Illustrator brings characters to life for kids

“Do you mean to tell me that you weren’t thinking about a purple kangaroo looking for his best friend, a wild eyed chinchilla named Señor Ernesto de Pantalones, while wearing roller skates? “

Some children squirm, and some sit riveted as children’s author and illustrator Peter Brown reads from his latest illustrated piece, “The Purple Kangaroo” last Tuesday evening (Jan. 19). Giggles float through the room as Brown describes the kangaroo’s journey to find his friend, by way of slipping on banana peels and blowing bubblegum out of his nose.

Written by comedian Michael Ian Black, “The Purple Kangaroo” is the first book that Brown has illustrated without writing himself. Brown has written and illustrated four of his own children’s books, including his first picture book “The Flight of the Dodo.”

Along with a read of his latest book, Brown presented to the families a look at how he developed into an author as well as how he works as an illustrator. He brought out a large sketch pad on an easel to illustrate examples from “The Purple Kangaroo” on how he creates the characters that he is illustrating.

Brown was born in Hopewell, N.J., and attended Art Center College of Design in Pasedena, Calif., before moving to New York City to pursue writing and illustrating children’s books.

“I did work in animation for awhile, and didn’t really like it,” Brown said. “I didn’t have as much creative freedom as I had hoped for, and realized that with picture books I could really dream up any story that I wanted to.”

On a promotional book tour for “ Kangaroo,” Brown was brought to the Ballard Library by a collaboration of library staff and neighborhood bookstore Secret Garden Books.

The bookstore, located on Northwest Market Street in Ballard, has been working with the Ballard branch of the public library since November of 2004 to bring children’s and adult authors to the Ballard community. Known for its specialty in children’s books, Secret Garden has reached out to the community with its author events and launch parties. “For many years it was a children’s specialty store, but in 2000 when we moved to Market Street, we added general books and became more of a neighborhood general bookstore,” said Christy McDanold, owner of Secret Garden Books.

The book shop can only seat 20 or so, so partnering with the library offers us more space to reach out to more people in the community, according to Suzanne Perry, the events coordinator for Secret Garden.

Library events, like the ones with Secret Garden, offer the community an opportunity to meet local and national authors, and help families develop relationships with both the bookstore and the library.

Jane and Steve Matera, a local couple, brought their two small children Jackson and Sophie to the Peter Brown event. According to Jane Matera, it’s wonderful to bring her children to these events to expose them to books and reading at an early age. “I think it’s great for [my son], in this case, to see the illustrator actually draw the pictures and see that it’s a real person that’s creating the books,” said Matera.

Children were able to chat with Brown after his presentation, and get their books signed. Brown’s books were available for purchase at the event.

Brown is off to California next on his book tour for “The Purple Kangaroo,” and his next picture book, “Children Make Terrible Pets,” is due out in September.
(Contributor Sarah Storm is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.)