and being in this kind of whole kidlit world.

How did that first book come

about? So I actually started writing in about 2015 and I started off doing quite a few picture book writing courses online.

And my daughter was going through some anxiety issues.

So I wrote Go Away Worry Monster based on the strategies that she'd learned with her psychologist to help calm the anxiety.

And then following on from that, as a teacher, I was seeing a lot of children in the classrooms having trouble self-regulating.

So the idea for Nova's Missing Masterpiece came about that way to help children develop some strategies and a toolkit to help calm down.

whether they be upset or mad or sad even.

I thought that book could be really helpful for young people.

Yeah.

You know, we are seeing more anxiety in kids these days and I think giving them those tools that they can use to help themselves, like their little toolbox of what they can draw on as they grow up.

And this is just another example why kids, kidlit is so important and children's books are so important because they don't just build empathy.

They give them these tools and putting it forward in a fictional way.

Like this is what we're talking about when we say we need more children reading because we need more children finding those ways to support themselves,

right? Right.

And children can relate to the characters in the stories as well.

So it resonates with them.

Yeah, exactly.