Sophie Blackall – Author Study

Three Things You Can Learn from the Author-Illustrator

Today we begin our 2020 Author Study series! In case you missed it, last week we announced our Superstar Speakers for Picture Book Summit 2020: Special Edition. We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Sophie Blackall, Lesa Cline-Ransome, and Peter H. Reynolds to this year’s Summit: Finding Your Voice. Written by Keila V. Dawson, our author studies are a chance to dig into our speakers’ work before the big online conference on October 3, 2020. Here are three things you can learn from Sophie Blackall.

Learn from the Cook

Multiple award-winning author-illustrator Sophie Blackall grew up near the sea in Australia. As a child, Blackhall learned about the value of making art after reading The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes (DuBose Heyward, illustrated by Marjorie Flack, 1939). The mother bunny in this story went about teaching her children how to take care of the house and gave two of them art supplies to create pictures. From this book, Sophie realized making art was an important job too.

Sophie finds comfort being able to escape when painting and creating. After being away from the sea too long, one day she read Moby Dick and now hides a whale in every book. She wants to take her audience on an escape too. “We create worlds for our readers to step into, and live there for a time, and return whenever they wish.”

Learn from the Book

HELLO LIGHTHOUSE, 2019 Caldecott Medal

Written and illustrated by Sophie Blackall ‧ Release Date: April 10, 2018

A young audience steps into the world Sophie created through art and text as she shifts the focus from the building, to the change in the weather, and to the people who live in the lighthouse.

On the highest rock of a tiny island

At the edge of the world stands a lighthouse.

It is built to last forever.

Sending its light out to the sea,

guiding the ships on their way.

From dusk to dawn, the lighthouse beams.

Hello!

…Hello!

…Hello!

Hello, Lighthouse!

The details in the text allow readers to experience the duties and responsibilities and everyday life seen through the seasons in the lighthouse before automation.

Throughout the story we learn a lot about the function of a lighthouse, and its surroundings and the day-to-day routine and changes in the life of the lighthouse keeper – love, marriage, danger, a baby, and loss. Detailed illustrations show what is inside each room, the tools the lighthouse keeper needed to do his job and how they survived.

Learn from the Hook

This is the summary from the publisher: Explores the life of one lighthouse as it beams its message out to sea through shifting seasons, changeable weather, and the tenure of its final keeper.

What is the book really about?

In this story, we see change through the shifting seasons, the weather, and through the life of the lighthouse keeper, but the lighthouse is built to last forever, physically and in our hearts.

The hook makes a story about a lighthouse, an analogy to life, comforting to a young audience.

Read other books by Sophie Blackhall that resonate with young audience through story and art.

Learn more from Sophie herself at Picture Book Summit Special Edition: Finding Your Voice. Sophie is presenting Our Writing Voice is Also Our Singing Happy Birthday Voice, Our Berating Teenagers Voice, Our Hollering at Ducks Voice, and That’s Not a Bad Thing.

How do we find the quiet we need to hear our own voice and make a good book?

Accompany two-time Caldecott medalist Sophie Blackall over the arc of a day and the arc of a picture book, with all the background noise of studio mates and school visits, deadlines and demanding ducks, as she argues that a surprisingly clear author and/or illustrator voice can emerge from our cacophonies.

Sophie will be speaking alongside Superstar Speakers Lesa Cline-Ransome and Peter H. Reynolds. Join us for the LIVE online conference October 3, 2020.

Click this button to see the full program and get registered today!

We can’t wait to see you there!

Keila V. Dawson is a former community organizer, educational consultant, and advocate for children with special needs. A New Orleans native, she has also lived and worked in several states across the U.S., in the Philippines, Japan, and Egypt. Keila is a co-editor of No Voice Too Small (Charlesbridge, September 22, 2020), author of The King Cake Baby (Pelican Pub, January 23, 2015), and the forthcoming Opening the Road: Victor Hugo Green and His Green Book, (Beaming Books, January 19, 2021).

She is represented by Dawn Frederick, Red Sofa Literary