Erin Dealey

I’m so excited to share this cover reveal of our next picture book,

DEAR EARTH…From Your Friends in Room Five

(Harper Collins, Dec. 1, 2020),

with art by Colombian illustrator Luisa Uribe.

Pre-orders have begun: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062915320

Endless thanks to our amazing Executive Editor, Tamar Mays,

and the fabulous team at Harper Collins!

Isn’t it beautiful?

I can’t wait for you to see the whole book, but for now, here’s the scoop:

What begins as a monthly exchange of ideas between Earth and Room 5

grows into a lasting friendship, a school club with a surprising president,

and –hopefully– lifelong Earth-smart habits. 

Can you say #reduce #reuse #renew #recycle ?

More awesome news: Illustrator Luisa Uribe, who received the Dilys Evans Founder’s Award from the Society of Illustrators in 2018, is on deadline right now to finish our top secret POSTER which will also be part of DEAR EARTH.

I can already see this on your classroom walls, dear  #teacher friends. Did I mention you will find it on the reverse of the book jacket? #repurpose

Meanwhile, I asked, Erica De Chavez, our book’s Senior Designer at Harper Kids, to tell us a bit about the cover creation/selection process.

Ever wonder what a Book Designer does?

Q. Which comes first–the cover or the interior art? 

Erica De Chavez, Senior Designer: When we started asking Luisa to give us jacket-cover sketches, her interior artwork was well on the way. We had seen sketches and revised sketches at that point, and we were starting on some final colors. Thus, Executive Editor, Tamar Mays and I had a good sense of what art was going to be in the interior and what kind of image would be appropriate to best showcase that interior art.

Sorry–can’t show you interior sketches YET.

But–WOW.

Q. Were there any hurdles or potential problems the team discussed?

Erica De Chavez, Senior Designer: We knew the concept of Earth writing letters back and forth with a class of kids was going to be hard to convey without being too conceptual. Luisa did a really great job giving us many sketch options to look at.

I couldn’t agree more! Here are just a few of Luisa’s cover sketch options… 

Erica De Chavez, Senior Designer: Ultimately though, we thought the base message of the book was most clearly conveyed in the sketch we chose (the letter above planet Earth seen from outer space). The other sketch options were so cute and beautiful, too, but we just didn’t want the reader to be confused as to what the story was actually about, which can be tough to determine sometimes. And Tamar and I were so pleased that Luisa was able to fit all of the kids from Room 5 into the postage stamp on the envelope. It is a fun, little detail and so great to see our Room 5 kids all on the cover as well as our dear Earth!

Q. I LOVE the color palette of DEAR EARTH. How were the cover’s colors finalized?   

Erica De Chavez, Senior Designer: Once Luisa’s color jacket-cover art was in, we pretty much had all of the final color interior art in as well. It was just a matter of finessing the cover typography to match with the colors of the book as a whole. I knew green had to be an option we explored, since the theme is earth conscious/ awareness habits. But we ended up going with a slightly non-conventional color of orange that really popped off the darker colors on the cover and added in some of that great art/paint textures from Luisa’s final art into the title. And I still was able to fit in a little bit of blue-green onto the cover as well. ; )

Thank you, Erica, for sharing this part of the process with us. Creating a picture book definitely takes a village, and the world that Luisa and the team at @HarperKids created for DEAR EARTH…From Your Friends in Room Five is beyond my wildest dreams.

By the way, DEAR EARTH will be in the next Harper Collins catalog on Feb. 10, 2020 –one month from TODAY.

Stay tuned for more sneak peaks in future posts.

In the meantime, please join me in trying to be a better friend to our dear Earth.

#NoPlanetB