Season 4 Ep.74 She Illustrates the Point with guest Danica Novgorodoff 1-20-21

Our guest this week, Danica Novgorodoff, is a writer, graphic novelist, and illustrator who has written 3 of her own graphic novels but her work has received some extra special attention recently.  She is the illustrator of the new graphic novel edition of Jason Reynolds’ award winning young adult novel Long Way Down.  She believes she was chosen for the book partly because of her special use of watercolors as a medium for graphic art, which gives the work an ephemeral feel.  

Besides this project, she is also in the process of writing a graphic novel on climate change, several children’s books, as well as essays and illustrating a cookbook with a James Beard award winning cookbook author.  And did I mention she has a 3 year old and a one year old? As well as working at home during a pandemic?  We need to give this artist and mother a medal... or at least a glass of wine and an hour to herself.  

Danica talks to us about what steps she takes to adapt a book into a graphic novel, how becoming a mother totally changed her thoughts on how to write and illustrate a good children’s book, and how the pandemic hastened her family’s move away from Brooklyn back to some of her roots in Kentucky.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:
1- Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
2- My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
3- Island of the Blue Dolphins  by Scott O'Dell
4- Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
5- Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
6- Long Way Down (graphic novel) by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff
7- A Late Freeze by Danica Novgorodoff
8- The Undertaking of Lily Chen by Danica Novgorodoff
9- Refresh, Refresh by Danica Novgorodoff
10- Slow Storm by Danica Novgorodoff
11- Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
12- What I Hate from A to Z by Roz Chast
13- The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humbolt's New World by Andrew Wulf
14- The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humbolt and the Shaping of America by Laura Dassow Walls
15- Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
16- Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier