Breakout Session: Finding the Kid Viewpoint in Picture Book Biographies with Alyza Liu

Alyza Liu is an editor at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers who loves a good picture book biography and shares many great examples in her session. She walks us through the spreads of CAN YOU IMAGINE? (out early 2025!!), the forthcoming Yoko Ono picturebook biography by Lisa Tolin and Yas Imamura. 

When creating engaging and relatable picture book biographies it is of the utmost importance to respect young readers' preferences—they do not want to read treacly, stodgy, preachy life lessons—they want connections to their subjects and it's the author's job to find those themes and emotions that resonate. Alyza outlines for attendees why this is important, and provides a list of questions to ask oneself when writing a biography as well as a list of what she looks for when acquiring one.

Alyza sharing what sorts of elements make a good picturebook biography 

Crafting a compelling narrative that can fit and work within the format and age range of picture books is the key to successful biographies for kids. As a test case: Alyza introduced us to Yoko Ono's life and art through Lisa and Yas's book page spreads. We saw how the book remained age appropriate even when covering violent or triggering topics. And how, as a book for young children, the strongest themes running through it needed to be able to emphasize the positive, which it did: Yoko's imagination, creativity, and commitment to peace all serve as beacons of hope to young readers.

On the topic of working and fitting within the picture book format, Alyza mentioned repeatedly how great Debbie Ohi's resources are for working out book dummies and pagination (Debbie is basically the most wonderful everything, everyone at SCBWI Team Blog agrees). 

Other great, example titles mentioned by Alyza:

THE GREAT STINK by Colleen Paeff and Nancy Carpenter

and

I DISSENT by Debbie Levy and Elizabeth Baddeley

Art Directors Panel: Lauren Rille (Simon & Schuster)

Topic: The Changing Landscape In Children's Book Publishing For Illustrators

Such an inspiring Art Directors Panel with Karina Granda (Art Director, Little Brown Books for Young Readers), Miranda Paul (Agent, Erin Murphy Literary Agency), Lauren Rille - Art Director, Simon & Schuster), and Zejun Yao - (Agent, Yeon Agency).  The panel was moderated by TeMika Grooms. 

In this post, I'll be focusing on Lauren Rille. Do browse the Conference Blog for takeaways from the other panelists; click links in the above paragraph.

Lauren Rille is an Art Director at Simon & Schuster, where she works with the Beach Lane, Atheneum, and McElderry imprints. Before joining S&S, Lauren was a designer at Sterling and Harcourt Children’s Books. Books she’s designed include the most recent edition of Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume, cover illustration by Debbie Ridpath Ohi; In Every Life by Marla Frazee; The Antlered Ship by Dashka Slater, illustrated by the Fan Brothers; Scraps by Lois Ehlert; Best In Snow by April Pulley Sayre; and the best-selling Bear Series by Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman. You can find out more info about Lauren at LaurenRille.com, Instagram, and Twitter.

Lauren has been an Art Director for 15 years, and says her sweet spot is picture books, but she also works with illustrated MG and YA. Lauren helped revamp the Judy Blume books for Atheneum/Simon & Schuster (note from Debbie: I was the illustrator, woohoo! Here is a blog post by Lauren and me about creating a new look for Judy Blume classics).

Where Lauren finds artists:

Lauren says she finds illustrators everywhere, that there's no one "right" place. She especially likes Instagram, where illustrators tend to post sketches and work in progress and aren't as "precious" about their work.

Tips for illustrators:

Go beyond just character studies/portraits in your portfolio. Have a narrative, show that you can convey a story with your art.

Even if you're not a writer, don't stress about coming up with your own story. Do your own take on an already established story, like Red Riding Hood - it will get across your sense of setting, point of view, shows that you can show a moment from a story.

It's ok to show multiple styles in your online portfolio, but show that you have a real command of whatever styles you're using. Avoid showing the same work over and over; when Lauren notices this over the years, she says it gives the impression you're not working on improving your craft. 

Lauren loves the collaboration process with the illustrator. She says she always encourages the illustrator ask questions or to ask for help if they need it. "It's more fun if we work together."

Fill your portfolio with art featuring the age of kids you want to illustrate for. She advises browsing children's clothing catalogs can help you come up with authentic clothing for your characters.

Even though it didn't come up during the session, I should also point out that Lauren Rille is a picture book creator herself:

I Feel Teal is written by Lauren Rille and illustrated by Aimée Sicuro, published by Simon & Schuster.

---

If you want to view this session to hear the full content, along with the rest of the conference, register at https://www.scbwi.org/events/summer-conference-2023. Replays of the conferences will be available until September 10th, 2023. See the index to all 2023 SCBWI Summer Conference blog posts.

Also be sure to check out the Faculty Conference Bookshop and the Portfolio Showcase!