W. Kamau Bell is the rare non-children’s book person (creator, librarian, teacher, scholar) who takes children’s books seriously. He admires the craft. And his chat with Mo Willems — and then both Mo and Cher Willems — is a joy and a delight.
And Mo is dropping so many pearls of creative wisdom that early in the podcast Kamau says “I’m glad this is being recorded.” So am I. And so are you.
For example, “Your job is not to write the idea. Your job is to write the discovery [of the idea].”
And: “Elephant and Piggie is not about friendship. It’s about repairing friendship. Because the essence of friendships is that they break.”
And from Cher: “Just because you’ve got a great idea doesn’t mean that it works.”
So, pull out your headphones or pull up a chair (or both!), and learn why children’s books are sculptures, how his process differs from Jacqueline Woodson’s (and vice-versa), why and artists are random ants.
Also, I couldn’t find the Soviet-era animated film (that Mo mentioned) in which bureaucrats were represented as bureaus. But I did find There Lived Kozyavin (1966), a de Chirico-inspired animated short which is pretty great in its own right.