Author Mara Rockliff received an Ezra Jack Keats Honor for her book My Heart Will Not Sit Down. She lives in Pennsylvania. After two decades of illustrating book covers, Iacopo Bruno has now illustrated his first picture book. He lives in Italy. Both author and illustrator do their own research, and here they describe their process of working on Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France.
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Mara, how did you come across this story, and what about it appealed to you?
Mara Rockliff: I first came across the story in an article by history and science writer Stephan A. Schwartz. I knew right away it was a winner. I mean, you've got Franklin, who was way more fun than any other founding father. You've got Dr. Mesmer in his purple robe, waving his magic wand and claiming to control a spooky invisible force. You've got all the glamour of Paris before the [French] Revolution, with the ladies of the court in those amazing wigs. And then, with all this color and excitement, you've got a truly significant moment in scientific history, and a fascinating way to introduce young readers to the scientific method. I couldn't pass it up.
Did you know from the beginning that you'd need to spell out the Scientific Method before you told your story in full?
MR: That might be the only detail that survived from my first draft! I knew the scientific method would be at the heart of the story, and I thought Franklin's kite experiment was a great way to show how the scientific method works.
Is this the first instance of the placebo effect, as far as you know?
MR: I think doctors always understood that if they couldn't cure their patients, giving them some kind of harmless pill or salve or liniment could make them happier. (Placebo is Latin for "I shall please.") But the Franklin Commission is credited with inventing the "blind experiment" to demonstrate the placebo effect. And, of course, this was also when the West first discovered hypnosis. So that's pretty cool, too.
This story has a fair amount of science in it. Did that make a difference in how you told the story?
MR: This story was very challenging to write. I went through seven drafts before it went out to my publisher, and most of them were just a total mess. What made it hard for me was finding the right balance. How much history and how much science? How much Franklin, how much Mesmer? How much could I simplify for kids while sticking to the facts? It's funny, because looking at the finished book, everything in it seems inevitable to me now. But I tried a lot of things that didn't work before it finally clicked into place.
Iacopo, how is making a picture book different from creating a book cover?
Iacopo Bruno: Book covers summarize everything in just one frame: you have to represent the essence of the story and the characters. In picture books, you have more room to represent the characters' personalities and the setting in different frames and pages.
I usually add many details to my illustrations, so in that respect the cover and interiors always maintain a strong similarity, but I think of the cover as a snapshot and the interiors as a short film.
How did you each conduct your research?
MR: I went at it from different angles to get as complete a picture as I could. Franklin biographies gave me good, solid background information, but they weren't very accurate or detailed when it came to this particular episode. Books about Mesmer, on the other hand, had plenty of detail but could be a bit, let's say, eccentric. I found some really useful articles in academic journals, and my most important source was an English translation of the actual report that Franklin and his commission gave the king.
IB: Mara's research gave me a lot of preliminary details. Then I began my aesthetic research, for clothing in particular. It takes a lot of studying to inform my illustrations--even the smallest details I wouldn't illustrate from memory. In this book, it's critical that the characters' clothing show their personality and attitude. After I had gone through Mara's narration, the personality of the characters and the scenes appeared to me at the snap of a finger because the story was really visual.
Mara, it sounds like you shared your research with Iacopo. I wondered about the level of detail in those early spreads, especially those featuring the electrostatic motor, the hot air balloon and the illustration of "The Ben Franklin Kite."
MR: I always share extensive research notes via my editor and the designer. I know Iaki did a ton of his own research, too. The electrostatic motor was entirely Iaki's idea; the balloon and kite were already in the story, but the beauty and accuracy of the images are, of course, all his.
IB: I felt that the text could be further enhanced by including more of Franklin's inventions which weren't explicitly mentioned. I thought that by illustrating the word SCIENCE along with images of some of Franklin's inventions, I could better describe his characteristics.
I decided to contrast the two personalities in a double spread with a scientific look for Franklin (the electrostatic motor and the kite). In the following spread, I represented Mesmer as a wizard standing in front of the framed poster of his show.
Iacopo, you are also a graphic designer. Did you come up with the type treatments for the pages? I'm thinking of pages 12-13, for instance, where Ben is described as "Plain and Simple" in Bulmer typeface, and Dr. Mesmer is "elegant and mysterious" in handlettered type that resembles latticework. Mesmer's descriptions also often incorporate the Bickham typeface.
IB: One peculiar aspect of my illustrations is that typography and illustrations live together. I work alongside young graphic designers passionate about type design in the editorial graphic design studio The World of DOT (which I co-founded with my wife, Francesca Leoneschi), and that helped me develop my love for type even further. I immediately thought that the elegance of George Bickham's writing could distinguish the French expressions that appear in the text. From the very first sketch, type found its place inside the illustrations and, in the ensuing stages, they both become more detailed.
Illustration and text are for me a sole means of expression, that's why I need to define at the same time the layout, the typography and the spaces for the scenes and the characters.
Mara, we liked the way you addressed "the elephant in the room," the impending French Revolution, in your endnotes.
MR: The judge who sent Lavoisier to the guillotine said, "The revolution has no need of intellectuals or scientists." Today, a lot of people distrust science and don't see any point in learning to observe the world carefully, think critically, keep an open mind while gathering information, and come to a conclusion that's supported by the evidence. I hope that kids who read this book will come away with a different attitude. --Jennifer M. Brown