A bedtime story for Dan Holland’s children has become a children’s book about the night sky, colorfully illustrated by two local artists. In keeping with its celestial theme, “Twinkle the Star Mouse” is releasing in time for this spring’s total solar eclipse.
Holland has always loved writing but only found his passion for children’s books while reading to his kids.
“I think they’re so incredibly creative. And I think a great children’s book, an adult can enjoy as well,” he said.
After reading the same stories for a while, he started telling new ones. This was the origin of Twinkle.
“One of the stories that I used to tell my kids to try to teach them about the science of the night sky and the mythology of the night sky was ‘Twinkle the Star Mouse.’ He’s just a little mouse that jumps into the stars and has these crazy adventures,” Holland said.
In book form, the story is accompanied by astronomy facts in the margins to give adults something to learn and young readers more to discover, he added.
Holland wrote “Twinkle the Star Mouse” under the pen name E.E. Arrendale to avoid confusion with his other novels, which are meant for adults. He went through Blue Rooster Company to develop and market the project, and founder Gaëlle Freer connected him with local painter Rose Anne Stanard as a potential illustrator. Stanard could not commit to the illustrations but recommended her daughter Samantha Klotz for the job, and offered her graphic design experience for layout and formatting instead. The duo proved to be a boon to Holland.
“I have Rose Anne, who’s a designer, and her collaboration with Sam, it’s just invaluable,” he said. “... You’ve got to work with people that are going to be dedicated to the project as well and they were super dedicated and they’re excited about it.”
Klotz works full-time as a special ed paraprofessional, and her family lives on a farm. The only time for her to draw and paint was at night, after work, chores and putting her daughter to bed. It was essentially a fourth job, she noted.
She described her artistic process as mixed media “mixed in every possible way.” The characters and scenes set on earth were drawn in Crayola pencil, which she chose for its soft blending and affordability.
“I could get 120 different colors from Crayola for so reasonable (a price)... I was ripping through them, especially greens and blues,” she recalled.
The world of the night sky was created with dramatic ink washes punctuated by stars made with chalk pastels and paint pens. Stanard combined these with the pencil drawings in Photoshop.
“I think that’s one of the really cool things about this is that the backgrounds are very loose, uncontrolled, but (with) very specific constellations that she managed to get in there. And then the pencil drawings are very controlled, very precise and very accurate, and so the combination of the two is really nice, textural contrast,” she said.
Holland was a big fan of how visual effect this gave Twinkle’s journey.
“She’s got these very detailed, very natural feeling ones when he’s on Earth, and then he jumps and you’re in a fantasy realm,” he said.
Klotz backed her art up with careful research on constellations and mythologies, according to Stanard, and found creative ways to show Twinkle in relation to much larger characters.
“I think one of the biggest challenges was that you have this little tiny mouse, and you have to figure out a way to show this little tiny mouse as the primary thing in the picture, but there are these huge things,” she said. “So there’s lots of foreshortening, which is a little tricky to do under the best of circumstances, but she just does it.”
The release of “Twinkle the Star Mouse” coincides with April’s total solar eclipse. This was unintentional, Klotz explained, because she took a hiatus from the project when her father passed away. When she resumed, she and Holland realized the eclipse gave them a solid deadline and coordinated with the story.
Klotz’s dad influenced the book in another way.
“By accident, very subconsciously,” she said, she drew the moon to look like him.
Writing “Twinkle the Star Mouse” has taught Holland much, he said, and introduced him to the business side of publishing.
“The most important thing is that you put a lot of artistic creativity into what you’re doing, but at the end of the day it’s cold, hard business,” he said. “The people that you’re going to deal with — publishers, agents, whatever — they’re all business people. People like good ideas, but to be successful you’ve got to be prepared to work and invest and put the book out there, and I’m just starting that journey.”
He plans to submit the self-published edition to publishing houses who might be interested in it. His second children’s book, “A Simple Idea,” is set to release later this year and will follow a similar path.
Between science, story and art, Holland believes “Twinkle the Star Mouse” can be enjoyed by all ages.
“It seems simple on the surface, but a lot of what is happening in this story is the communication of universal values of adventure, of courage, of keeping your word. And it’s wrapped up in a story and a character,” he said. “I would just encourage people when they look at the book, when they look at any children’s book, to look below the surface of what the book is actually doing and communicating.”
Holland will hold a book reading from 1-3 p.m. Saturday at the Poplar Bluff Municipal Library Main Branch. A reception for the book with Klotz and Stanard will be held at the Margaret Harwell Art Museum at 6 p.m. April 6.