Kobi yamada biography for kids

Local author Kobi Yamada’s first children’s picture book, “What Do You Do With an Idea?,” has sold over 2 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 35 languages. The book, which turned 10 in October, follows the journey of a child’s idea — depicted by illustrator Mae Besom as a shiny golden egg — from its start as a thought to something that can change the world. 

Ahead of a signing event at Molbak’s in Woodinville on Nov. 30, The Seattle Times chatted with Yamada to discuss writing for children, how to encourage creativity and the special power of picture books.

How do you write a picture book? With so few words in them, how do you decide what to include?

For me, it’s really more about the purpose of the book. In my mind, I feel like we’re creating stories that can be sort of portable, taken with kids [and] people of all ages into their lives. I feel like the books that I write are kind of incomplete without the reader. Purposely with a picture book, you leave some space for the reader’s dreams and hopes, and even fears and anxieties, so my hope is that [“What Do You Do With an Idea?”] is a book that somebody could grow with. The whole purpose of the book is for kids to ask questions, and to maybe have deeper discussions about ideas. I think it’s really important that we talk about things like creativity and courage and the kind of life skills you might need, as we go to pursue things that we’re really interested in.

How do you take those really abstract ideas, and make them accessible for children — something they can wrap their arms around?

The main way, maybe, to do that is to find an access point that can embody that topic. If you can have a book that you can feel sort of in your heart, as well as in your head, that’s the best place to engage with a reader. If we can find ways to touch, move or inspire the reader, then an idea has a better ability for someone to remember it and maybe apply that in their life. And I have to say, a lot of the heavy lifting in a picture book is done by the illustrator — it really is such an important component of telling the story.

When you’re working with an illustrator, do you have an image of what you want the illustrations to look like as you’re writing?

I’m probably a little bit unique. I know a lot of publishers pick illustrators for a manuscript and they coordinate that, but I think it’s tremendously important for me to really have a strong dialogue with the illustrator. As I write the manuscript, I’m also writing out the scenes for each page and what I see. It’s not so much a prescriptive thing for the illustrator, it’s just so they can get an idea of what I was seeing when I was writing the book. A lot of times, they do something different or better with that, but I find the process of collaboration with these wonderful, talented, amazing artists to be my favorite part of the whole process. I sort of feel like it’s my birthday when the new files show up and I see what their sketches are, what they’re doing with it, because it’s really exciting to see how they have taken what was just flat words on a page and brought it to life with amazing imagery.

If you’re writing a picture book, how long does it take you to write the text? When do you start working with the illustrator?

It goes without saying that there isn’t really an exact formula or time — each book has its own journey. Sometimes an idea can come in, and you can write that in days. But, if I look at that particular manuscript, I probably have thought about those concepts for years. The editorial process is usually a couple of months on a picture book. We engage with the illustrator pretty early in the process. Once we’ve identified who that is, they take over the project. On average, an illustrator probably takes somewhere between six months to a year to illustrate a picture book.

Of course, that process doesn’t end there. It comes back to typesetting and production art, and it goes into prepress print productions [for] another three to six months. In total, we allow about two and a half years on a book to really flesh out the entire process from sort of idea generation to potentially seeing it show up in a bookstore. If people knew how many people touched and molded a picture book, I think they would be astounded at how many talented people needed to contribute their talents to the success of that book.

What does it mean to you to write inspirational books? How do you think about what you want to put out into the world? That seems like a lot of responsibility.

I am no smarter or better than anybody else on the planet, but I love questions and I love the power of questions and the power of conversation and discussing things. So I feel like the books are really less about bestowing wisdom. It sits a little bit more with me that I am helping to spark a deeper conversation. I don’t think asking, like, “What Do You Do With an Idea?” says everything to do with creativity. Not at all. But I think it’s a nice entry point, or a nice pebble that drops into the puddle and ripples out, that can carry on to deeper and more interesting conversations about ideas and their worth and about creativity. I feel like more than in a teaching realm, it’s a little bit more in the reminding realm, and a little bit more in the realm of finding a new way to have a conversation about something that has worth and value.