Pipsqueaks, Slowpokes, and Stinkers

“I began research­ing ani­mal superla­tives in 2011. I was hop­ing to find a unique angle, some­thing I could add to the con­ver­sa­tion. I devel­oped a four-book pro­pos­al about the sci­ence behind the sta­tis­tics, but edi­tors weren’t inter­est­ed. I tin­kered with two dif­fer­ent pic­ture book man­u­scripts, but they went nowhere. Then in 2013, I decid­ed to turn my idea on its head. I began think­ing about anti-superla­tives — the small­est, slow­est, weak­est ani­mals. Maybe I could write a book about them.

“As I was wak­ing up on a chilly Decem­ber morn­ing, the begin­ning of the book just came to me. I knew it was gold, so I scrawled it in my note­book and went about my morn­ing rou­tine. When I sat down at the com­put­er, I typed it in. I loved the strong voice and embed­ded ques­tion. I knew this approach was fresh and fun.

“But as I re-read the words aloud, I sud­den­ly real­ized that this wasn’t going to be just an anti-superla­tive book. It was going to be an anti-bul­ly­ing book too. And to write it, I’d have to revis­it some painful parts of my child­hood. This was going to be a book only I could write, but it would come at a price, and that scared me. So I shut the file.

“Six months lat­er, I con­vinced myself to just add some of my research notes to the file. I wasn’t writ­ing. I was just assem­bling infor­ma­tion. By Sep­tem­ber, I could see that all the pieces were falling into place, and I final­ly felt brave enough to write the end­ing. I was committed.

“After craft­ing prose for the ani­mal exam­ples in the mid­dle of the book, I shared “Small­est, Slow­est, Weak­est” with my writ­ing group. They point­ed out many prob­lems, but author-illus­tra­tor Steve Ander­son saw my vision clear­ly and gave me an incred­i­ble gift — the title Pip­squeaks, Slow­pokes, and Stinkers.

“In Decem­ber 2014, I did a week of school vis­its in Sum­mit, NJ. Each day after school, I dug into the man­u­script, work­ing late into the night. All that time with no dis­trac­tions real­ly paid off. By the time I went home, the book’s pac­ing was work­ing, and I’d set­tled on just the right set of ani­mal exam­ples. I was ready to sub­mit it.

“The man­u­script was reject­ed twice, but after mak­ing some revi­sions, it was final­ly accept­ed in the sum­mer of 2015. Fol­low­ing anoth­er round of revi­sions with my edi­tor, the book head­ed off to be illus­trat­ed by the tal­ent­ed and hilar­i­ous Stephanie Laberis.”