From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 21:54:47 -0600

 From Jill Davis, Viking editor of "A Book of Coupons," who is on maternity leave:

Jill's response to Arthur Levine's questions (3/26) :

If memory serves, another French illustrator originally did the pictures for Coupons and they just didn't strike our fancy. Serge Bloch, who had illustrated a few of Susie's other books popped into my mind since I had some of the one's he'd done in my office (as a matter of fact, Susie's newest book for Viking is called PRINCESSES ARE PEOPLE TOO and it is a compilation of two of her shorter works both illustrated by Serge Bloch) and so we asked him to re-illustrate COUPONS and Susie was thrilled. I sent him a list of scenes I thought would work and the rest is history.

As for the usual white jacket at Ecole des loisirs, funny you should ask--this one was bright blue, not the usual white, with an adorable illustration of a court jester, meant to be a "joker" as in the French title JOKER.

Funny, though, as Susie and I began going over some of the translated expressions I had questions about, it became clear that JOKER wasn't really the word she meant. She was thinking in terms of "jokers are wild" in some card games. But generally in the U.S. the word joker does not have the same meaning as "wild card" or "coupon." Anyway, we finally agreed that coupon was the closest word, but then the title suffered so much! JOKER was so much cuter than "A BOOK OF COUPONS." Plus--Susie hated it. But alas, what could we do?

I am the world's worst thinker-upper of good titles, so we stuck with it and eventually got used to it. Denise Cronin helped me and Serge get the jacket right, and we stuck in a blue background to make it look soft and sweet in a New Yorker?rtoon kind of way. That's all I remember right now but I'm sure there's more . . .

Susie's next book is edited by assistant editor Catherine Frank at Viking and it's adorable. Hope you like it!

Best, Jill
Received on Mon 01 Apr 2002 09:54:47 PM CST