By Jennifer M. Brown, School Library Journal--Curriculum Connections
While Lane Smith is still a young man, he admits to having reached "that time in life when you start to get a little reflective." Recently he began wondering how he could portray a life span in a "symbolic way." Here the author/illustrator discusses how his latest picture book, Grandpa Green (Roaring Brook, August 2011), prompted a shift in his artwork and tone, as he chronicled one man's milestones through a series of topiaries.
The opening topiary of the crying baby sets the book's tone, suggesting both its humor and poignancy. But, turning that first page, readers discover that the source of the child's tears is water from a garden hose that someone has left on. This is really the first serious book that I've done. I'm originally from the Midwest, and we hide behind humor with everything. In this case, I had to hold myself back from putting in my usual jokes. At the same time, there are lots of playful gags.... There's also the rabbit nibbling on the topiary in the shape of a giant carrot. I can't help myself.
There are so many discoveries like that in the book. We start to realize that what the boy is collecting in his wagon as he makes his way through the garden are the things that his grandfather has been leaving behind—garden tools and gloves, eyeglasses, and other items. How did that idea evolve? I wanted it to be a little fuzzy as to who's telling the story. Is it a narrator? Is the boy the grandfather when he was a youngster? Like Hansel and Gretel picking up breadcrumbs, I wanted readers [to find clues] that would take them to the end of the story.
The artwork is in green and black and white, with subtle bits of color on the things that the boy picks up. Those are the first hints that the grandfather is losing his memory. There's that element of a ticking clock, as if he wants to portray these things before he forgets them.
Did you make a list of the milestones in the grandfather's life? Or did you come up with the thought of hedges first and build the story around them? One of my favorite topiaries is the wedding cake. I definitely thought first of the events. Then I asked myself what would lend itself to a topiary on the page. I like the wedding cake; and Grandpa's clippers [at its base] along with the fork, the knife, and the spoon. I tried to be playful with the objects. I couldn't do it every time because it would stretch the bounds of credulity. For some of the garden scenes, I asked a gardener friend, "Is this possible?"
Like the spread where a branch grows horizontally out of the mouth of the cannon, just missing the boy who is bending over? [Yes], with something called an espalier, you can force a plant to grow a certain way.... For that cannon spread, I thought of silent films starring Buster Keaton. He'd bend over just as the cannon ball was coming out. That's the type of gag I tried to incorporate.
This is a very different palette for you. Can you describe your art process? At times, the grass looks as if it's on some kind of wax coating. I was trying to keep everything light. Not just light visually, but playful as well, with lots of white space.
[For the grass] sometimes I used a sponge dipped in watercolor. On the bottom of the tree trunk [on the spread "Now he's pretty old"], I used an oil-based paint and a lot of thinner. I sprayed the paint with a water-based varnish. Blow-drying the wet surface separates [the paints]; the water repels the oil and it mottles up, leaving a beaded look. The leaves on top of the tree are in watercolor and waterproof India ink. That was a media extravaganza.
Did you map out the garden's layout to figure out how to fit everything into the book's gatefold? It was really Simon Boughton, my editor, who said, "At the end, I'd like to see a big spread of the whole garden," and I thought, "What, are you crazy?" When Simon introduced the idea of putting the topiaries in context, and the kid making his way from [one end of the garden to the other], I became a cartographer charting a map. To Simon's credit, it really works because the final line of the book is about how "the garden remembers" for the grandfather. The man's whole life is shown on this spread.
That idea of a shared history is such a powerful one. There's something reassuring about how important the grandfather is to the boy. Does that final image suggest that the child will carry on with both his grandfather's garden and his memories? I never come out and say it, but in my mind I was thinking that [in that final image] the grandpa had passed on, and the boy was starting his own garden, and it's a continuation of everything the man had taught him.
Jennifer M. Brown is the children's editor for Shelf Awareness, a daily enewsletter for the publishing trade. Her website Twenty by Jennyrecommends titles to help parents build their child's library one book at a time.
This article originally appeared in School Library Journal's enewsletter Curriculum Connections. Subscribe here.
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