Of Bunnies and Boredom: How My Pandemic Blues Fueled The Fourth Escargot Book

Plus Some Free and Discounted Escargot Goodies For You & Your Snailentine

Escargot, the beautiful French star of his own picture book series, is my alter ego. He’s every writer’s ego, in a way: alternately insecure and egotistical, shy and extroverted, desperate for the affection of his readers yet determined to do his own thing regardless. Escargot, c’est moi. Et toi. Et tout le monde.

For this reason, when I sit down to write a new Escargot book, I’m usually channeling some of my own psyche, sometimes in the most meta way possible. (A Book For Escargot, for example, is literally about the challenge of writing a book.) But in the Spring of 2022, when I began writing Escargot and the Search for Spring, which comes out this week, I wasn’t feeling particularly interested in said psyche. It was, you’ll recall, the waning days of the pandemic. I’d been cooped up with my own thoughts and feelings for two stultifying years. In that time, I’d written three other books (Love Escargot, The Book of Stolen Time, and the first drafts of Accountable) and I was badly in need of fresh inspiration.

But deadlines don’t care about your feelings. I needed to write an Escargot book, and my editor had helpfully suggested a spring book, maybe with a bunny it? I emailed Sydney Hanson, the series illustrator, to ask if there was anything she was particularly eager to draw. She replied with some adorable ideas, including Escargot in various kinds of winter garb. So that’s what I had to work with at the start: a bunny and Escargot playing in the snow.

Actually, I did have one other thing: my aforementioned psyche. Escargot is my alter ego, after all. And when I checked in with him, he told me he was suffering from a terrible case of ennui, which he defined as “the feeling you have when you are bored with everything.” Boy, could I relate. I was sick of my house. Sick of my routines. Sick of my own brain. Sick of the repeating cycles of new variants and covid lockdowns. Maybe that was something to work with?

I knew—or at least hoped—that when the book came out, the pandemic would be a distant memory. So, in the story, I had Escargot be tired of being cooped up all winter and bored with winter pastimes like making snow snails and drinking hot chocolate. Like me, he was ready to go out into the world in search of some color and excitement. So now I had a goal or desire, the start of a plot. What next?

When I raised the possibility of adding a bunny to the book, Escargot was absolutely opposed to the idea. He worried that the bunny would be cuter than he was and win all the affection from readers. So that went in too: Escargot’s determination to keep the bunny out of the book. And thus a story was born, featuring a bunny, a jealous snail, some snow, and a terrible case of ennui.

In my memory, the book practically wrote itself once I had those ingredients in place, but when I went back to look at early drafts I discovered there were, er, seventeen of them. (Writing a book is a lot like childbirth; you tend to forget how much pain was involved once you’re holding that baby.) A lot of those revisions had to do with a flight of fancy I’d included at the end, involving extraterrestrial snails and moon rabbits and god knows what else. It was an excuse to make a bunch of space jokes that I thought were hilarious but that my critique partners kindly informed me weren’t worth the logical questions they raised. Forced back down to earth, I found a much more satisfying ending waiting for me. I won’t spoil it for you, but it contains a tiny lesson about the relationship between mood and food. Order your copy here.

This may be my favorite Escargot adventure yet, thanks in part to Sydney’s adorable bunny, but I admit that I love every book in the series. Is that egotistical of me? Well, Escargot is my alter ego, as I’ve said. So I also desperately hope you like them too!

Just In Time for Valentine’s Day: Free & Discounted Escargot Goodies for You and Your Snailentine

• You can download free printable Escargot Valentines here and here.

• Love, Escargot is now available in a super affordable board book edition, as well as in hardcover and audio book editions.

• Even more affordable: the E-Book version of Love, Escargot is downpriced to $2.99 for the whole month of February.

  

  In Other News…

• My YA nonfiction narrative, Accountable, had a very good start to the year, winning the Gold Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults from the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), the Golden Poppy in Children’s Nonfiction from the California Independent Bookseller’s Association (CALIBA), and being named a Finalist for both a Golden Kite Award and the Russell Freedman Award for Nonfiction for A Better World from the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

• I have a weekly newsletter devoted to topics related to Accountable and The 57 Bus. If you’re not already a subscriber, you can check it out here.

• I’ll be celebrating spring with Escargot at Linden Tree Books in Los Altos, CA on Sunday, March 24 at 10:30 am. Come join us!