Bruce Degen And Stephanie Calmenson

Will Be At Booth Library For Presentation And Book Signing

By Nancy K. Crevier

“When the weather gets cold, And a mouse slips in, A jazzmatazz story Is sure to begin.”

What happens when a mouse invades the house of a children’s book illustrator and disappears behind his piano? Well, the illustrator has to share that story with a good friend, who just happens to be a children’s author, the wheels start turning, and Bruce Degen and Stephanie Calmenson come up with Jazzmatazz!

The newest book from Ms Calmenson, author of Dinner At The Panda Palace and May I Pet Your Dog? among several other titles, and Mr Degen, who is the illustrator for the Magic School Bus series, Ms Frizzle’s Adventures series, and many, many other children’s books, Jazzmatazz! was published this month by Harper Collins.

The first collaboration between Mr Degen and Ms Calmenson, the picture book is a riot of rhymes and a cacophony of color, as a musical mouse spreads his glee with a plinkety-plink on the piano and a “Doo-dat, diddy-dat, Diddy-dat, doo” that gets the dog drumming, the fish blub-blubbing, and the whole household humming. Before long the joy of jazz has everyone tappity-tapping, including the reader.

Local residents will want to circle Saturday, March 1, on the calendar in red. Mr Degen and Ms Calmenson will be at C.H. Booth Library at 1 pm for a presentation on writing and illustrating children’s books, followed by a book signing to promote Jazzmatazz!

“We are so lucky to have the two of them come to our library,” said Alana Bennison, children’s librarian at C.H. Booth Library. “You can shake their hands, meet them, and speak with them. It’s a great opportunity and it’s a very nice, relaxed atmosphere for everyone.”

Jazzmatazz! was an unusual project, said Mr Degen, both from the artistic side and the publisher’s side, in that it was a proposal presented by both the author and illustrator. “Most of the time, in a picture book, the writer has worked with the editor and completed a manuscript. The editor, or art director, then contacts an illustrator and asks if they would like to get involved in the book.” The artist and author often do not even know each other.

In suiting the mood of a book, said Mr Degen, a Newtown resident, he experiments with different materials and techniques that give each book he illustrates its own character.

“Some illustrators are very consistent, and you can spot their work across a room,” said Mr Degen. “I can’t even be consistent from one page to the next,” he joked. Jazzmatazz! is transparent watercolor over pen and ink, with color pencil shading, a technique similar to that he chose for the Magic School Bus series, but very different from the opaque gouache used in Ms Frizzle’s Adventures.

“I loved the rhythmic text, the playfulness, and the very young age group [of the Jazzmatazz! text], which is like my book, Jamberry,” Mr Degen said. His challenge was to come up with the graphic equivalents of the sounds in the story. “I tried to imagine a shape to represent the percussive but rounded tones of a piano, the smooth bowing of a violin, the rat-a-tat of a drum, the golden chirps of the bird, that roll and are quite bright. It gets purposely complex as the sounds overlap, then interweave, then conclude in a unified grid, like a perfect big band blast,” he said. He pointed out that initially the color on the pages is muted, but as the mouse directs the household into an ever-bigger explosion of sound, there is less and less white space on the page. “By the end of the book there is saturated color everywhere,” he said.

“Bruce Degen has the ability to create for the author’s words,” said Ms Bennison. “That’s a true illustrator. All of his books are full of vivid, rich illustrations, but his drawings for Daddy is a Doodlebug, which he wrote and illustrated, are very different for example, from what he does in Jamberry or for the Magic School Bus. The pictures are so grounded, so clear, you can see that he truly loves what he does,” she said.

“I could never have imagined what I got [in illustrations],” said Ms Calmenson. “Bruce  ‘drew’ music! He’s an artist in both words and pictures.”

She met Mr Degen, a former Brooklynite like herself (although she now lives in Manhattan), through their mutual friend and children’s author Joanna Cole (who wrote the Magic School Bus books). The idea for Jazzmatazz! grew very quickly once she heard about Mr Degen’s little mouse’s adventure, she said, almost overnight.

“I do love jazz and I love words, so the story just came to me. But then I had to worry about the details. It’s always more complicated than it seems,” Ms Calmenson said.

Jazzmatazz! included research into jazz music, to make sure that she would get the right jazz sounds for her story, not slip into the blues genre with the riff, and to make sure she did not swipe a riff from well-known jazz musicians by accident. “Doo-dat, diddy-dat, Diddy-dat, doo” was the result of her research and one that fit well with the rhythm of the book, she said.

A former teacher and editor, Ms Calmenson tries to incorporate some education into all she writes, whether it is fiction or non-fiction.

“I combine the ideas I want to get across in ways that I think will entertain the reader.” A previous book, Dinner At The Panda Palace, for example, she said, is about counting and self-esteem. “Jazzmatazz! is just pure joy, but it still imparts the joy of reading and self-esteem and music. A little boy and the mouse end up being the stars leading this whole town in a musical extravaganza,” she explained.

A children’s author since 1984, Ms Calmenson was influenced greatly by Maurice Sendak, Margaret Weiss Brown, and Dr Seuss, who dealt with the psychology of children, and “that is very important to me,” Ms Calmenson said.

“I will be talking about how I became a writer and where I get my ideas and how I develop those ideas at the Booth Library program,” said Ms Calmenson. She will also share a powerpoint presentation about a visit to a New York City editor’s office and discuss the making of a book. “I’ll also introduce my dog, Harry, and his book, May I Pet Your Dog?” Ms Calmenson said.

Ms Bennison emphasized that the afternoon program is appropriate not only for children five years of age and up, but for adults as well. “Aspiring children’s writers, especially, will want to come and hear what Bruce and Stephanie have to say about the whole process of writing and illustrating. But it will be wonderful for anyone at all who likes to write or draw,” she said.

Limited quantities of Jazzmatazz! will be available for $17 a copy at the program, as will other titles by both Mr Degen and Ms Calmenson.

Registration for the free program is not required, but seating will be on a first come, first served basis.

Bruce Degen lives in Newtown with his wife, Christine. They have two grown sons, Ben and Alex. A doodler since elementary school, he received his degree in fine arts from Cooper Union and Pratt Institute, majoring in printmaking and painting. When he realized the fun was missing from advertising, printmaking, and teaching, he turned to illustrating children’s books. He has since written and illustrated numerous award-winning books for children, including the Magic School Bus series, Ms Frizzle’s Adventures series, Jesse Bear, the Commander Toad series, Jamberry, Daddy is a Doodlebug, Sailaway Home, and The Little Witch and the Riddle.

Stephanie Calmenson, a former early childhood teacher, editor at Doubleday, and editorial director of Parents Magazine Press, has over 100 children’s books to her credit. They include picture books, poetry, non-fiction, anthologies, and a chapter book series she writes with author Joanna Cole. She presently resides in New York. Her longhair dachshund, Harry, the star of her book May I Pet Your Dog? The How-To Guide for KIDS Meeting DOGS (and DOGS Meeting KIDS) will be at the C.H. Library on March 1 with Ms Calmenson.