Prince Albert author flipping kid’s books on their head

A Prince Albert man is embracing his flaws in the second of a three-part children’s book series.

Author Trent Gillespie launched My Book is Broken at John M. Cuelenaere Public Library on Saturday, reading to a small but captive audience.

Gillespie, a self-described poor illustrator, wrote his first book – The Pictures are Gone – with no images but ventured into illustrations using Microsoft Paint at the encouragement of his daughters.

“That became the running joke with it, is that the pictures are poorly illustrated by me because I’m trying to fix the book as I write it and I just do a terrible job in drawing pictures. And it’s become something of, the best part about it,” Gillespie said.

There was no initial plan to create a series.

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“The second one just kind of popped into my head. And it took me awhile to organize it because it’s hard to write a book that’s technically broken and have it make sense as I write,” he explained.

Gillespie’s created a book that –literally – flips the traditional structure of a book on its head. The book is tilted, and the pages aren’t in order.

This leads to an interactivity between the reader and the child.

The series’ inspiration comes from Gillespie’s daughters, five and eight years old, who’d been asking him why they can’t read his other science fiction series.

The difficult reading level, violence, and adult themes made the science fiction more suited to an older audience.

Gillespie’s daughter had an idea.

“She said, ‘oh, I wish you could write a book for me,’” he said.

Gillespie enjoyed the creativity behind B.J. Novak’s children’s book, titled The Book with No Pictures.

Gillespie said copying that wouldn’t be “fair or couth,” so he looked into a bit of drawing and other elements while keeping the playful nature of the story.

Sharing the end result was a bit nerve-wracking for Gillespie.

“I’m more nervous doing a kid’s story because adults can feign that they like it. Kids don’t. If kids don’t, they’ll say ‘your book sucked,’” he said. “They’re harsher critics.”

Gillespie is enlisting the help of a professional illustrator for his final book, The Week The Tooth Fairy Got Sick. The book will come out in the fall.

For more information on this local author you can check out Gillespie’s blog.

claskowski@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk