The year started out with the announcement that The Search for WondLa was Al Roker’s Book Club pick for the Today show. Though I wouldn’t be on the air for the segment until March, I was giddy with excitement. This was a great validation for me right as I returned to Orbona to pen the second book of the WondLa trilogy.

To me, the sophomore book is the make-or-break for a series. As a reader, I now know the world that the characters inhabit when I crack open the second installment, so I don’t need everything explained to me. Instead, I want the plot to become more tangled with troubles and the stakes to become significantly higher. I want to know who the true antagonist is and sense a premonition of where the story is heading…at least, that was my thinking when I sat down at the computer in January and typed away on Hero for WondLa.

To me, nobody did a second-book-in-a-trilogy better than J. R. R. Tolkien. In March, I reported on a lesser-known story from back in 1967 when there was the possibility that Maurice Sendak would illustrate Tolkien’s classic, The Hobbit. In my sleuthing, I located the whereabouts of one of Sendak’s sample Hobbit pieces and shared the story in the LA Times (with much help from Geoff Boucher and Gregory Maguire).

My diversions remained brief throughout the year, as I had to keep Hero for WondLa my main focus. However, I did receive fantastic news that I had been named as a Global Ambassador for the Starlight Children’s Foundation. Starlight is a charity very near and dear to my heart, as Angela and I have spent our share of time in pediatric hospitals when our daughter, Sophia, was younger. No child should be denied the opportunity to read the latest book or attend an author event, so I am honored to bring both to readers staying in hospitals across the US and UK.

Speaking of the UK, I enjoyed a wondlaful tour at my home away from home this fall as I promoted the release of both The Spiderwick Chronicles and Search for WondLa in paperback. I was joined by friends like Sarah Bolger and Chris Riddell, making this particular tour very special for me.

I returned home from tour in October and switched hats from author to illustrator. I spent the fall sketching up the interior illustrations for Hero and pushing myself to render things that don’t come naturally to me (like architecture and machinery). Thankfully, I had inspiration from past masters, like Giovanni Piranesi, who had also been an inspiration for the architecture in Planescape.

Once the sketches were completed, I began inking (seen below). The detail in the inks far exceeds what I did in the first WondLa book (click for higher-res image).

With help from digital-artist-dynamo, David White, flatting in the basic color fields for me, I am now finishing the images for Hero. The book will be completed to go to press at the beginning of February for its May release.

It took me a solid year to write and illustrate this novel. It was an intense year of self-discipline and pushing myself to see what I was capable of. But it was a gratifying year to know that I was able to create something completely drawn from my own imagination. I thank you all for supporting me and allowing me the opportunity to dream big. I hope the you find this one is worth the wait.

All my best to you in the coming year. Its going to be an exciting one!

On the twelfth day of Christmas,  Eva Nine sent to me

12 ripe sweet voxfruit,

11 hovercars,

10 holo-shows,

9 sonic rifles,

8 nutriment pellets,

7 hydration tablets,

6 sheets of electro-paper,

5 utili-tunics,

4 Omnipods,

3 medi-stickers,

2 mismatched sneakboots,

and Muthr in a Sanctuary!

That is all kinds of awesome, Kai. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would love to send you A Hero for WondLa if it were complete, but I am still working away on the illustrations. However, keep your eyes peeled for a little something in your mailbox…

As I read through the manuscript with my illustrator’s hat on, I realized that with WondLa I am often faced with the same dilemma I had with the Spiderwick books – What image do I draw? What scene or action is the right one to illustrate? How can I present the story to the best of my abilities?

My general rule when illustrating the chapter images in a novel is to render the most exciting scene from the chapter without giving away too much. I want to entice the reader to keep going, turn the page, read just one more chapter, before they put the book down. Sometimes I pull it off, sometimes I don’t. It is a tough balancing act.

I know what you’re thinking, “Why not illustrate the scenes in chronological order? Why not illustrate the opening passage of the chapter?” Because often I find those passages are not that exciting. Usually, the opening lines of a chapter are a setup leading to a turning point in the plot contained somewhere later in the chapter. If I were only to illustrate opening lines, you would not have gotten this in chapter 32 of The Search for WondLa:

…instead, you would have seen an illustration of Eva reuniting with Muthr in the Royal Museum of Solas. Sure, it would have been a nice emotional moment, but you wouldn’t see how menacing the pillar guards are. Besides, this was one of the first sketches I did for the book. I couldn’t wait to finish it. This leads me to my first rule of thumb on choosing a scene to illustrate:

If I think its cool, chances are the reader will too.

Let me elaborate: If I am excited to draw something, that enthusiasm is going to come through in the work. I’ll put in the extra effort to render it to the best of my ability and hopefully the reader will respond positively. Of course, there are other reasons for choosing a particular scene to illustrate. Here are some of my determining factors:

Reader Comprehension – An author can spend pages describing what a scene looks like, (sometimes bringing the story to screeching halt) or simply show what something looks like. This approach is used in my picture books and I have adopted it into my middle-grade novel illustration. It has helped especially in complicated, otherworldly things in WondLa, like the towers of Lacus (as seen above). I want my younger readers to enjoy the story and not have to labor too hard over the text.

Elaborate on a Point – Sometimes I want emphasis on something in the text so that the point is understood or the moment made more memorable. For instance, in chapter 10 of Search for WondLa I wanted you to see that Otto (and therefore all giant water bears) are capable of leaping quite high. For those who’ve read the book, they will tell you this comes into play later in the story.

Focus on a Passage Less Described  – Sometimes the opposite is true. I like to take a moment or passage that is passed over briefly in the text and add to it. This is absolutely the approach I use for illustrating a picture book as it can add greatly to the size and depth of a story. Above is a image of Hogsqueal boasting about capturing Jared and Mallory from Spiderwick. Holly’s text simply read,

“I caught the humans,” Hogsqueal called.

Yet it is obvious in the art that there is no way Hogsqueal could handle that sword, let alone disarm Mallory. So the art here elaborates on the text showing that Hogsqueal is bluffing.

Setting the Mood – One of the more important aspects in choosing a moment to illustrate is what emotional tone will it convey that is concurrent with the text. I did this throughout the Spiderwick series by use of a color plate tipped in the front of the book that represented the general mood of the story. For the finale, The Wrath of Mulgurath, the image (above) represents the struggle of good against evil as the sun sets (i.e. time is running out) on our heroes.

All of the above factors contribute to my choices on what passage of text should be rendered. As I said sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don’t. Below are a few examples from The Search for WondLa where I had to make tough decisions. Do you think I made the right choices?

This is a thumbnail drawing of the opening image for chapter 14 (mislabeled here). It was to be a bird’s-eye view of the gymnasium in Eva’s Sanctuary with Rovender and Eva finding Muthr at the bottom of the pool. I wanted to show more of Eva’s Sanctuary and the destruction caused by Besteel, but I felt that this zoomed out view lessened the impact of the disaster.

Here in the final art, I switched the focus to Eva and we can see how distressed she is (Setting the Mood). Can you imagine walking into your house and it looks like this?

Above was one of my favorite sketches done while developing the story. It simply depicts Rovender telling Eva to get off of his home. I liked it because it showed an entrance to a Sanctuary and gave a clear depiction of what Rovender looked like. But this action fell at the very end of chapter 7, so putting it as the opener would have diffused the surprise at the end of the chapter. In the following chapter, the interaction between the two characters is more intense, so it would have lessened the tension. Consequently, it was not used.

Another sketch not used was this one from chapter 26 showing a worried Eva locked in a cell at the Royal Museum of Solas (again, the sketch was mislabeled). Though she is a bit lanky here, I loved the body form and the fact that I could demonstrate how Eva is relying on her Omnipod to get her out of a sticky situation (instead of using her head). However, I thought it best to illustrate the two alien characters that are introduced in this chapter instead. Besides, at this point in the book we’ve seen Eva enough times to imagine her in her various states of fear.

Anybody recognize the critter in the cell second from the left? Like my other books, WondLa has little nods to characters in my other stories. I’ll have to show you sometime…but that’s another blog post.

Okay, back to illustrating.

Here you see Liam hard at work with the beginning planning stages of the game.  To his left is the cover of the book and a handmade Omnipod, which houses the game’s spinner in the center.  He crafted the spinner by surrounding an old LIFE game piece with modeling clay.  The player needs the spinner to see where to go next just as Eva relied on her Omnipod for direction.

Check out the final product! Liam designed a path from Eva Nine’s Sanctuary all the way to The Ancient Ruins! There are stops along Lacus, Solas, the Campsite and the Oasis on the way.  You can see he even included Lake Concors and the Bliek Mountains on the board to add to the Orbona landscape.  The game board journey aligns with Eva’s actual travel events and all is rendered perfectly with Liam’s awesome painting and drawing skills.  There are also action cards on the board that players can pick up, like:

Cool, right? Pick one of these up and you could be shot forward in the game for a fast win or made to fall back and loose your lead.  He made multiple cards with different player directions on each one.

And here is the inventor himself!  I am so happy to know you are such a big fan, Liam.  Thank you for sharing all of your hard work.

Keep creating, and keep dreaming!

The darker palette is in sync with the repackaged design I did for the paperback edition of Search for WondLa that will be out in April. I can tell you that the foreboding sense depicted on this cover is right on with what’s to happen in the story. Stay tuned for more WondLa…

Here’s our beloved friend Rovender Kitt from The Search for WondLa.  Look’s like he’s ready to travel…

Check out this rendition of Grahame, the brainy dragon from Kenny & the Dragon.  Is he reading one of your books Elly?

Elly mentioned that she chose to be Jared Grace from The Spiderwick Chronicles for her school’s “Book Character Dress-up Day.” I wanna come!

Knock out drawing of Knocker Elly.  Definitely would NOT mess with this guy….

Keep up the hard work Elly, at this rate I’m certain you’ll succeed with your creative talents.  Keep drawing, keep dreaming!

The tour mostly consisted of school and bookstore visits throughout England, Scotland and Ireland where I drew, read and spoke of the importance of imagination. I was fortunate in that I was aided by friends (both old and new) to help me celebrate reading and bookmaking. Friends like actress, Sarah Bolger (of the Spiderwick film) who attended my first two London events. It was so great for me to see the Spiderwick fans realize who this lovely Irish gal was signing books next to me.

It was planes, trains and automobiles as I worked my way up towards Manchester and then over to Ireland. Over dinner at a favorite haunt, The Winding Stair, I was able to do what I love best: talk books and story with fellow book lovers over a hearty meal.

From Ireland, I was off to Scotland where I did two events: One at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh and the second at the Merchiston Castle school. Yeah, a Castle school. Think Hogwarts and you’ve got it. I was ready to move Ang and Sophia over to Edinburgh and join the faculty – it was that amazing.

I traveled back to London to be a guest on the BBC Breakfast (sort of like the UK’s version of the Today show) where I was able to announce a new program created by Simon & Schuster UK and Starlight UK called the “Starlight Storytellers” which will bring numerous other authors and illustrators into children’s hospitals to do their events for the patients there. As you may know, this is something that is very near and dear to me as Ang and I spent our share of time in hospitals when Sophia was quite young.

I visited the Royal London Hospital after the BBC and concluded my day at a special event with award-winning English illustrator, Chris Riddell. Though I had not met Chris in person, I have often thought of him as a kindred spirit as we both draw from the same inspirations. His sketchbooks were unlike any I have ever seen before as each page was elegantly rendered in pen and ink with stories written out in hand. I met up again with Chris (and his partner-in-crime, author Paul Stewart) in Brighton in between signings. Both were charming and funny and it was nice to share a meal at the local pub with fellow storytellers.

My tour ended at the Bath Literature Festival where I presented to a packed audience. Everyone was so gracious, so encouraging of all the books I have created that I really began to wonder if I was truly dreaming.

I had a day off before I flew back home and made the most of it. In the morning I did something I have been meaning to do for all three tours: visit Arthur Rackham’s home. You see, in London, celebrated individuals and their achievements are noted by a system of blue plaques placed on the homes of those who once lived there. If you ever been, then you’ve likely seen these circular blue signs stamped into old buildings.

As I made my way up to the gates of Rackham’s old home, tears welled in my eyes. I was no longer old 40-something Tony, but a 20-something kid with a head full of dreams to create quality books for children in the same spirit Rackham had done a century ago. In our present moment of e-books, iPads and Kindles, I realized Rackham faced the same challenges. Publishing certainly changed during his lifetime due to wars and public tastes, and yet he endured. Perhaps I will be so lucky.

I finished my last day with a rendezvous with author, Christopher Paolini. I took Chris to one of my favorite places in London, Cecil Court, which is an alley FULL of antique bookstores. (In fact, it is rumored to be the inspiration of a certain Diagon Alley). On a rainy afternoon both of us poked around the shops, rummaging through the history of bookmaking in England. It was a glorious end to a glorious tour.

A BIG THANKS to all of you who took the time and effort to come out and see me. You made this trip so memorable to me. I promise I’ll be back very soon. Great Britain will always be my home away from home.

PS – wanna see more from the UK WondLaFul Tour? I posted some favorite pics here and my television appearances here. Enjoy!