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>> Well, this is a very special edition of the National Book Festival in a virtual space, and we are so pleased to be joined by a person who is in children's literature and in the world of ideas and imagination and ingenuity, Mr. Mo Willems. And, we are just excited to be in the room where it happens, Mo. Is this where it happens?
>> This is, well, this is where the production happens. This is where the drawings happen. This is where I create the books. This is the drawing table that doubles not only as a place for me to draw but a place to trace. It's also a light box, right? So, this is where the books are made. It's not where the books are grown. The books are grown in, I guess, my idea gardens, and those are back here. This is an idea garden.
>> It's nice.
>> It looks like a notebook. 
>> Yeah. And so, you see that stack there back there. That's about three years' worth of them, and they might be ideas for books or stories or drawings, but sometimes, they're just visual thoughts. Sometimes, they're just ways to make connections between line and color, and sometimes, they're about character. Let's see, like sometimes they're characters, and sometimes, they're words as well. But, it's all a mix, and so what I do is I take these, and I plant my ideas in here. And then, I put them away, and I come back over time, and I see how those ideas have grown. And, I sort of prune them and play with them until some of them are strong enough that I think that I can, you know, cut them down and burn them for profit. 
>> Now, what inspires you, though? I mean, you're in this space. This is, is this, do you have certain things that are there, or are ideas things? 
>> I think, though, ideas are more important than things. Again, ideas are things that are gross. They, what this studio does for me is it allows me to be alone in a controlled space that I can go crazy in, that I can listen to all the voices in my head. So, everything is very regimented in this space so that all I have to do is let my imagination play and go and move and do things. Here's the thing for me. This is the real inspiration. I believe that any work of literature or theater or art has three acts, and the first act is the buy-in. You decide to pull the book out of the shelf, and you're going to open that book. That's your decision, right? The second act is the work in the book. That's what I do, and the third act is what it sparks. The third act is what you do after you've read it, after you've heard it. Do you start creating like that? Does that inspire you to do something else? So, I don't have control over the first act. A teacher might have control over that. You might have control over that. I control the second act, and you control the most important thing, the third act, what that sparks in you. So, all I'm doing here is trying to build a bright enough spark so that when I'm not with you, you get to do something special.
>> Do you listen to music when you're in there? You mentioned voices or you hear things.
>> Voices are here. These are the characters. I can't listen, if I'm making a final drawing, I might be able to listen to some classical music. If I'm discovering characters and making sketches - here, let me show you a sense of the process. So.
>> You're going into, wow.
>> And so, here, a book, it's impossible to make the book. It, just, it's so difficult. There's so many things. It's impossible, but it is possible to do little things like make a drawing or color a drawing or scan a drawing. So, to me, this is a book. These are every single step that I take in the production of a book. This is a pigeon book, right here. So, it's the drawings, the layout, the blues, the scans, the checks, the revisions. So, in Elephant and Piggie, when I'm, after I've got ideas in my garden and I want to see if they stand, I make rough drawings that I'll show to my editor or something like that. This, I have to do in silence. This, I'm writing and creating and feeling, and I'm talking to Elephant and Piggie. They're telling me how they're going to react to the situation. Then, I'll make a sketch. This is a blue. Now, this, I'm still really thinking about the character. You notice there's more erasures and, like, where does the mouth go and what is the arm? And, I'm discovering over and over again by their body language who they are and what they mean to do in that moment, right? And then, when I've done that, I'll do a final, and this is more like a dance. This is just me and my pencil dancing, and it's not the same as the blue. And, this I can listen to classical music to, and I can get lost in just the connection between my hand and the paper. 
>> Now, we go back to the blue because you mentioned you're working. Look, and you've got me now starting.
>> Yeah. Right.
>> Where does the arm go? Where does this go? How do you, what is your process as you're working through these challenges or trying to problem solve about where the arm goes? How do you, how does that work?
>> I think honestly that a lot of drawing and a lot of humor, there's no way you can figure out what is funny. But, if you've done something for a long time, you can figure out what is not funny, right? And so, then you just do all the not funny, and you hope that what's left is funny. So, it's the same thing here. I don't know what a good drawing is, but I know what a not good drawing is. So, I just erase and erase and try new things until the drawing is no longer not not good. And, at that point, I have to trust you that you will agree and that you will take pleasure in what I've done. 
>> Now, you mention the taking pleasure and hopefully sparking something. Is that sparking, that ingenuity or the thoughts of the.
>> My audience, yes. 
>> Your audience. 
>> I am so excited about the idea that kids can use my characters to deal with what they're dealing with now, right? There's a lot of difficult things in the world, and particularly what we're dealing with now on all kinds of levels, social levels, the pandemic, all of this stuff. If you can deal with your fears or your concerns or your joys through the pigeon and make up your own pigeon story, that's a way to work out where you are and what you're doing. So, again, I'm trying to create these vessels that, at the end of the story, you don't say, "Oh, that was a fun story." You say, "Oh, I could do that, only mine would be a little different because of this or that or this or that." 
>> Is that ingenuity? Is that where that?
>> Yeah. If a [inaudible]. I mean what's really exciting for me is when I make a book, I'm only making 49% of it, and the magic is the 51% that the reader puts into it. And, not having control over that is pretty exciting. I like to think of my career as an instigator and that the only successes that I have are not in the books, but in what they spark in others. So, I may not know for ten or 20 years what my work really has done.
>> You mentioned helping young people, particularly very young. My colleague's son who's four, Liam. 
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He was so excited when he knew I was going to speak with you because he was going to be on site at the Book Festival, and now, the virtual. He wants to know. He wants to know how would pigeon deal with the virus, and it's been comforting to go back to the books.
>> And, I would hope that he would draw what that adventure is, you know. The pigeon needs a mask. The pigeon finds some hand sanitizer. Whatever.
>> Don't drink the sanitizer.
>> Right. Exactly. It's, again, like, for me, it's about creating a world in which these sparks can happen. I am fascinated by the responses to my books when the kids bring themselves into it. I, as a child, was lonely, not particularly happy, and having Charlie Brown and Peanuts there in my life allowed me to explore emotions that I don't know that I would have been able to explore in other ways. So, that's a service. If I can provide any service, that is the service that I'm able to provide.
>> So, where do those characters come from, Pigeon and Edwina and. 
>> Some are development over time. I mean, sometimes a book is a letter that you're writing to yourself that you want somebody else to buy. And, sometimes, you don't know that letter means. Sometimes, you don't actually understand the depth of what you're trying to express. And so, each of these characters, I'm sure they represent me in ways that I can't see, but I do believe that I'm a human being and that children share 99.999% of the same DNA as we do and that if something scares me and if something is a question that I don't have the answer to, it's probably a question that the children. So, I'm not writing answers. I'm writing questions. 
>> And, you would encourage them and hope that there would be a spark and a way for them to express what they're feeling because.
>> To ask their own question.
>> Is that helping them find their own voice.
>> Oh, yeah. I mean, look. Discovering that what you say matters is incredibly important. I mean, like, we're seeing this everywhere. Just being heard is essential. I also believe that children are ambassadors to creativity, and during this pandemic where a lot of parents were home with their children in ways that they hadn't necessarily always been at home with their children, they started doing things that they hadn't done for years, drawing, singing, dancing. And, I want to encourage that. I think the kids are fine. I really do. I think it's us, the old people, that need some help, that need to stop and look and listen to these ambassadors, these ambassadors of exploration, of creativity, of asking questions. It's really important.
>> And, the questions I would imagine they're asking now are really what is happening and to give the adults in their lives a way to have that conversation with them. 
>> Absolutely. And, also to have the conversation of I'm not sure. I don't understand how the world got into the position that it got into. I don't know whether to be optimistic or pessimistic. I'm figuring this out as well. I mean, it's very important to remind, I think, everyone that we're all growing. We're all like ideas. I am not the guy that I was ten years ago and thank goodness. Right? I want to be moving into being a better person, a more creative person, a kinder person. If we expect that from our children, we are obligated to do at least that much in our own lives. 
>> And, what about the adults who work with children and they are saying, okay, what this ingenuity that you are, you know, promoting starts to seem like something that the adults don't understand, and you, do you ask them to, ask the child, "What is this?" [inaudible] 
>> I, well, there are two things maybe two things to this question. If I give, if you look at a child's drawing, children tend to draw chronologically. So, I don't ask a kid, "What is that drawing?" I ask a kid, "What did you draw first?" "Oh, I drew the guy, and then I drew the cape between the guy's a hero. And then, I drew the building because the guy's flying, and then I drew this." And, so there's a narrative that comes out of what those drawings are, and that can be very exciting and also rewarding to ask a kid. Not to say, "That's good. I like what you did." [inaudible] Everybody, kids get liked all the time. Kids are always being told that they're liked. Kids are very seldom listened to. That's what they want. So, what did you draw first? How did you draw them? How did that change what that was? Why did you use that color? That's exciting. 
>> Very often, and I've been in the situation where the first thing I say when I see a drawing by one of my young friends is, "What is that?" The way you framed it in terms of how to engage and say, "What did you draw first?"
>> Well, you're a children's librarian. You are on the ground floor. You're on the front line.
>> So, that's, and speaking of, though, being a children's librarian, most public libraries are in a situation where they're closed physically, and that's at a time when they are, it's usually are open to help and be there with the books and to do that. And, also, preparing for school. Now, you, your most recent book with Pigeon is about going to school. Do you think that'll help kids?
>> Yeah, you know, every book is a fundamental question. As I was saying before, and I'll be honest, that book came sort of as a preview to these times. I, in the last several years, have been having to confront uncertainty. Uncertainty is a very difficult thing to confront. You wake up every morning, you don't know what's going to happen next. You don't know there's going to be terrible news or worse news, or maybe good news. And so, I realized if this is a difficult emotion for me to deal with, imagine what it must be like to be a kid. You don't know what it is. You don't know what every day is going to be. We, this is about five years ago, we moved to Paris, and people said for one year. And, people said, "What was it like?" Said, "Second grade." It's exactly like that. I, every day, I didn't know what was going to happen next. I didn't quite understand what was going on, and I needed to nap a lot because it was exhausting. But, it was magic and exhausting at the same time. 
>> So, school can be like that, second grade.
>> Second grade. You just don't know what's going to happen next. 
>> And, you are progressing. Now, your new series Elephant and Piggie, how do you see that working into what's going on now and.
>> Elephant and Piggie are, a lot of books about friends are about the fun of friendship, and Elephant and Piggie is about the work of friendship. And, friendship is work, and friendship is misunderstanding, and friendship is apologizing, and that is really obviously right now important to stop to listen to see things from a different perspective. Often, in Piggie, it's not two Piggies. It's not two Elephants. They come from different cultures. They come from different places, and they have to learn to be friends. So, hopefully, that engenders an openness when you do come across someone who you don't think is like you in some way. 
>> Mo, I'm smiling because I can remember third grade and a friend I had, Ethel, and we fell out, as they say.
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I wish I had had this book to kind of, because friendship is work, and you don't think about it, and you don't, and to help with young people with that. Now, the imagination part, and young people, especially kids, are very imaginative. Is there something in what they experience that adults lose, and we could benefit from? You mentioned that more adults are doing more with their children now. 
>> I do think so. I think that we often frame imagination in terms of imagination can take you anywhere you want to go. Well, that's advertising. Imagination takes you some place you didn't know existed, right? That's what's magical. I don't sit down and say, "Well, you know, I'm going to come up with an idea about an elephant and a pig." I sit down and I say, "I'm going to ask some questions, and I'm going to draw, and I'm going to get frustrated. I'm going to fold up the paper and throw it away, and I'm going to keep going." And then, I'll end up some place I never could have imagined. And, I find I take pleasure in the kids in my neighborhood. Their imagination is not goal oriented. It's process oriented. They discover, they're just doing it. They don't care where it ends up. And so, I don't like to frame the idea of, like, you can through your imagination get from A to B. I think you can, with your imagination, get from A to strawberry pizza.
>> And, that's the point of it, that you can imagine something that didn't exist before. 
>> Yeah.
>> And, that, is there a thrill of that creation when you realize that this is something really magical? It never existed. 
>> There are two thrills. Yeah, the one thrill is it didn't exist before, and then the next thrill is like the thrill of having a kid who goes out to university or out in the world. My characters are doing things I could never have imagined and that I no longer have control of them, and that people are using them to do what is necessary with them. That's exciting. 
>> And, it's not threatening at all.
>> That's interesting. No. 
>> It's exciting that that. Well, you are such an inspiration for children's librarians, teachers, parents, and I just want to thank you for giving us some tools and some tips on how to help nurture that. You mentioned that idea garden. I want to get back to those notebooks and ideas aren't things. They're.
>> No. They're more important than things. They're growth.
>> And, you have to nurture them.
>> You have to nurture them, and you have to trust others to help you nurture them. You know, I show stuff to my family. I show stuff to editors. You have to trust in that process, and I think you have to be more afraid of not having tried something than you are afraid of failing. Failing is only an example that you tried something. It's an amazing thing to have done because people who don't try don't fail. 
>> That's why they don't try.
>> The do not. They do nothing. 
>> Mo, thank you so much. This.
>> Dr. Heyden, I've got to say real quick. The most important word in any library is "open." And, I want to thank you for keeping the library open digitally, the conversations that you're sparking. It is so great to be living in a very difficult time with a very open library, and I thank you for your work.
>> Well, thank you, and you know what's in the library. Your books. 
>> Excellent. 
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