Sometimes, really annoying friends turn out to have hidden virtues. That’s the discovery Knight Owl makes in Knight Owl and Early Bird, the sequel to Christopher Denise’s solo debut Knight Owl, which won a 2023 Caldecott Honor. In the new story, aspiring knight Early Bird shows up one snowy morning just as Knight Owl heads to bed after a long night guarding the castle. Early Bird is a pain; she pesters Knight Owl with fan talk (“I want to be a Knight Owl just like you!”) and peppers him with silly questions (“Are there snacks at work?”). But when Early Bird doesn’t return one evening and Knight Owl encounters trouble, help arrives from an unlikely source. PW spoke with Denise from his home in Rhode Island about excavating the story, working with digital charcoal, and paring down dialogue to a single sentence.
Were you thinking about a sequel as you made Knight Owl, or was it only after that book did so well that you began tossing around sequel ideas?
When I made the first book, I never imagined that it was going to take off, and I certainly didn’t entertain the idea of a sequel. I just wanted it to be as good as it could be. I had the luxury of time—it was in the middle of the pandemic—and I thought, “I’m going to make something for myself that’s fun and funny and no one’s going to pay attention to it.” There were too many ideas to fit into the book; there was and is plenty of material. But when I rounded the corner on Knight Owl, I thought it was one and done.
Knight Owl is so good at staying calm and finding common ground in the first book. Did you set out to make it a heroic tale?
It was ironic that upon publication I started to receive these letters talking about the virtues of the book—honor, strength, and courage, and all the rest. I was just trying to tell this fun story of this kid who wanted to do this thing.
It’s interesting to hear you describe Knight Owl as a kid. Can you say more?
It’s an archetypical kid, like Max from Where the Wild Things Are. He’s sophisticated, complex, he has this vast imagination, but there’s still a childlike aspect to him. Like in the movie Big, where the main character gets caught up in the serious nature of his job but really, he’s just a kid—that’s what I wanted. I wanted Early Bird to represent a reminder for Knight Owl that he is just a kid, and to remind readers that even in the smallest and most annoying character, there’s great strength and wisdom.
Was there a sense of pressure as you started the second book?
My editor [Christy Ottaviano] and I agreed that it had to be as good as the first one or we would shelve it. Young readers were invested in the storyline and the character; there was more responsibility to those readers.
You’ve told the story of your daughter suggesting Knight Owl as a character at family pizza night. Was there a similar moment of inspiration for Early Bird and Knight Owl?
That’s sort of tough to answer. Early Bird appeared on the page pretty much as you see her. That thing writers talk about, when they’re hearing their characters speak and they have a life of their own, that was very much a part of this. There was a sketch I did of Knight Owl holding a torch and looking at little footprints in the snow, and it gave rise to all these questions. Who made these footprints? Where are they going? It was the feeling that these storylines are continuing, and you have to be present enough and patient enough to pick up on them.
And then comes the craft part, later on. It’s that time Stephen King refers to as an excavation, where you’re trying to excavate as much of the story in as intact a form as possible. Sometimes you need a bulldozer, and sometimes a toothbrush, but you have to get as much of it out of the ground as possible with your craft.
Do stories arrive for you more in images or in words?
It changes. I’ll create thumbnails and build it out from there. Some scenes start more on the language side. But by and large, it does start with those smaller thumbnails. Then I overwrite to help build it out, and then I refine the thumbnails. I’m thinking, “I don’t have to say all that—I can just change this thumbnail.”
That’s why the digital charcoal is so wonderful. When I was working in [actual] pastel and charcoal, there came a point where you had to decide where you were going. You were building up layers and colors and you ran into the physical limitations of the medium. But with digital, I can flip compositions, change lighting, change proportions. I can go back and fix expressions, fine-tune if time permits. When the clock is ticking, at a certain point I have to force myself to close it down. It’s like Tim Gunn in Project Runway: “We’re going with this. We’re going to make it work.”
What is writing dialogue like for you? Does it come pretty easily?
In the first book, when Owl wants to become a knight, I had written all this dialogue of him with his parents. There’s a little bit of Seinfeld in the subtext. I did that to flesh out the mother and the father. There were these “Whadddya want to be a knight for?? It’s dangerous!” kinds of lines. They were like George Costanza’s parents.
And then I thought, “Okay, this is way too long.” But that type of exploration of dialogue informs my picture-making. I try to get all that attitude into the expressions, the body language. That allows me to go back with my editor and pare down the language so we can end up with one line: “Since the day he was born, Owl had one wish.”
Knight Owl and Early Bird do have a wide range of facial expressions. Is character design something you have a natural gift for?
I’ve learned it. I think it’s a process of pantomime and method acting, where you find yourself making the face that you imagine them making as you’re drawing it. It’s part of the unwritten visual communication. If I’m not utilizing that, I’m missing an opportunity to communicate, and that can add depth to the reading experience.
Did you ever think of doing character design for animation?
Sure! There was a time when I was back and forth to Burbank. I did some work as a visual development artist, and I did work for films that were in consideration for Blue Sky [Studios], and a few others. It was a great deal of work, but it was fun. The part of the process that I was working in was focused on being a good communicator and storyteller, so it wasn’t that different from illustration. It was about finding story beats that would make interesting moments and would help guide the course of the film. The pace was different. You had to work very quickly. You were delivering roughs at the end of every week.
You waited a long time to write a book of your own; you had already illustrated more than 20 books before you wrote Knight Owl, right?
That’s the best graduate school on earth! I was working with and learning from the best—Jane Yolen, Alison McGhee, Brian Jacques, Anike Denise, and Rosemary Wells—working with all these manuscripts.
It has to be the right time and moment before you step in and say, “I have a story to tell.” But during the pandemic all the pressure was off. I stopped trying to make the book I thought I should make. I thought, “No one’s going to see this thing, anyway.” It reminded me that that space was there to do something that you like, that feels like fun—the kind of book I wanted to read to my daughters when they were younger.
Some creators show their work to others early on, and others wait until they have something they feel is more finished. Who do you share your work with, and when?
It depends on the project. Both Emily [van Beek, his agent, of Folio Literary Management] and Anike [Denise, his wife, also a picture book writer] were very involved in fine tuning. Anike is the first person to read my books. She is a brilliant writer and editor – she’s tough! I should say, “discerning.” She will tell me something is not working, but never how to fix it. Emily knows books—not talking just about what will sell in a commercial sense. She understands picture book writing.
Both Emily and Anike... certainly, they help me with my grammar, which is terrible, and Christy does, too. She’s very much of the old school of editors. She’s personable and hands-on, and we can work through certain things together. She’ll suggest some changes, and I’ll send a message back saying, “Can you take a five-minute phone call?” And I’ll read it to her and say, “This is why this should stay,” and she’ll say, “Oh, I understand,” and we’ll leave it in.
I refer to all of the books as “our books” because there’s a team of hardworking people that go through these. They look at the details and they say, “You know, the shoulder pad is a little different in this one—did you mean to do that?” Or, “Technically, this should be capitalized.” It takes a team of people with perspective.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on a Knight Owl board book for young readers. It’s a new story, not an adaptation. It’s for very young listeners, and it’s been a cool challenge. It’s a shorter format; the language is very direct, and there is some fun visual storytelling. And I’m also working on the next Knight Owl picture book.
Knight Owl and Early Bird by Christopher Denise. Little, Brown/Ottaviano, $18.99 Oct. ISBN 978-0-316-56452-6
