Victoria Kann, the creator of the bestselling Pinkalicious series, shines the spotlight on that spunky heroine’s younger brother, Peter, in a spinoff picture book, Peterrific. The title of the book, which Harper will publish on May 2, reflects the nickname that Pinkalicious gives her determined sibling after he fulfills his dream of building a tower of blocks high enough to reach the stars—and cleverly finagles his way back home.

Peter has a high-achieving mentor in his new role as a picture-book headliner. The books featuring Pinkalicious, who first appeared in the eponymous title in 2006, have been translated into eight languages and have sold more than 23 million copies worldwide.

Like Peter, Pinkalicious has had role models—Kann’s daughters, Christina, now 17, and Leigha, 15—and became a picture-book heroine by fluke. “It all began as an April Fool’s Day joke,” recalled Kann, who sent an email to family and friends that Christina had eaten so many frosted cupcakes that she had, literally, turned pink, and that the doctor had diagnosed her with “pinkatitis.”

“Since Christina, who was three at the time, loved everything pink, and insisted on wearing a princess dress every day, which I’d slip off her at night after she fell asleep, I wrote an email as a joke and sent it to friends and family on April Fool’s Day, which is a very special day for me,” Kann explained. “I’ve always loved telling stories that day without admitting they’re false, and everyone puts up with my weirdness on April 1st!” As a result of the tongue-in-cheek email, one of Kann’s friends cancelled her daughter’s play date with Christina after consulting with her child’s pediatrician, who had never heard of pinkatitis, but advised not exposing her daughter to Christina “just to be safe.”

Other recipients of Kann’s email had a more light-hearted response to Christina’s faux diagnosis, and encouraged her to transform the missive into a children’s story. The idea sat well with the author. “I’d been illustrating magazine covers and doing editorial illustrations, but that work had pretty much disappeared,” she recalled. “And I thought about my friends who were creating children’s books and were very happy doing that—and even had book projects lined up into the future.”

So she wrote (with her sister, Elizabeth Kann—also a doctor, but one “with a very good sense of humor”) and illustrated Pinkalicious, and peddled the project on her own when no agent would take her on as an unpublished author. Agentless to this day, Kann said she was “very, very blessed” when Maria Modugno, then at HarperCollins, took a shining to the girl who loves all things pink, and signed up her story.

Elizabeth Kann also coauthored the second book in the series, Purplicious, after which Victoria became the sole writer of the subsequent titles: Goldilicious, Silverlicious, Emeraldicious, and Aqualicious. Published in 2015, the latter was the first Pinkalicious title edited by Antonia Markiet, editorial director of HarperCollins Children’s Books, who became Kann’s editor after Modugno left the company for Random House in 2012.

It was a mantle Markiet was pleased to assume. “Before I met with Victoria, I sat down and read all of her books at once,” she said. “I had in my mind that the stories would be about colors, but I found so much more in them. The books are zany and entertaining, but they are not fluff. Each has if not a life lesson, at least a life moment that is conveyed with humor, and not at all with a heavy hand. There is something comforting about what is underneath each Pinkalicious story, and the books are very respectful of kids’ intelligence, which I think is why kids read them over and over again, and why adults like them as well.”

Peter Gets Top Billing

Markiet was surprised when she received Kann’s manuscript for Peterrific, since she hadn’t known that the author was planning on giving Peter his own story. “I never know what’s coming from Victoria—or when,” she explained. “I was expecting another Pinkalicious story, featuring a new color, but I was so happy that Victoria had decided that Peter deserved his own book.”

The editor was also pleased to find that Kann had added her signature subtext to Peterrific. “As the younger sibling, Peter wants to do something all by himself, and he builds his block tower high into the sky,” Markiet noted. “Peter is so proud when he accomplishes this—but then realizes it’s cold and dark, and he has no way to get down. He just didn’t think it through, or listen to his parents’ warnings, so he got himself in hot water. But he manages to get himself out of it, and finds his way back home to his family, who he knows are always there, as a kind of cushion, to support him.”

Independent problem solving is key to all of the Pinkalicious plots, Kann said. “There are always problems, often created by the characters themselves, and they have to solve them. In Silverlicious, Pinkalicious is not behaving in the best way, and has a bit of a tantrum that is not very pretty. But pretty is not what I’m about. She has to turn that behavior around by herself. And in Peterrific, Peter has to figure out a solution to his predicament—by himself.”

Kann knows from years of school and bookstore visits that Peter already has a loyal fan base among young readers. “There are always boys at my signings, who have read the books and ask questions, and I’ve met plenty of boys who say they like the color pink. I know a lot of people think pink is girly and not at all feminist, but that is not the story with my books. My books are about empowering kids—both girls and boys.”

HarperCollins is launching Peterrific with a 200,000-copy first printing, a preorder campaign that offers early buyers an art print featuring Kann’s sibling characters, a book trailer, a story time kit, and a curriculum guide. The publisher has also scheduled a nine-city author tour for Kann, as well as consumer advertising and social media promotion campaigns.

Kann stated that she would welcome the chance to further develop Peter’s character and explore his personality. “Peter’s a bit of a prankster,” she said. “He’s happy-go-lucky and has a great sense of humor, and I can imagine plenty of other things he might do—so we’ll have to see!”

Peterrific by Victoria Kann. Harper, $17.99 May ISBN 978-0-06-256356-9