The 2025 and 2024 Children’s Book Week poster artists had a chance to connect and talk about what it means to create books for young readers, the process of making a Children’s Book Week poster, and so much more. Read Julie Flett and Sophie Blackall’s conversation.
Sophie Blackall: Hi Julie! I have just seen your Children’s Book Week poster and it’s SO beautiful, and I’m so glad to have this excuse to talk to you because we’ve emailed before but never met or spoken, and I love your work so much. But before we launch into talking about art and reading and children, HOW ARE YOU DOING? I know it’s a loaded question these days…
Julie Flett: Hi Sophie! Thank you! I’m so glad we get to talk, too. There’s nothing like connecting with other book makers. We’re often working on projects on our own for long periods, so to stop and take a breather and connect in this way is so nice. I love the work you do with Milkwood, bringing artists and authors together to do just this.
As far as how I’m doing, I’m really thinking a lot about what we can do right now. And as book makers, I think it’s those collaborations and our work with kids and youth, all of us. I think about how we’re held in this connection with everything around us, the land, the water, creatures, our communities, and about holding those connections dearly.
SB: I’ve been wrestling with this too. I don’t want to just sit back because if I’m complacent, if I appear apathetic, if enough other people like me who are too shy or polite to raise their voices, if we all stay silent, then what is going to happen? I went to an event with Brian Selznick talking about his new YA book and he said something very similar to what I was feeling, wondering what he could do to make a difference in these unsettling times and then he remembered, This is what I do. I make books. I had a forehead-slapping moment: of course, that’s what we do. We make books for children and that’s really important and really valuable. It’s an enormous privilege and it’s an enormous responsibility and I don’t think we take it lightly, but that’s what we’re doing, and anyway…does that resonate with you at all?
JF: Yes, it does, a deep care for connecting with children and for them, to support them. We’re doing it in the work and I think that that is as relevant and important, and as you say, it’s a privilege and a responsibility we don’t take lightly.
SB: Can we talk about your gorgeous poster? I want to ask you questions about your process and illustration technique, but first, tell me about the theme, An Ocean of Stories…
JF: Thanks Sophie! It was such an honor to be asked to create this year’s poster. To follow your poster from last year and all of the posters over the years. This year, the Children’s Book Council/Every Child a Reader gave me a few titles to choose from and I loved them all. I could feel the love of the people who work with ECAR, the care they put into the work and celebration of stories for kids. In the end, An Ocean of Stories stood out to me, water stories have been on my mind, it feels like a watery time, vast and deep and relational. So that was the one!
SB: Do you mean in terms of story? In that there’s a long history, a deep ocean of stories beneath us and we have an opportunity to learn from the stories that have gone before, or do you mean something else?
JF: I was thinking more metaphorically, about going deep into things, the water, our spirits, our connections to the water, stormy times and calm times.
The poster itself is a calm image, the little person sticking their finger into the water, with a sea turtle swimming up to touch her finger, each curious about the other, all of those connections including that beautiful part of water, dreamy and pondering.
SB: Right. And you’ve spoken about your admiration for young land and water stewards, like Autumn Peltier…
JF: Yes, Autumn really came to mind as an inspiration for the poster. And all of those who bring this into their work, reminding us of our deep relations to the land and water.
SB: As I look at the at the shape of the image you’ve made for the poster, and the design of it, the first thing I’m struck by is how the art is on the perimeter and you’ve essentially left this open space in the center which could be a lovely metaphor for all the kinds of things that we’ve been talking about, amplifying the voices and stories of young people, but I don’t want to make assumptions…
JF: I love thinking about the space we make for kids to bring their own imaginations to the work. And the excitement of taking off from there, all of the things they’ll put together on their own.
SB: Yes, that’s lovely, so much possibility. I love how the sea lion is entering on the right and then exiting on the left, maybe it’s two sea lions, but it also could be the same one…
JF: Yes, it’s like who’s coming up to see you now? “I want to see what’s happening up there – or down there,” and all the little stories and connections to be made.
SB: I’ve been looking at your artwork and it could be done with layers of paint and collage, or it could be entirely digital…I can’t tell!
JF: The first part of the process is very much going back and forth between paper and illustrator programs. I trace my drawings and then I work on the backgrounds separately (mostly pastel), and then I scan those in and start collaging everything together.
SB: Here’s a question: have you ever written for anyone else, another illustrator?
JF: Wow, yes, so interesting that you ask! I recently wrote to someone whose work I love to see if she might want to collaborate on a book. I’m halfway through writing the story and I kept thinking of her – I think it would be amazing and hopefully it comes together!
SB: Ooooh, that’s exciting!
I just wrote a picture book manuscript that, when I finished it, I could see the drawings so clearly, I could see what I would do on every page, that there was suddenly no mystery, no intriguing puzzle to be solved. It felt as though I had already done it so I asked my beloved editor Susan Rich, if it would ever be a possibility that I could write something for somebody else to illustrate and she was so excited. We had great fun thinking of our dream illustrators and Phoebe Wahl said yes. She’s just about finished final art and it’s been so thrilling because she’s done something entirely different than what I would’ve done.
JF: Oh, I love it. How beautiful! I can’t wait to see it!
SB: Speaking of connecting, I get the feeling you love working with kids. It’s not the case with everyone who makes books for children… How do you think about children when you’re making books or indeed a poster for Children’s Book Week?
JF: I listened to a talk where you’d spoken about writing books that kids would want to read over and over. I think about that too, to read or look at over and over. Whether it’s for the illustrations (that was me as a kid) or the story or both. I often think about this when I’m writing a story. I love the questions that kids ask during readings, and how they engage in the ways that make the most sense for them. A little boy once asked me, having observed that I draw a lot of birds, “how do birds communicate?” which initiated one of the most fun and engaging conversations. I love those moments. I wrote about something similar in one the books I worked on, “Let’s Go! haw êkwa” with Greystone Books, about a little boy who inspired me. He’d come to one of my book readings a few years ago. He started off sitting at the back of the library room and over the course of the reading, slowly made his way to the front to ask a lot of questions. Someone had asked what inspires my work and I talked about my nieces and son, family and friends. He wanted to know more about my son and about his skateboarding. We had such a great chat. Once the group was gone, one of the librarians and one of his teachers pulled me aside to tell me that this was a little boy who is very quiet in class and kept to himself. I’m so glad that he felt comfortable coming forward to ask questions, that he was at ease in this reading and really got to express that when we were together.
SB: Yes! That’s what we hope that kids get from reading and from books, and that if they have trouble connecting with people in the real world that they can find a book that they can immerse themselves in, where they can feel safe and feel seen.
JF: Yes!
SB: And of course, all that is dependent on kids having access to books, which is sadly not always the case and threatens to become even more difficult these days, instead of easier. But Children’s Book Week is a reason to celebrate reading, and I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to support the efforts of Every Child a Reader to encourage kids to find a book that speaks to them and to connect with stories.
JF: Yes, oh that’s beautiful, me too. I think it’s going to be an amazing week.
When my son was younger, we would go to the library on Saturday, we’d choose the librarian picks and the books of his choice. We get to learn along with them, often not books I would have chosen as a kid, so we’re always learning together. It’s so important and we’re doing everything we can to preserve this.
SB: I love those stories you tell about one particular child responding to your book in a completely individual, profound way. That will stay with them for possibly their entire lives, in the way that certain books certainly have for me. I suspect they might’ve done for you, too. I was just in our building’s laundry room the other day and there was a Miffy book on the bookshelf which I must’ve had when I was a toddler, and when I opened it, there was this evocative rush of memory…Dick Bruna’s images are graphic and simple, but they are etched in my memory. Standing in the laundry, immersed in the pages of that book, I felt safe and warm and loved. The thought that our books might do that for one child ties back to your poster with the kid in the boat, reaching into an enormous ocean and making this tender connection with the sea turtle and that’s where it begins… that one connection can lead to everything else.
JF: Miffy! I love that, that you felt safe and warm and loved! That’s really it, isn’t it? And yes, absolutely, the connections that lead to everything else!
Check out Julie Flett’s lovely playlist, inspired by this year’s theme, “Sea Songs!”
Explore all Children’s Book Week materials.
All illustrations by Julie Flett for the 2025 Children’s Book Week poster.
ANNA KANG
CHRISTINA FERRARI
FELICIA HOLSTON-SLOANE
JASON CHIN
JULIA KUO
LAURA CARTER
NIKKI GRIMES
REV VALDEZ
SUSAN DENNARD
TYLER HILTON
Rene Alegria is the CEO of MundoNow, one of the largest independently owned Latino digital media platforms in the US. Responsible for over 30 Emmy Awards, he is asked to speak on the diversification of media and technology throughout the country. Born and raised in Tucson, AZ, and a life-long book lover, Alegria launched Rayo in 2000, the first Latino book imprint from a major publishing house. During his time there, Alegria helped shepherd hundreds of Latino authors into print.
Seema Yasmin is a medical doctor, author, and Emmy award-winning journalist. Her books paint vivid pictures about ourselves and how we interact with the world around us and include What the Fact?!: Finding the Truth in All the Noise; Muslim Women are Everything; the poetry collection, If God Is a Virus; The ABCs of Queer History, and more. Please visit 
Margarita Engle is an award-winning author, poet, and journalist born in Pasadena, CA, to a Cuban mother and an American father. Her works have brought to life fascinating characters and history in The Firefly Letters, The Surrender Tree, Wild Dreamers, The Sculptors of Light: Poems About Cuban Women Artists, and more. Engle served as the Poetry Foundation’s Young People’s Poet Laureate, was a professor of agronomy, and lives in California.
Leslie Gentile’s novel, Elvis, Me, and the Lemonade Stand Summer, won the City of Victoria Children’s Book Prize and the Jean Little First-Novel Award. She is a musician in The Leslie Gentile Band and lives on Vancouver Island on the traditional territory of the WSÁNEĆ people. Though not connected with a specific nation, Leslie is of Indigenous and settler heritage, and has Salish, Tuscarora, and Scottish ancestry.
Heydi Acuña, born in Bogotá, Colombia, spent her childhood caring for animals living in the streets. Just 10 years after immigrating to America as a refugee, Heydi and her husband Nash started Mercy Full Project in Tampa, Florida. Heydi knows reading her story to other children will teach them the value of caring for animals. She hopes that through this book and many others, everyone will learn to give animals the chance to live safe and happy lives.
Cheyenne M. Stone is a Paiute who lives on the Big Pine Reservation in Inyo County, California, and she is very active in tribal affairs. She practices and teaches jewelry making, basket weaving, and holistic medicine. Additionally, she is an ethnographer who is involved in K-12 education, and she enjoys writing for children.
Shawn Amos, as a kid, award-winning author, helped his dad, Wally “Famous” Amos, open the world’s first chocolate chip cookie store on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Formosa Avenue in Hollywood, California. Shawn is now a dad himself to three great kids, and he sings and plays harmonica as blues singer “The Reverend Shawn Amos.” Cookies & Milk is his first novel. He invites you to visit him online at 
Supriya Kelkar grew up in the Midwest, where she learned Hindi as a child by watching three Hindi movies a week. Supriya is a screenwriter and an international bestselling, award-winning author of middle-grade novels, like American as Paneer Pie and That Thing about Bollywood; the author-illustrator of And Yet You Shine: The Kohinoor Diamond, Colonization, and Resistance, and the illustrator of several picture books for kids, including My Diwali Light (written by Raakhee Mirchandani). She invites you to visit her at 
Tonya Simpson is a member of Pasqua First Nation and resides in Pigeon Lake, Alberta with her family. Though she is an anthropologist by day, her true love is the written word. Inspired by landscapes and spirituality, Tonya loves to explore what it means to be human through stories. She has written Forever Our Home and This Land Is a Lullaby for wee ones.
Jackson and Irwin: Follow Jackson & his imaginary best friend/plush thylacine Irwin around the world, from the rainforests of Puerto Rico to the Arctic Circle, where he will discover all about the habits and habitats of Blue-Tailed Ground Lizards, African Wild Dogs, Polar Bears, and more! Let the adventure begin!
Otto, Nan, & the Mummy Cat: Otto and Nan accidentally free a mummy cat from a pharaoh’s chamber! Their resulting adventures have them exploring the city, learning historical facts, saving each other from danger, and discovering truths about life in this fun flip graphic novel. Written by real-life siblings Kim Shearer and Chas! Pangburn, with art by Nic Touris.
Mac the Dog: I’m Mac and I live in Lake Placid, New York. You might know Lake Placid from the 1980 Winter Olympics and the “Miracle on Ice.” It’s also been home to 25 Ironman races. The swimming is my favorite part and I often train with the athletes. Danielle Lewis won the Ironman this year. I love to swim. Go, Dog, Go is a good book, but I’d like to see Swim, Dog, Swim. Or Sleep, Dog, Sleep. I am a happy dog.