It’s a nearly universal childhood experience: being outdoors as storm clouds gather and the wind picks up, feeling a mix of awe and excitement with a slight undercurrent of fear. Some can’t get inside fast enough, but for others, the pull of nature’s elemental power is strong. In Caldecott Medalist Brian Floca’s new picture book Island Storm, illustrated by Hans Christian Andersen Award-winner Sydney Smith, due out from Neal Porter Books next June, two young people find themselves outside as a storm brews, testing the limits of their bravery and their trust in each other. The cover is seen here for the first time.
Floca conceived and wrote the story while on an artist’s residency on Peaks Island in Maine It sat in a drawer as he worked on other projects and pondered how he would illustrate it. “I couldn’t see my own drawings for it,” he said. Although Floca has illustrated a number of books by other authors and both written and illustrated half a dozen of his own, he had never worked another illustrator on a manuscript he wrote. He and Smith had long been both friends and admirers of each other’s work. When Smith visited Floca’s Brooklyn studio one afternoon, it occurred to Floca that maybe the project had life in it with Smith as illustrator. Smith agreed to have a look, and the visuals that had eluded Floca began to come into focus for Smith. “I immediately wanted to work on it,” Smith said.
The children at the center of the story venture out when there is only a hint of a storm on the horizon. Floca’s evocative, sensory text and Smith’s dynamic, portentous painted illustrations take readers along as the characters skirt up against the “edge of danger,” as Floca puts it, while the sky darkens, the waves pound, the sea tosses up spray, and the wind howls. The children continue to explore, undaunted and put their confidence in each other as the weather becomes increasingly threatening.
The children’s journey is very risky and exciting, Floca said, but confronting it from within the pages of a book allows kids to explore intense emotions while remaining safe. The overarching message of the book, though, Smith said, is that caring for each other provides us with a shelter in any storm.
While working on the book, Smith and Floca felt right away that it would find a home with Neal Porter, publisher of Neal Porter Books at Holiday House. Porter embraced it from the start, calling the story a “classic quest.” With each passing moment as the storm builds, the characters come face to face with peril. But they are also reassured. Although their journey is independent, the children’s mother is at home, providing a comforting presence when they make it to safety. When the storm passes, it’s not just the children who feel relief, but the parent. This quality makes the story an ideal read-aloud, in which kids and caregivers both experience emotions together but are also able to think beyond their own experiences. From an aesthetic perspective, Porter said the combination of Floca’s carefully composed words and the loose, expressionistic illustrations by Smith make a resonant combination. Neal Porter Books creative director Jennifer Browne said that although Smith’s illustrations appear spontaneous, each has been through dozens of drafts to hit the right emotional notes for the story.
With two such accomplished picture book talents working together, there was no clash of ideas, Floca said. He was happy to have Smith’s vision for his story, and Smith said the project was a “gift” that felt like a natural progression of the projects he has worked on, recently including My Baba’s Garden by Jordan Scott. The collaborators were completely united on the tone of the book and its message, which celebrates the strength and beauty of nature, the thrill of being outdoors in both fair and foul weather, and most of all, as Smith said, that no matter what happens, “we will be OK because we have each other.”
Island Storm by Brian Floca, illus. by Sydney Smith. Holiday House/Porter, $18.99 June 3 ISBN 978-0-8234-5647-5
