Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4
WRITING THE STORY FOR “WHERE ARE MY BOOKS?”
Every children’s book author/illustrator has their own method for creating a story.
Debbie started with writing only the text. Here is the first version of the story:

Here is another version:

When Debbie was happy with the story, she created something called a “picture book dummy” to show her editor at Simon & Schuster Children’s. A picture book dummy is a rough version of the book. Here is the first page from the picture book dummy for Where Are My Books?:

After Debbie’s editor read her story, they talked about how to improve it. Here is a photo of Justin Chanda, Debbie’s editor at Simon & Schuster Children’s:

Because Justin loves gardening and children’s books, Debbie later drew him as a book gardener for fun:

Debbie did some more scribbling:

One of the drawings above ended up being turned into the front cover of Where Are My Books?
Can you spot which drawing?
CONTINUED IN PART 3.