In a new children’s book entitled River’s Perfect Christmas, a young boy overhears his neighbour sharing the sad news that there would be no presents for her family on Christmas day due to the difficulties of the past year.
The boy, River, decides that something must be done. Seemingly unbeknownst to his own parents, he takes action to ensure the Quigleys and their six children will experience a memorable Christmas.
River’s Perfect Christmas is the brainchild of Niagara-on-the-Lake business owner Al Huberts. It’s a timely, positive story about how one caring person can make a big difference in the lives of others.
The owner of York Road’s Nature’s Aid had the basics of the story a few years ago but put it aside after a few attempts at finding the right illustrator to bring it to life.
“It’s been a real passion project for me, and I wanted to revisit it,” says Huberts. “When a friend connected me with Becca, it really took off.”
“Becca” is Becca Marshall, an art and social sciences teacher at Westlane Secondary School in Niagara Falls. The Wingham, Ontario-born Marshall has previously illustrated books for Listowel-based author Jennifer Courtney (Santa Meets his Match; I Don’t Think I’ll Be a Princess) and a couple of other writers. Her work has a unique, whimsical style, her human characters often featuring wavy, curly hair and big, expressive eyes, conveying emotion and helping to drive the story.
Meeting with the two of them together in the Nature’s Aid office, it becomes clearly obvious that they have developed a great working relationship. Each often steps in to finish a sentence or thought for the other, and they both clearly have a passion for the story and the project.
“I’ve worked with other people on books,” says Huberts, referring to a series of Canadian history colouring books he previously authored. “Becca’s better than anyone else I’ve ever worked with in that she gets where the story comes from, even before she begins drawing. We don’t have any real disagreements.”
“What’s fun for me,” says Marshall, “is to get those little glimpses into the story. And sometimes I get to meet the people that I’m basing the characters on. I remember Al describing his grandchildren. I then pull pieces of people’s personalities, their mannerisms, maybe things they wear and put that into the drawings. That makes it really fun.”
The main character is based on a 12-year-old named River who lives in British Columbia, the grandson of Al and his wife Louise. Marshall has never had the chance to meet him, but she has heard many stories from his grandparents. Al adds that River was six when he began formulating the story.
To create her drawings, Marshall uses an app called Procreate on her iPad. For previous commissions she started out working on paper. But when changes needed to be made after meeting with the author, she often had to start the entire painting process all over again.
“We will redo lots of little things,” Hubert laughs, “sometimes just changing a smile or something. We did one just this morning. I can’t imagine if you had to redo all of those changes from scratch.”
“I use an Apple pencil, and it’s pressure-sensitive,” says Marshall. “It works just like pen and paper, and they have brush sets where it acts like paints. A lot of this is done with a gloss brush, then I go over it with a pen called ink bleed. I like a little bit of messier line work, because I feel it has a little more movement in it.”
“The beauty of it is that it looks just like watercolour,” adds a clearly pleased Huberts.
Typically, an illustrator is hired to create the illustrations for a book such as River’s Perfect Christmas and paid accordingly. But Huberts brought Marshall in as an equal partner on the project.
“This is my first time doing this as a partnership,” says Marshall. “It’s been fun to learn so much about the author’s process, and what goes on behind the scenes. I’m so glad Al has a brain for business, too, because I don’t have any of that.”
“The first time I saw her work I knew I needed her,” says Hubert. “The same book without this type of illustration would be just okay. In my view, illustrations are more important, and that’s why we’re partners.”
A savvy serial entrepreneur, Huberts knew when he started the project he wanted it to lead to potential sequels.
“Of all the things I have been involved in, I love this most,” he says. “I want a book that can lead into multiple books, and to do that the illustrator has to be the same. I decided to make River’s family bi-racial partially because that lends itself to some different stories, some different issues.”
He has already mind-mapped a book that follows River’s sister through the alphabet at the zoo, and another that focuses on numbers. And Marshall has already suggested some ideas for the illustrations.
With River’s Perfect Christmas now completed, the next step for Huberts and Marshall is to get a website up and running then to launch a Kickstarter campaign in March.
Huberts has followed a number of projects on the crowdfunding website and believes he has figured out what it takes to run a successful campaign on the platform.. He’s factored in the shipping costs and figured out some promotional techniques that he is sure will help the book find its readers.
“We’re going to drive people to go to the website first,” he says. “We’ll collect email contact information and notify people in advance of the launch date. Then Becca and I will sign the first 2,000 books sold on Kickstarter. You really have to stand out to be successful there.”
As for the book itself, it’s a fun, positive story with brightly-coloured images done in Marshall’s realistic yet fun and casual style.
“He’s so good at describing the way he wants the page to make a person feel when they’re reading it,” Marshall says. “It really helps me know where to focus.”
“She can figure out exactly what I’m aiming for when I give her an idea of what I have in my head,” says Huberts. “I see us doing lots of books together.”