PICTURE BOOK GUEST POST & REVIEW : Our Favorite Day of the Week by Ashley Franklin & Rahele Jomepour Bell
Author bio also provided by the publisher.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Musa and his friends return to share their favorite days of the week and why each one is special to them in this sweet and heartwarming picture book sequel to Our Favorite Day of the Year.
Musa is excited to see his classmates at the start of the week, but when he sees Zohra looking sad and asks her why, he discovers Zohra is missing her favorite day of the week! She loves Tuesday, when her neighborhood sanitation workers come around. Musa’s other classmates have favorite days
Zadie’s favorite day is Thursday, when her grandma picks her up from school. Mo’s favorite day is Friday, when he and his family have Shabbat dinner. Moíses’s favorite day is Sunday, when he gets to play fútbol with his cousins.
In this charming story of friendship and celebrating differences, young readers can discover how entering discussions with an open mind and sharing parts of yourself bring friends together. And a note about the origins of the days of the week at the end of the book will delight children as they identify their favorite day!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR
GUEST POST
Behind the Pages: Making OUR FAVORITE DAY OF THE WEEK
by Ashley Franklin & Rahele Jomepour Bell
Ashley Franklin
Our Favorite Day of the Week is the second book in a three-book series. Stepping in to continue a series that had such a warm reception for its first book was daunting. I wanted the characters to feel familiar, but I also wanted their individual personalities to shine a bit brighter.
As writers, we are often told to find our own voices. After all, that’s what makes us unique. Yet, here I was wrestling with the desire to mimic the voice of A.E. Ali while establishing my own author voice for this book. After weeks of frustration, I finally realized the voice that I needed to be listening to was that of the characters. Based on what the characters did and said in Our Favorite Day of the Year, I created character profiles for each one.
Some characters naturally had more details to pull from than others. When this happened, I crafted that character’s personality in a way that it would enrich the dynamics of the overall friend group. My confidence in this approach was strengthened by the faith that my editor, Celia Lee, had in me and the faith that I had in Rahele, the illustrator, to pull it all together beautifully (just like she’d done previously).
Rahele Jomepour Bell
I make pictures for children's books and teach illustration at Iowa State University, where I lead our new BFA program in Illustration. My newest picture book, OUR FAVORITE DAY OF THE WEEK, is a companion to my first book, OUR FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR. I want to share how this one came together, from research to sketches to final art.
The idea started with the title of the book: why do we call the days what we call them?
In English, most weekday names come from old Norse and Roman gods — Sunday for the sun, Monday for the moon, Tuesday for Tyr, Wednesday for Woden (Odin), Thursday for Thor, Friday for Frigg, and Saturday for Saturn.
I loved this bit of history so much that I built the endpapers around it: a quilted, stitched-look calendar with a small symbol for each day's namesake. It felt like the right way to open and close a book about why days matter to us. I also tried to picture symbols beyond the Latin names of the days of the week, and included those inside the story: symbols of why kids like a specific day, like football, tacos, the pool, a heart, etc.
The story follows a group of children on their
walk to school, each sharing their favorite day of the week and why. One loves
Thursday because it means art projects with her grandmother. One loves Friday
because it means Shabbat dinner with family. Even their teacher joins in, and
her answer surprises them. Each child's answer comes from a different culture
or family tradition, which mattered to me; I wanted young readers to see many
ways to mark time and celebrate the week.
Before any final art, I worked through the
whole book in small thumbnail sketches, page by page, so I could test the
pacing: where a spread should go quiet, where it should fill with a crowd of
kids, where we slow down to focus on one face. Especially, I needed to show the
kids belong to the community; I loved showing it through moving from one scene
to another, on the way to school.
Once the thumbnails felt right, I moved to character design.
This book needed a new cast, distinct from the main characters in OUR FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR, so I spent real time re-drawing each one: Zadie, Luna, Malik, Zohra, and their classmates until their personalities showed up in how they stood, not just how they looked.
This book needed a new cast, distinct from the main characters in OUR FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR, so I spent real time re-drawing each one: Zadie, Luna, Malik, Zohra, and their classmates until their personalities showed up in how they stood, not just how they looked.
The cover came last; the most exciting part!!!
And it was its own puzzle. This book doesn't have one main character; it's an ensemble, a whole group of kids each with their own favorite day, so the cover needed to hold all of them at once without feeling crowded or flat.
In one sketch, I arranged the group like a class photo: some children up front, some peeking in behind, arms around each other, all smiling out at the reader, with the title arching over their heads.
But with the help of master Laurent Linn, we found that it didn't say anything about the favorite day. So, we moved to the next sketch.
In this one, students are guided to the school with the help of their teacher, each holding an object representing their favorite day, but it didn't work either because its composition was similar to the covers of other books related to the school theme, so we moved to the next sketch.
With Art Director Lauren Linn's guidance, we agreed on the final cover sketch, attached here. In this one, we can see the whole classroom, students, and their favorite day symbols. And of course, the title of the book can be nicely pasted on the board.
REVIEW
Our Favorite Day of the Week not only highlights the various days of the week and why individual students love that particular day but it also highlights a variety of different cultures and experiences. Six students from Ms. Gupta's class meet up on their way to school. As each student joins the group they add to the continuing discussion about favorite days of the week as well as the activities that make those days so memorable for them. The adorable illustrations created using digital brushes and hand-printed textures beautifully honor each student's interests and uniqueness. A fun book to inspire discussions both at home and in the classroom. The back matter includes additional information about calendars and where the names of each day of the week originated.
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