Actually, that was a part of the appeal to me and one of the reasons I felt they worked well. I didn’t mind the books being light on plot. She encouraged me to consider exploring the format and page count. It was Tara Walker (Tundra Books) that mentioned the stories when viewed together seemed to add up to more than the individual parts. the characters are great but the stories seem slight. That was the format I was most familiar and comfortable with, but after submitting to several publishers the feedback I received from pretty much everyone was more or less the same. And then a flood of new story ideas by the day after that.Īt the time, I just assumed that these stories would/should be picture books. By the next day I had several more book ideas featuring Narwhal and Jelly. Jelly, who is a bit of a worrier and skeptic, wasn’t so sure about this new approach for a narwhal story, but that night I came up with three stories (“Narwhal,” “Narwhal’s BEST WEEKEND EVER,” and “Narwhal’s Pod of Awesomeness”) and made quick storyboards and even a mock-up. Something about the smell of newly made waffle cones in the air and thinking about how they look like horns (or perhaps a narwhal tooth?) flipped a switch in my head and it suddenly clicked for me that Narwhal is the sort of character that is as sweet and awesome as waffles and ice cream AND that Narwhal’s story should be too. I finally realized I was trying to force too serious of a story on this narwhal when standing in line for ice cream (Molly Moon’s in Seattle).

Most of my initial ideas centered around a narwhal getting lost at sea and separated from its pod. However, my first attempts at writing a story about one of these little narwhals didn’t turn out so great. I started doodling little narwhals even more than monsters, dragons, robots, or my other usual favorite subjects. That such a creature which seems so fantastic actually exists caught my imagination. I must confess before seeing Nicklen’s book I didn’t really know about narwhals. The book has some absolutely stunning photographs of narwhals in it and my mind was o-fish-ally blown. I first got it into my head that I wanted to make a book featuring a narwhal after seeing the book POLAR OBSESSION by Paul Nicklen several years ago. There have been a number of iterations, but ever since NARWHAL first swam into my brain I knew one book wouldn’t be enough for me. NARWHAL: UNICORN OF THE SEA! started out as a PB, or actually a series of picture books. I’m thrilled you like NARWHAL AND JELLY! Thank you! I asked Ben to share the backstory of his most awesome underwater adventure… One such hilarious take is Ben Clanton’s new _ book series NARWHAL AND JELLY. Narwhals are fascinatingly cool, and lucky us, there’s a whole buncha new books that feature these unicorns of the sea.

Narwhal and jelly