7 Randomly Random Facts About JUST ONE WAVE

Just One Wave (my second author/illustrator book) arrives today. It’s a sequel to Just One Flake and I hope you get a chance to read it (it makes a great read aloud).

School Library Journal says JUST ONE WAVE is “an ideal book for sharing aloud or to hand to beginning readers anxious to read a book-on their own.”

Kirkus Reviews says JUST ONE WAVE is a “satisfying tale that sees its protagonist striving once more for a single iconic experience.”

I talk about how the book was made on the latest episode of The Yarn podcast:

You can find it at these locations:

McLean & Eakin | Bookshop | Amazon

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Just for fun, here are some random facts about the book:

• The setting for the book is Lake Michigan, and that’s who the book is dedicated to.

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• I made a special sand castle ink stamp to add to the dedication.

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• The case cover is a photo of sand taken on a Lake Michigan beach.

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• The art for the book was made with a Pentel Color Brush on watercolor paper. I tried a new light box technique for this book (see picture) inspired by something Lian Cho very briefly mentioned in her newsletter. Then I scanned the illustrations and added digital watercolors using the Procreate app on an iPad. Here’s a time-lapse of that process:

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• There were two elements I wanted to make clear in the cover illustration. 1) The water is calm. 2) Liam isn’t happy about it. I went through a lot of ideas before landing on the final cover (see above). Here’s the entire jacket:

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• Liam’s swim trunks in Just One Wave have a snowflake pattern – an homage to Just One Flake.

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• One of my favorite things to post on Instagram is Lake Michigan Today pictures. I feel like I’ve been training for this book for years.

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Thank you Stephen Barbara, Courtney Code, Heather Kelly, and all the wonderful art, design, marketing, and publicity folks at Abrams.

You can find it at these locations:

McLean & Eakin | Bookshop | Amazon

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