Picture Book Marathon, Day 25

Only one more day in the marathon! When I started, I never thought I'd be saying this, but I'm definitely going to miss it. I know that without the challenge of writing a picture book every day with the other couple hundred people participating, I'm not going to write many more picture books. I'm going to let myself be swept up in life and not try to find that extra hour or so to do something really fun and creative. That's one of the reasons I love having this blog. It gives me an incentive to be creative and to write every day. Of course, I always know that I can skip a day if I need, like yesterday. I wrote a book yesterday, but didn't have time to post it or to do an illustration. So here it is now, sans-illustration, which I'll post as soon as I draw it (probably tomorrow).

Picture Book #24: Untitled So Far
This one is a wordless picture book, and I don't have it mapped out page by page, but I have a story. A girl is out to dinner with her parents. There are multiple courses. The parents talk and talk, but she is really bored. Eventually, she falls asleep at the table. She begins to dream. In her dream, she sees a boy at the table next to her. He invites her to dance. They begin to dance in the middle of the restaurant, and then, since it's a dream, they dance in the clouds and among the stars. The story switches back out of the dream. She's still asleep. Her parents pay the bill and her father carries her out to the car. The end.

I don't really know how I would distinguish real life from dream, perhaps a different drawing style. When I first thought up the story, I thought she'd be around 6 and dancing with her father, but then I realized that the mother would be totally cut out of the story and she wouldn't fall asleep at the table if it was only her and her dad. So then I thought she would be around 14 or 15, but that seemed a bit old for this particular story, and I asl wanted to make it  as innocent as I could, so now I'm thinking she's around 9. Anyway, onto today's book.

By now I know that rhyming is far from my strongest part of writing. But it's so much fun that I keep coming back to it. I found out while doing the marathon that my two favorite types of picture books to write (as I'm sure you've figured out) are wordless and rhyming. So today's book is a rhyming lift-the-flap science book in disguise. You'll see.

Picture Book #25: Why? Why? Why?

Why does the rain fall?
Why does the sun shine?
Why is this so small? (holding something)
Why is it mine?

Why are you looking at me like that?
Why do you care?
Why are you wearing that ugly hat?
Why don't you like your hair?

Why am I in this place?
Why do I have to listen?
Why do I want to run a race?
Why do I have to sit still, then?

Why does my hair get into knots?
Why must I learn how to read?
Why does the doctor give me shots?
Why does a plant grow from a seed?

Why do my ears help me to hear?
Why do my eyes help me to see?
Why do I feel fear?
WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME?

ASK THE BOOK!
LOOK UNDER THE FLAPS!
ONLY THEN WILL I STOP
TALKING IN CAPS!


And then you go back through the book and lift up the flaps under most of the questions (the science-y type questions, anyway) and it has a little answer to the question. It would need a bit of research, but I think it would be really cool.

Anyway, that's what I've got! I also have something cool planned for March, but I'm not going to reveal that yet.