Madeline: Deep in the heart of Texas Madeline turns 60 this year, and doesn’t look a day over six. Ludwig Bemelmans’s grandson, John Bemelmans Marciano, took time to answer a few questions about completing one of his grandfather’s manuscripts, debuting this month as Madeline in America.

BookPage: Why this book? Why now? John Bemelmans Marciano: More than anything, I want to reintroduce my grandfather’s non-Madeline books to his fans, the majority of whom weren’t alive when those books were in print. BP: How did Madeline’s Christmas in Texas, a Neiman-Marcus Christmas catalog, evolve into Madeline in America, a children’s book? JBM: Madeline’s Christmas in Texas originally appeared as a 1955 promotion for Neiman-Marcus. Every day from Thanksgiving to Christmas, a different line of verse appeared in the Dallas and Houston papers in the form of an ad, usually accompanied by a small ink drawing. The verse and 15 drawings were made into a booklet, which Neiman-Marcus gave away. The store windows were done in a Madeline theme, and my grandfather did the cover for their catalog.

My grandfather had decided to turn the story into a full-length book, to be called Madeline’s Christmas. However, he began work on a different idea with the same title, and never finished either. A version of the second idea was published as Madeline’s Christmas long after his death, so to avoid confusion, the title of this one was changed.

BP: Why did you decide to include other tales with the book instead of publishing them separately? JBM: To me, the other stories are the most important part of the collection. Originally, we had planned on publishing the short Neiman-Marcus version, which would have never stood on its own, but then I came across two dummy books that my grandfather had put together, and we suddenly had a book-length story.

BP: For the first time ever, Madeline’s last name is revealed in this book. Was this worked out during editing, or was it part of the original text? JBM: The lines Including Mlle. Madeline Fogg and Genevieve her dog appeared in the original gift book, and I assume my grandfather came up with the name for the sake of the rhyme.

The text of the dummy books was used wherever possible. Certain things had to be cut a scene involving store detectives and a gun, for instance. Other things had to be tightened up; my grandfather would go in a dozen different directions in the early drafts of his stories, and then focus on the essentials in later stages.

Where the verse from the dummy didn’t work, I went back to one of the earlier versions or his notes to try to find an alternative. In a couple of cases, we made stuff up.

As for the pictures, most of what I had to work with were rough pencil sketches depicting action and gestures. Fortunately, the gesture is the inspiration, so the hard work was done. As for turning gestures into paintings, I pored over the original books, trying to understand my grandfather’s visual language. I never copied details my biggest fear was of turning the book into a pastiche. BP: Why did you decide to pick up where your grandfather left off? JBM: When I was two, I covered my walls with crayon swirls, and one of my first memories is getting into trouble for it. I’ve always wanted to be a writer and an artist and have worked most of my life at it. As for the rest of the family, my mother was an only child, and I have two brothers, one of whom is an Internet entrepreneur and the other a psychology professor.

In general, I think my family is happier with the finished product than I am. My mother occasionally gets confused as to which paintings are mine and which are her father’s.

BP: Is it true that one of the other stories in the book, Sunshine, was originally intended to be a musical starring Frank Sinatra? JBM: My grandfather took an eight-year break from children’s books after Rosebud was published in 1942. He focused on his novels and writing screenplays he was with MGM for a time. He met Frank Sinatra somewhere during this period and was taken with him. He had an idea for a musical that would star Sinatra and take place in my grandfather’s New York neighborhood, Gramercy Park. My guess is that my grandfather realized the story was better suited for a children’s book than Sinatra, and I’m sure he saw the opportunity to do for New York what he had done for Paris in Madeline.

BP: What sources/resources did your grandfather use to create his characters and their adventures? Do you find yourself using the same, or different methods? JBM: My grandfather drew on his life for his characters, and on his travels for his stories. One of the reasons he did Madeline in London is because he wanted the opportunity to live there and paint the city; the same with Madeline and the Gypsies and the south of France. He followed gypsy circuses on and off for two years researching the book. It’s my guess that one of the reasons he abandoned the Texas story is that he didn’t want to spend all that time there. He suffered terribly from the heat.

I went down and retraced my grandfather’s footsteps from Dallas to San Antonio through the Hill Country and down to King Ranch. I sketched and painted, took roll after roll of film, and bought postcards and knick-knacks and books generally, anything I could do to get the details right. My grandfather had given little indication of what the backgrounds were to be, so I painted the monuments and landscapes of the state that most interested me. In the spirit of the Madeline books and of Sunshine, the locations are listed by page number.

BP: What does the future hold for Madeline, as well as yourself? JBM: Unless I find another one of my grandfather’s manuscripts, there won’t be any more full-length books in Madeline’s future. There are, thankfully, other stories my grandfather wrote but only sketched, three or four of which I hope to illustrate, including Silly Willy. My grandfather based the story on a comic strip he did in the ’30s, and he was working on it when he came up with the inspiration for Madeline. I love it and have been working on the paintings for two years. In addition, I’m in the middle of illustrating a children’s book I’ve written, and I’m trying to finish a novel.

Reading a new book by author and illustrator Jon J. Muth is a bit like pulling open a door and stepping into another world. Since 1999, when Come On, Rain!, his first picture book, was published, readers have eagerly awaited each new title by this talented artist. Muth's latest book, Stone Soup, a beautiful, heartwarming retelling of the traditional tale, is destined to become a classic.

Muth came to children's books through an unusual path: he has been a well-known illustrator of comic books for nearly two decades, and his groundbreaking artwork has been published in both the U.S. and Japan. After his son was born, Muth developed a comic book inspired by his experiences as a new father. One day he brought his illustrations to Scholastic Press, hoping to turn them into a book for children.

"They weren't exactly sure about publishing what I had brought them, but in the meantime, they asked if I might be interested in illustrating a manuscript they had received by Newbery Award winner Karen Hesse," Muth recalls. "The writing in Come On, Rain! was so beautiful, I immediately said yes." Come On, Rain!, the story of a young girl celebrating a summer rainstorm, earned Muth a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators. In 2000, he illustrated Gershon's Monster: A Story for the Jewish New Year by Eric Kimmel, which was an ALA Notable Book, winner of the Sydney Taylor Award and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award.

Muth evoked his own childhood memories for the urban setting of Come On, Rain!. "I grew up in Cincinnati and can remember the intense heat of the streets in summer," says the soft-spoken artist, who now lives in upstate New York.

But Muth transports readers to a very different place and time in The Three Questions (2002), a retelling of a story by Leo Tolstoy, which Muth both wrote and illustrated. Here, a young boy named Nikolai roams through an impressionistic, magical landscape evocative of old Chinese brush paintings. Nikolai is searching for answers to the most important questions in life and finds resolution through his adventures with a panda and her child. Along the way, Nikolai gets advice from a wise turtle called Leo, named after Tolstoy himself, one of Muth's favorite writers.

Although the original tale of Stone Soup has roots in Europe, Muth has set his version in China, using Buddhist story traditions. Three Ch'an (Zen) monks named Hok, Lok and Siew, based on characters prominent in Chinese folklore, come upon a village where people are weary, suspicious and unhappy, and work only for themselves.

To help the villagers find happiness, the monks decide to show them how to make stone soup. By the end of the story, the villagers have come together in a feast, celebrating their community, and the things that make us all truly rich. Once again, Muth's graceful, impressionistic watercolors, rich with Chinese symbols, transport readers to another time and place.

Perhaps one reason illustrating children's books comes naturally to him is his ability to see the world from a child's perspective. "I have learned to make myself small and run around inside my stories, to think like a child," says Muth, who sees his role as more than just "decorating" a text. "I am interested in that "”third thing' that happens when you connect words and pictures," he says.

Looking at Muth's books, a very simple word comes to the reader's mind: magic.

Deborah Hopkinson's latest book for young readers is Girl Wonder: A Baseball Story in Nine Innings.

Sandra Boynton may be the only New York Times best-selling writer with a Grammy nomination and more than 4,000 greeting cards under her belt. Her 2002 combined picture book/audio CD Philadelphia Chickens reached #1 on the bestseller list and featured stars such as Meryl Streep, Laura Linney and Natasha Richardson singing in an “imaginary musical revue.” With One Shoe Blues, Boynton succeeds in a new creative venture: writing, directing and designing a short film. B.B. King and a group of loveable sock puppets star in this book and nearly 5-minute music video about the familiar frustration of misplacing a shoe. In an email Q&A, Boynton answers questions about losing stuff, her dream project and working with B.B. King.

“One Shoe Blues” is your filmmaking debut. Why did you want to try a short film?
I wanted to try film because I was curious to know what it was like. Also the possibility of spectacular failure is much too intriguing to pass up. The most challenging part was during the actual shoot: having to keep in mind and coordinate the technical demands of filming simultaneously with responding to and guiding what the actor is doing. The most fun was working with such an exquisite performer. B.B. King’s sublime musicality, subtle comedic talent and unfailing benevolence are nothing short of extraordinary.

The song “One Shoe Blues” debuted in 2007, on the book and CD Blue Moo: 17 Jukebox Hits from Way Back Never. Of all the songs from that CD, why did you choose to turn “One Shoe Blues” into its own book and movie?
At the original recording session with B.B. for the song of “One Shoe Blues” —in March 2007 at Avatar Studios in New York City—I watched in awe as B.B. King assumed easily and plausibly and with brilliant humor a child’s persona. It’s this skillful and nuanced wry transformation I wanted to capture on film.

Why did you decide to sell your CDs inside of books, instead of directly in music stores?
It’s partly practical: I’m not a singer, so in music stores, I have no slot. The CDs would be lost somewhere in the haze of “Children’s: Various Artists.” But the important reason has to do with the wonderful relationship I have with Workman Publishing. I’ve been with them nearly 30 years—all that time with the same editor, Suzanne Rafer. Suzanne and the ingenious company founder, Peter Workman, support me and guide me in pretty much any quixotic and inexplicable direction I want to go. Also, I like the dimension a book adds to a child’s experience of this music I write. And, too, a book means I get to do more drawings.

When were you first introduced to the music of B.B. King? Did you grow up listening to the blues?
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know B.B. King’s music. Everything is right in what he does: the unfussy yet complex vocal journey, that impossibly articulate guitar, the yearning, the knowing. I grew up listening to an eclectic mix of the records my parents played—Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Shirley Bassey, Tommy Dorsey and a whole lot of choral and instrumental classical music—and the music played on the legendary AM radio stations of 1960s Philadelphia (these stations include those from New York City on clear nights.) I somehow assume I first heard B. B. King on Cousin Brucie’s WABC show. Which is why I have Cousin Brucie do a radio intro at the beginning of this short film.

The co-star of One Shoe Blues is the sassy Momsock, a sock puppet. Why did you include sock puppets in your book?
It seemed to me that sock puppets are the clear choice to appear in a video called “One Shoe Blues.”

What was B.B. King’s response when he found out that he’d be working with sock puppets?
I suspect the sock puppets are a significant part of why he said yes. He has a distinctly droll and playful approach to things.

You dedicated One Shoe Blues to “people who lose stuff.” Do you lose a lot of stuff?
Ah. When I wrote the dedication, it did occur to me that it was really a self-dedication. It’s mildly defiant, I guess. My father was a kind and patient man, but I remember his frequent exasperated, “Sandra, I do wish you could keep track of your things.” I couldn’t, and can’t, and neither apparently can B.B King. At the recording session, B.B.’s grandson said, “This song is so him.”

In the “making of” video, we learn that the filming of “One Shoe Blues” was bumped at the last minute from September to July. Did the tight deadline cause the movie to change at all from your original vision?
Although it made for some terrifying preparation, I think if anything the tight schedule enhanced the project, because there’s great energy and focus in that kind of pressured collaborative work. We did have to film some of the sock puppet shots later, and that also turned out to be a good thing, since we were able to better evaluate exactly what was needed to complement B.B’s work and complete the film.

If you could collaborate with any musician or actor, who would it be? Why?
I’ve been so lucky to have worked with so many of my heroes already. I don’t know: Mark Knopfler? The Dixie Chicks? REM? Foo Fighters? Gwen Stefani? Rufus Wainwright? Muse? The Rolling Stones? (There’s nothing like being cheerfully and profoundly unrealistic, I think.)

Describe your current project.
I’m thinking of cleaning my room. Though maybe I’m not quite ready.

RELATED CONTENT:
In her own handwriting, Sandra Boynton answers questions about Hey! Wake Up! (2000).
Video about the making of “One Shoe Blues”: