With Mother's Day coming up this Sunday, Open Book: Toronto wanted to shine a spotlight on Marthe and Nell Jocelyn, the mother-daughter duo who worked together to write and illustrate Ones and Twos, released just in time for spring by Tundra Books. They talk about the experience of collaborating on their first children's book and share their memories of reading and creating together during Nell's childhood.
Don't miss Marthe Jocelyn's earlier feature on Open Book: Ontario, Five Things Literary: Stratford.
Open Book:
Tell us about your book Ones and Twos.
Nell Jocelyn:
It’s a picture book that involves counting, but only up to two. Things get complicated after that.
Marthe Jocelyn:
Two hours one afternoon in the life of one bird and two girls...
OB:
What was it like working on this project as a mother-daughter team?
MJ:
Surprisingly pleasant, especially as we were both contributing to the same pictures with next-to-no friction. In fact, it was a mother’s dream come true, though Nell might not feel the same way...
NJ:
Lovely. We didn’t have to be formal or polite, and we could work at home with snack trays and tea. We both have special skills (I know how to use a computer and my mother knows how to do everything else)
MJ:
Neither of us wanted to do the people, and certain pages were certainly dominated by one or other of us, but we mostly handed things back and forth. We had a few tense days toward the end when Nell had gone back to school and had to mail home some of the "minis" — the little icons that border the bottom of each page. As the days went by without the crucial envelope arriving, I got really worried that I was going to have to try to duplicate her work. Much harder with old eyes!
OB:
Have you ever done a collaborative creative project before? Why did you want to work together on this particular book?
NJ:
NJ: Does homework count?
MJ:
Nell made a brilliant and funny collaged ABC in her senior year of high school (called A Fatal Abcedarian) for a class called Dangerous Language. The illustrations were so sophisticated that I wanted to collaborate with her (and Tundra publisher, Kathy Lowinger, was keen to nurture a young talent). I wrote the words to give us a simple foundation. The art in Ones and Twos is a completely different style from the ABC, but that’s because we blended our ideas with a much sweeter storyline.
OB:
Did the two of you read together a lot as Nell was growing up? What about drawing together?
MJ:
We read together all the time, along with Nell’s sister, Hannah, and we listened to stories on tape. We also made stuff using scissors and glue far more often than we made drawings. Nell had a friend named Christina, and every time they played together after school, they drew pictures of a chemistry lab — page after page of science experiments and test tubes, with an ongoing story that I never quite followed.
NJ:
We read every night. I would choose The Jolly Postman (by Janet and Allan Ahlberg) just to torture her because it’s in rhyme. Neither of us can draw but we did a lot of art projects, crafts and stuff. And a lot of at-home science projects too.
OB:
When you are writing and illustrating a book for very young children as you were with Ones and Twos, how do you make sure that it will appeal to your young audience as well as to the parents who will be reading the books?
MJ:
Intuition, memory, a little experience...
NJ:
I have the mind of a small child so it’s easy to connect, and my mother knows a little about grown ups.
OB:
What books did you read as children that have stayed with you?
MJ:
I liked English novels with families full of children getting into scrapes or having adventures with magic. Two picture books I remember clearly were Chanticleer and a photographed story called Chendru, about a tiger cub raised by a boy in India.
After we’d finished Ones and Twos, I realized that the inclusion of little objects as a border was reminiscent of the picture books of Australian author Alison Lester, which I read endlessly to my daughters when they were little.
NJ:
The Jolly Postman, obviously, and Edward Gorey’s Gashlycrumb Tinies, McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal (till I found out Sal was a girl), Shel Silverstein’s poetry, everything by Roald Dahl....
OB:
What are you each working on now? Do you foresee another collaboration?
NJ:
I'm working on keeping my sanity until the end of the semester. The second I get a free minute we are discussing a new book.
MJ:
I’m working on a novel right now, but Nell and I are hoping to make another book this summer. We’ve got three strong ideas, so whichever one first has words in place will be the lucky winner.
Toronto-born Marthe Jocelyn is the award-winning author and illustrator of over 20 books. Her picture book Hannah’s Collections was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Illustration. Her novel Mable Riley won the inaugural TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award. Marthe Jocelyn is the 2009 recipient of the prestigious Vicky Metcalfe Award for her body of work. Visit her at her website, marthejocelyn.com.
Nell Jocelyn is the daughter of award-winning author and illustrator Marthe Jocelyn, and she is currently a student at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She is the recipient of the Visual Arts and the Photography Prizes from Young Arts New York — one of only two students in the country to win in two categories. Jocelyn has also worked as an assistant teacher at the Arts Alive summer camp in Stratford, Ontario.
For more information about Ones and Twos please visit the Tundra Books website.
Buy this book at your local independent bookstore or online at Chapters/Indigo or Amazon.
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