Picture Book Chat: Kate Beaton, Eleanor Davis, Jillian Tamaki

My entry for this week is a recent interview conducted between myself (Jillian), Eleanor Davis, and Kate Beaton. All three of us have been in the same creative circles for over 20 years, starting in independent comics. A few weeks ago I noticed that we all had picture books coming out around the same time and thought it might be fun to chat.

Eleanor's book (out now) is A Very Good Parade, about a young girl who initiates a street parade with her neighbours. I think this book performs a neat trick: it bursts with energy and detail and yet also manages to be impressively restrained.

Kate's book, Rebecca, illustrated by Sydney Smith, will be released on Sept 22. Kate’s book is a deeply affecting portrait of grief and resilience based on a family story and set in historical Nova Scotia. 

My book is called Young Cat, Old Cat will also be released on Sept 22. It’s about the experience of watching a pet grow up, and eventually old. I made it with painted fabric and embroidery wool. 

Jillian Tamaki:

how did [the reading] go yesterday

Eleanor Davis: Pretty good! I mean, who knows. I had a coughing fit & was sort of dissociating, but people laughed a lot, and it was a good crowd.

It's a good book for reading out loud. I hadn't even realized how good. The grown ups in the crowd were game for singing “Stayin’ Alive” along with me at the top of their lungs, so that helped. [The Bee Gees song “Stayin Alive” is a ongoing theme in the book.]

JT: I think the comic aspect is really useful in PBs [picture books] for that reason

Kate Beaton: I don't like reading my own books out loud to kids haha - even my own kids! it feels embarrassing somehow

JT: it's extremely exposing - suddenly all the flaws are glaringly apparent

KB: yes

ED: It's key for that reason, tho. I've read the various drafts of my two picture books to Danny [Eleanor’s kid, 7] dozens of times, to his chagrin.

KB: Eleanor do you think that how you think about writing books or imagine how an audience reads them changed after you started reading books to danny

ED: Yeah, I think so. You understand the rhythm better, and what hits and doesn’t. How about you?

KB: I tried to explain to mary [Kate’s kid, 7] why i didn't want to read my book to her bc of the embarrassing feeling (why did i do that, what kind of parenting is this) and she said, reassuringly, "no mommy, you're not embarrassing, you're very creative"

ED: Amazing.

KB:  i agree about understanding the rhythm better but also they are very specific children so in some ways it can be a drawback because you're thinking of their reactions and there are 1 billion children

ED: You need a meaner kid. Danny I have to win over, he's a tough audience. Grows hair on your chest.

KB:  I once started writing a story about a truck bc that is all charlie [Kate’s younger kid] wanted was truck books and after a minute was like wtf  I doing

JT: yeah, i feel like the kernel of where these things come from can really vary. As I don't have kids I just try to tap into what I would have liked myself when I was a kid

KB: I still try to tap into what I would have liked, I think that is the most powerful thing you can access

in person at any event I find kids a great audience who are super supportive (unless they are bored but then they just walk away)

ED: Do you guys feel like it took you a long time to find your kids-book-writer voice? I only just recently found it I think. It was HARD!

JT: I feel like I'm starting from scratch every time (not really but it feels that way)

it takes me so long to figure out the system of every book

KB: I feel like I have ok intuition on picture book voice, but I have been VERY easily influenced by whatever an editor thinks in the past, and full of self doubt, and tend to warp scripts into something that doesn't even sound like me because of it

only recently has it felt like I had narrative control that was just me and no one else's voice in my head

ED: Yes!! Having a script shift even a little bit away from your True Voice makes the whole house of cards fall down.

KB: Rebecca was the first picture book where I wrote as myself with full confidence

ED: I can tell! It is 100% Beaton!

JT: Eleanor, I think Parade is your first solo author-illustrator picture book? But was in the works for a long time?

ED: Yeah, I did three kids comics before that, & one picture book I illustrated but didn't write. [“Stinky,” “Secret Science Alliance,” “Flop to the Top,” and “Make a Pretty Sound,” written by Traci Todd.]

 JT: why did you decide to buckle down on it now

ED: I sketched the idea for Parade in 2015 and then didn't pick it up again until 2024 when I was like "I have REALLY got to make some money."

KB: I didn't know that Parade was so long in your mind or on the shelf

ED: I just didn't realize that it was actually a solid idea. It was right after a Kids Book Kegger [an annual get-together of picture book authors and illustrators organized by Carson Ellis] and I was like "I want to write a picture book, I want to do it too!" and I did some sketches. But I thought maybe it was a "first idea" idea, that I could come up with something better. But it turned out I couldn't!

KB: Oh I miss the kind of energy that came after a meeting of minds like KBK. The enthusiasm for craft and ideas.

JT: i have a question about BACKGROUNDS. Both seem to tell a parallel story

Eleanor, your cityscape seems to acknowledge some of the ""decay"" we're all familiar with in 2026 (for lease signs, out of business signs) - was this intentional or just portraying the environment as it is? Am i reading too much into it? It feels very "real and lived-in" but I'm wondering how much storytelling is also happening here

ED: Uh, maybe a bit of both. Initially I thought it would be fun to make an even busier-background book, almost like a Where's Waldo level of detail. In the background I wanted to show people getting evicted, hassled by the cops, etc. But the primary narrative, the main thread, is this little girl doing small-scale heroics (building community, helping neighbors, telling off bullies). I know it's corny, and I don't necessarily have that same lived experience, but it makes me feel ill that there is so much kids' media that the majority of kids aren't going to see themselves in.

JT: it’s really lovely. i liked how the delivery guy was not a background detail, but right in it, even though he wasn't part of the parade per se

ED: And it's HARD! This is not what we’re used to seeing in picture books. Like there were definitely concerns like "Is it okay that we're showing a liquor store...?" but my editor Courtney [Courtney Code, at Abrams], who really Gets It, said "Yes. This is what a city is, this is how kids live."

JT: Kate, was the environment part of how you conceived the story, or was that Sydney's doing?? It's so stunning and brings you right there. And of course I love a seasonal shift in a book

IIRC he also went to visit the island this story is set in??

KB: It was very involved for me! I brought Sydney and his family here, and found a person who could take us to the island on his fishing boat (thank you Robert Morrison!) The island is only accessible by a kind of run down wharf and you need to know someone with a boat. Robert's family also goes back generations on Port Hood Island and one of the houses still on there was his grandmother's. So he agreed to take us. We walked all around and Sydney took pictures and the kids were playing, it was a nice day.

I had not ever been there before myself but the once, so Robert was also giving us a tour of locations that he knew

There is a little church there, there used to be a school, there was once a year round community, but there has not been in my lifetime.

JT: wow how big is the island??

KB: It's not that big, I think maybe a dozen houses? Now though - no surprise - there are people who have summer homes there, and alongside these small heritage houses you can find newer builds that look weird

ED: Why did folks live out there, KB?

KB:  Why did they live on the island? I guess because they always did. In the winter, you used to be able to drive horse and sleigh across the ice to town

JT: Sydney's visual language is so strong, so I suppose you had some idea what the final result would be, but was there anything he did with the story that surprised you?

KB: He asked what I wanted and I said I trusted him fully, and had no direction for him. Because Sydney is a genius, and his mind is perfect for this work. 

We did talk together over how this or that thing would be handled. The figure of "Sorrow" and things like that

He had this paint that cracked when it dried

white paint

and he gave me a sketch he had made where the figure of Sorrow was in the shape of the father who had died going through the ice, made with that paint so that he looked like cracked ice

And it was on another level, and it did not even make it in the book

ED: Who made the final call not to go in that direction?

KB: He did!

JT: oh wow, i see why he went with final version but that is so incredible

there's something more cartoonish about this

KB: yes for sure, exactly

It still hit me strongly

ED: Why did you both wind up having sorrow be a woman?

KB: it is a man at first!

ED: Oh! Now I see! He has a beard!

KB: this was Sydney's idea also, and like, I had let my mind be a blank for that because I didn't want to dictate anything. But if I had disagreed with his idea I would have said. 

Sorrow is in the shape of the person who was just lost

so in the end, it comes back to rebecca in her own shape

ED: Did you change any of your text after you got the art?

KB: yes, we did, because there were times that the images did the job and the words weren't needed. We had big discussions over this. But if you are writing a script for someone else to put images to, you put it all in there, you give them everything you have to. Then, when they create the images, you can look at the words and say "well this sentence isn't necessary anymore because the image does it"

JT: Eleanor, I don't know if I have the cojones to do a picture book with such a restrictive formal structure [virtually all pages have an identical composition, eye-level, usually with the street scene]

ED: Yeah, it was scary! I am normally such a "biff bang pow" illustrator that I was worried without a splashy compositional element the images would just fall apart. And it was hard at the time. But now I'm like "it's fine, I worry too much"

JT: there's a fun little game of "spot the differences" with a format like this

KB [to JT]: I love your free-form books though, and as you know, your Little Kitchen book [Our Little Kitchen, 2020] was such a hit here because it had so much to give

JT: that's the one I get the most feedback about, for sure

KB: and I am curious how that affects your thinking on books, that you get the most feedback on that one!

JT: Well, first of all, it just goes to show that you never can fully predict how a book will live in the world. Which is relaxing to think about, tbh. But I suppose I was really thinking about the process of reading aloud/being read to with the Kitchen one. Like, delicious fun details to pour over, stuff to point at, fun words to say, different voices one could make, etc. It's pretty interactive. I think I'd like to do another book like that eventually. But like, someone told me their kid loves counting the Rs in SLURRRRRRRRRP and it's like - you could never predict that in a million years lol

KB: It's true!!

ED: I think Young Cat, Old Cat is also going to be a great one to read!! I read it to Danny and it hit hard. It has the amount of intensity that he Got It, and Felt Feelings about it, but it wasn't to a challenging degree.

You guys both wrote very very different books about death and grief, and I think they're both hugely kid-appropriate in different ways.

JT: with YCOC I was still thinking of The Kids ofc but I let myself be more indulgent with it. I think there is room in the world for both kinds of picture books and within my own catalogue. I'm lucky to be able to do that

ED: Kate, Danny might have a harder time with Rebecca. Have you read it to your kids? Is it hard for them?

KB: I mean, I expect that Rebecca will not be for everyone. Certainly not every kid at any moment. My hope is more that it is the right book for a kid who needs it.

JT: i suppose that's part of what can be intimidating in a situation like a reading

it's about death, there is death in it, can't really be avoided. That sort of thing is received really differently person to person

ED: Cat is like Death for Beginners and Rebecca is more Death 202

JT: LOL

KB: I think that a more naive child or one who has not experienced death could read Cat and not see the death in there, and I mean that as a compliment and a good thing - it is very softly handled

you know, the wilting flowers, and the word never being used

though I would hope that parents could help a child like that understand what is happening

JT: Eleanor, are you now addicted? do you want to make a dozen more picture books?

ED: I think so. I don't know if I have the guts to make anything else at this point.

JT: say more

ED: I'm too blocked up to make anything Political, and everything about My Feelings is like... "wow, it's wild being in a monogamous relationship for 24 years." And that is Too Personal, especially because it's Drew's [Eleanor’s husband] business as much as mine.

JT: I find picture books extremely difficult

KB: they are. But also - since you brought it up Eleanor - I love Caleb and Kate by William Steig which is a book for children about a couple who have been married a long time, and you never see that

One of them gets turned into a dog but still

JT: Illustration is so stressful for some reason

ED: For picture books in particular?

JT: all illustration somewhat but PB illustration in particular. It's just supposed to be so perfect and brilliant

ED: Good picture book illustration is much closer to Fine Art than to illustration in my opinion. And I am NOT a Fine Artist

KB: No, I am not either

But I don't totally agree with it being closer to fine art than illustration

JT: I would say picture books feels like the purest form of illustration and all the others have gotten corrupted lol

KB: i think there are people whose picture books are among the greatest who have made fine art. And I think the same for people who have made some of the greatest books as illustrations

ED: Name names!!

KB: I brought Strega Nona to my editor and was like this is almost a comic in some places, one of the greatest picture books ever, i want this

then you look at something like Tuesday by David Wiesner and you're like, well I will never fucking do anything remotely like this

JT: I'm doing a book event in NYC with Brian Floca and I'm more excited to ask him process questions than anything else tbh

I got my ass handed to me with analog materials on this one

i feel like it took me a year for my brain to get comfortable with it again

KB: expand on this!

JT: I think my brain has adapted to a digital way of processing or constructing an image. The "undo" ofc, but also thinking in terms of layers. And ZOOMING. Take those things away and you can feel pretty helpless. It felt like a radical exercise in accepting error. But ALSO: it took me literally months to even figure out what SIZE to do things at, because I was bounded by real-world limitations, such as "width of yarn" or "weave of fabric" or what my body could achieve. I had one approach I abandoned completely because it caused such repetitive stress I had to go to a physiotherapist!

KB: whoa!!

JT: So really, when I see these old picture books, I am just floored by the skill. I mean, it was always impressive, but we've strayed pretty far from [traditional materials] in the last 2 decades

ED: When I think too much about our collective addiction to digital art I can spiral pretty hard. My addiction in particular, of course, but I feel like it's happening to absolutely everyone!! (Except Sydney, I guess.)

KB: eleanor, I must say, you are one of a handful of people who I think understands what they are doing and how it looks and is extremely conscious of escaping the "digital look" which is hard to do

JT: is it bc you set up "limitations"?

ED: Oh, ugh, thanks guys. I don't know. I am obsessed with this. I can't quit digital art, and I hate digital art. I have just wound up doing fake color pencil and fake litho because that's what is the easiest to get a 'natural' look with. But also, I stick with a palette, I make rules, and I am not very good at digital tools.

KB: omg I can't believe how beautiful that is "in person" - the book does not do justice

JT: this was one of the attempts with more appliqué, but at some point you cannot push a needle through 4 layers without fucking your arm up!! i did not know that!!

KB: I once tried to make tactile illustration with polymer clay and gave up because it was hard

says a lot about me lol

JT: dude, quitting is underrated. i will die on this hill

ED: I've quit so much 

KB: I grew up with Barbara Reid books and they were so mesmerizing

JT: that's the type of thing I just looovvvvvvvvved as a kid. Like, POURING over the pages

I definitely was thinking about her work for this book, even tho they are not similar

the idea of a "photographed" thing

ED: The instant I saw this person's work (I had to google it) I knew she was Canadian.

KB: I wonder how hard it is to showcase something like needlework in illustration, to make it look its best and most engaging

if these were scans instead of photos I'll shoot to kill

JT: It does not look as good scanned, imo! you need the shadows! even if they are kinda imperceptible

ED: Did you photograph it yourself or get a pro?

JT: It was a saga. I'll just skip to the end to say, yes, we got a professional [Michael Cullen]. he came to my studio to shoot. The art director, Ellice Lee, came up from NYC. That day was one of my career highlights. It felt like such an incredible professional collaboration. not to mention a huge honour.

ED: I love this.

JT: Penguin Viking were incredibly patient with me and took the time to produce it right

ED: I guess the main thing I'm interested in with this convo is, we all started out doing work very much for adults. We weren't censoring ourselves at all, we were all known for being a little sassy.

JT: "WERE"?

ED: I mean MOSTLY for being sassy!! And I, at least, when I tried to make that shift into PG, I failed! I failed at it for 15 years. And I don't know quite what changed, but finally more recently I was able to figure out how to thread the needle between Honest Voice and Voice that Does Not Have Tits In It Ever.

KB: I think that for me, there were times when I became typecast in a way, the person who made the irreverent history comics, and of course I built that reputation for myself because this became my full time job and I needed it to work and I liked the work. But I also always put out smaller work that was personal and sincere, and I felt like, we all contain multitudes. We grew up in a time where if you made comics you had to make them in a newspaper and draw Blondie for 70 years and the thought of that is so stifling. We were kind of given a gift of coming in at a time when the gatekeepers to this career went down and you could be anything you wanted to be, or you could try. And that is a gift I appreciate.

ED: Kate, I don't know if I have EVER seen someone who made the shift from Gag Comics to Serious Book for the Ages as cleanly as you. And it was because you had been sharpening those skills through your shorter autobio comics the entire time.

KB:  I feel like those people were always there, like Roald Dahl

aside from him being a shit

JT: It's bc Kate's voice is so strong!! it feels seamlessly applied

I'm so impressed how your voice is present in every book, every speech, lecture, casual story told. that is NOT common

KB: I would say that my picture books have not always had it, like we were saying earlier, so I do have experience in this kind of bewildering thing like "I wrote this.. but it doesn't feel like me"

a weird feeling

ED: Yes! My TOON books and Secret Science Alliance, I look at them and it feels so clear that I was trying to pretend to be someone I wasn't. It comes through.

JT: as we build up bodies of work, it's SO fascinating to go back and see what pieces still feel true

ED: Fascinating and horrifying. Are you going to keep doing picture books, J?

JT: yeah, i think so. i feel like I'm still excited to crack that nut!!

KB: wild, bc I feel like I am talking to the two cartoonists and illustrators I admire most in .. the world? lol

JT: I can't believe we are all friends lol

ED: 😎

Thank you guys this was so fun and an honor 

KB:  thank you for this!!! It is so nice to talk!!!

I have to make lunch for my children now anyway lol

JT: duty calls!!! have a nice afternoon, all!!