Also see the Publishers Weekly cover reveal (Mar. 19, 2026), which includes more info as well as quotes from Lauren Rille and me!
Quicklinks: Our history with Judy Blume – Behind-the-scenes process – What we’re excited about next – Final covers
I was thrilled to be invited to illustrate the covers of Just As Long As We’re Together and Here’s To You, Rachel Robinson, Judy Blume novels being reissued by Simon & Schuster Children’s this August 2026. My art also appears on the middle grade covers of Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret, Blubber, Deenie, Iggie’s House, It’s Not The End Of The World, Starring Sally J. Freeman As Herself, and Then Again, Maybe I Won’t as well as the covers and interior art of the chapter book versions of Freckle Juice, The Pain and The Great One, and The One In The Middle Is The Green Kangaroo.
Back when they came out, people complimented me on the wonderful covers above. While I was flattered, it became clear to me that many weren’t aware of the team effort. This time, I thought I’d interview the team at Atheneum/Simon & Schuster who have been working with me.
Art Director
Lauren Rille is an art director for Atheneum, Beach Lane, and McElderry Books. She works directly with the editors to find artists for picture book manuscripts, as well as middle grade texts and covers for YA novels. “I work very closely with those artists to develop their artwork for the books, and I design and steward the book through the production process. It’s an AWESOME job.”
Note from Debbie: Lauren and I worked together on the first round of Judy Blume reissued titles from Atheneum/S&S; you can read our joint guest point in this Nerdy Book Club post from 2014.
Junior Designer
Hope Kim is a junior designer in the Simon & Schuster Children’s Department where she designs and art directs book covers, jackets, and interiors for the imprints Beach Lane Books, Atheneum Books For Young Readers, Margaret K. McElderry, and Scarlett Press. Website: frompandorasbox.com
Assistant Editor
Jin Soo Chun (first name “Jin Soo”) joined Atheneum in 2024 and assists Reka Simonsen. Previously, she worked in book marketing at Ecco and in the fashion and restaurant industries. Jin Soo enjoys working on middle grade, YA, graphic novels/nonfiction, and picture books across all genres.
Q. What is your own history with Judy Blume and her work?
Lauren Rille: “Well as a gen X’er, I grew up on Blume books! In fact I was just cleaning out a closet at my parents’ house and found a book report I did on Just As Long As We’re Together, complete with a cover! HA! It was delightful to see and speaks to how long Ms. Blume’s books have been in my life! That report was from 1990 (see attached). She is publishing royalty to me and it was definitely a bucket list check-off when I was tapped to work on these covers. A real pinch me moment—and continues to be!”
Hope Kim: “I grew up reading the Fudge series! These were my absolute favorite books by Judy Blume and I loved them for their relatability and humor. I remember that my mom would visit our local library weekly and bring home a bunch of books for my sisters and I to read throughout the week, and Judy Blume was ALWAYS included in the stack!”
Jin Soo: “I’ve always been a fan of Judy’s works, and you can find many of her books dog-eared and well-worn on my bookshelves. I’ve always loved spunky, spirited characters with strong voices, so it’s no surprise that I gravitated towards her stories.”
Q. What was the behind-the-scenes process?
From Lauren Rille: “I got word from our esteemed publisher Justin Chanda that we had 2 more books coming! HURRAH! The process for these books was very smooth, since you and I, Debbie, and Justin, had already made so many design decisions in the first chunk of books we designed. So really it was brainstorming image options and then you went and worked your magic. I got lucky in that Hope Kim came on board to work with us, and once you did your fantastic work, Hope did her fantastic work and voila!”
From Hope Kim: “There’s a lot of meetings and emails that happen where almost every detail on the cover needs to be approved, from art directing the actual illustrations to aligning the credits next to the barcode. My art director Lauren Rille had me shadow all these meetings and then execute the actual compositions of the covers. I followed the basic branding of the other most-recently repackaged Judy Blume books, but we played around with a lot of color and type placement. I just recently started art directing, so it was a great experience and practice for me to communicate with Debbie, who is the loveliest artist to work with!”
Jin Soo: “Our publisher, Justin Chanda, reached out to me to work on these two reissues with him. This was after I came back to work from a few days off, so it was a lovely surprise! I collaborated with our design team to brainstorm cover directions, which was great fun, and I was the central interdepartmental point-of-contact who ensured that the books were sent out to the printers in a timely manner.”
As for the text in the books, Jin Soo reads everything over to see if anything needed to be updated (“mostly to clarify any outdated language that can confused readers”). She then ran those changes by Judy to make sure that everything was still in line with her voice and the spirit of her books.
Next, Jin Soo brainstormed with in-house designers (Lauren Rille and Hope Kim) as well as Justin Chanda (S&S Children’s Publisher) to come up with cover image ideas for each title.
From Debbie: At this point, with Judy’s approval, they reached out to me for sketches. I’ve included some earlier in the post. Lauren also encouraged me to come up with additional ideas as well, since I had (of course) read both of the books.
One of the ideas we brainstormed for Just As Long As We’re Together, for example, was friendship bracelets.
I asked my niece Annie for a photo of her Taylor Swift friendship bracelets that I could use for inspiration:
Once the team selected their favorites, they ran them by Judy for approval. In the meantime, Jin Soo was working with S&S Children’s production editor on copy editing the manuscripts for each book, applying for updated copyright pages, and writing tip sheets for their sales. These tip sheets are super-useful for the sales, marketing, and publicity teams for pitching to booksellers, educators, libraries, review journals, etc.
After receiving and approving final art, the next step is for the designers to format it so that it’s printer-ready. After that, the team shows the finalized covers, now with title placement and attributions, to the Sales teams
Jin Soo: “The production editor (Jeannie), designers (Hope and Lauren), and I look over multiple passes of each book’s jacket (this includes the front and back cover as well as front and back flaps for the hardcover editions) and interiors. Once we’ve all approved the final pass, it’s off to the printers!”
Q. What are you excited about next?
From Jin Soo: “As I am now open to submissions from agents, I am looking for my first book to acquire. I’m extremely excited to make my own editorial mark at Atheneum, which has published many books I absolutely adored reading as a kid! Currently, I’m in the process of developing an IP project with my friend and senior colleague, Alyza Liu (editor at Simon & Schuster BFYR), which has been tremendously fun and a wonderful learning experience.”
From Hope: “I’m super excited to see the books I work on go out into the world! This has been my dream job as I was hugely influenced by books and reading growing up, and I eventually concentrated in book design during university. I’ve been at Simon & Schuster for a little over a year now, so the titles I help with or art direct are slowly trickling out. . . and it’s a priceless experience to see all these amazing books make an impact on both children and adults.”
From Debbie (me!): “I’m going to be focusing on my writing for the next while! Many don’t realize that I began as a writer, not an illustrator. I’ve been working very hard at improving my craft over the years and am revisiting my original career goal: to debut as a middle grade author! Wish me luck?
Related posts:
I illustrated Judy Blume’s covers! Here’s what I learned.
The final covers and jackets!
