Like, everyone talks about the leisure suits, but what about the plaid pants? There were so many plaid pants, and everyone-men, women, children-were wearing them every single day, not just at the disco. Jenni and I both lived through the 1970s, but it’s astonishing what you don’t remember. The first thing-and the biggest change from Babymouse and Squish-is I do a lot of historical photo research after reading the manuscript. Matthew, could you walk us through how you work? The biggest difference for Sunny-other than the fact that those books are so much longer-is that Matt then hands the inks off to Lark Pien for coloring, rather than doing the color himself. She then figures out the page layouts, picking and choosing the drawings she likes and arranging them to best effect, and sends those layouts back to Matt, who inks them.
After our editor gets a crack at it, Matt makes thumbnail sketches with pencil-basically, very rough drawings of every single cartoon panel (or variations on them)-and then sends those to Jenni. Jenni writes a draft, then Matt goes through and revises. In general, our process involves a lot of trading back and forth. Our process is pretty much the same for all of them, except that for the picture book, Jenni wrote with a very specific page count in mind (since there are so few pages). How do the two of you collaborate? And is it different for something like Sunny than for Babymouse or Squish or the picture books? When Jenni was learning swing flag it was considered a training step to becoming a real twirler – which is way harder than it looks. (See attached glamorous pic!)įor those who don’t know, what exactly is a swing flag?Ī swing flag is basically a flag attached to a twirling baton.
Well, the main autobiographical element in this Sunny book is Sunny learning how to use a swing flag. You wrote a little about how the first Sunny book had some autobiographical elements, has that continued in this book? Luckily, Sunny Side Up enjoyed a great reception from kids and grown-ups. We certainly hoped there would be more than one book. Now was that originally going to be a stand alone book, or did you always have more in mind for Sunny? Now this new book, Swing It, Sunny, is a sequel to 2015’s Sunny Side Up. I reached out to the duo by e-mail and we spoke about the book’s autobiographical elements, how they work together and what the heck swing flag is. Sunny is back in a new book Swing It, Sunny, which picks up where the first book left off with Sunny facing middle school. In 2015, Scholastic’s Graphix imprint published Sunny Side Up, a stand-alone graphic novel about girl spending the summer with her grandfather in Florida. Matt co-wrote and drew the recent Marvin and the Moths and Jennifer is also a Newbury Honor winning author of prose novels like The Fourteenth Goldfish and Turtle in Paradise. The two have also made board books and a picture book together, and separately worked on other projects.
While I didn’t like this book as much as I did the first book I do plan to read book 3.Jennifer and Matthew Holm have been collaborating for years now on two series of graphic novels for kids, Babymouse and Squish. I think book 2 is meant to set up something bigger to happen in book 3. There’s little within the story that has to do with Sunny’s first year of middle school, which I was interested in also seeing more of.Īs before, I liked the art and how certain scenes were conveyed. You basically follow Sunny’s emotional journey as she tries to understand her brother’s drug problem and how it’s changed him. Instead, she’s going to remain Sunny-side up!īook 2 felt more like an impasse. because she is NOT going let all this confusion get her down. Luckily Sunny’s got her best friend and a mysterious new neighbor on her side.
But when Dale comes back, she STILL misses him. Sunny misses her brother Dale, who’s been sent to boarding school. Not only is the whole middle school thing confusing. But the truth? Sunny is NOT having the best time.
When her Gramps calls her from Florida to ask how she’s doing, she always tells him she’s fine. ABOUT : Summer’s over and it’s time for Sunny Lewin to enter the strange and unfriendly hallways of.