Gayle emailed me the manuscript and I accepted the job offer. I thought the story was well written and had a nice tone. It also had lots of opportunities for humor.

The first thing an illustrator does with a new manuscript is pace it into a format of 32 pages, the usual length of a picture book. The text (manuscript) come undivided. Pacing means assigning a block of text to each page. I go back and forth on some of the text until I think it has the right flow and gives me the opportunity to illustrate what comes to mind. The art director and editor both can ask for some alternate way of dividing the text up if they don’t agree with my way.

Today I am starting my account of a book in progress. The book is a story about a monk in a monastery in France in the Middle Ages. I have been working for some time on the story already, but haven’t been ready to begin this account of my progress until now.

I first heard from the art director, Gayle Brown, in July of 2011. She had this manuscript and thought I might be right to do the illustrations. She’d seen other picture books I had done, in particular, Come to the Castle by Linda Ashman.