Guest Blog Post by Abi Cushman
When I set out to write Wombats Are Pretty Weird in 2018, I knew I wanted the book’s primary focus to be on sharing weird facts about wombats and their special adaptations. I wanted the characters to say funny/absurd things about those facts to amp up the humor. But a few things changed from early drafts to published book.
Title
Sometimes the titles of my books come naturally to me and early on in the process. This was not the case for Wombats Are Pretty Weird. And there was extra pressure for me to get it right because I wanted this book to be the start of a series. So I needed a title and possibly a subtitle that would work for future books.
In the first iterations of the book, it was called The Wonderfully Weird Wombat. I wasn’t sure if that was the best title, but I figured, “We’ll let future Abi figure that out!”
By the time we submitted it to Greenwillow, the title had changed to The Weird & Wonderful World of Wombats.
I was still iffy about the title, so when it finally came time make the cover, I did some brainstorming:
I leaned toward Wombats Are Pretty Weird and my editor agreed. She suggested “A [Not So] Serious Guide” as the subtitle and said the next book could be Flamingos Are Pretty… Fabulous/Funny/Fantastic/Fun, etc. And so it was settled! It was so nice being able to bounce ideas off each other.
Opening
In addition to the title and cover, it’s so important to nail the opening of the book. Although I was pretty happy with the tone of the opening in terms of the narrator's voice and the interplay of the characters, the opening went through some iterations as well.
Early Draft:
Meet the wombat.
Snake: Me?
The wombat is a stocky,
sometimes elusive,
burrowing marsupial…
... that lives in the forests, mountains and shrublands of Australia.
Wombat: Hey! Who are you calling stocky?
Snake: Yeah, and who are you calling marsupial? Oh. Not me? Never mind then!
There were two changes that I made to the opening.
First, one of my critique group members said that kids might think the snake IS a wombat. After all, they might be reading the book because they have no idea what a wombat is. So the snake simply saying, “Me?” at the beginning might be confusing.
Second, it was pointed out that it might come across like I’m body shaming the wombat with my stocky joke. And that was not something I wanted to do at all.
So I did a little reworking:
Final Version:
Meet the wombat.
Snake: Excuse me? I’m a snake.
The wombat is a robust,
sometimes elusive…
… burrowing marsupial.
Wombat: Hey! Who are you calling marsupial?
Snake: YEAH! And who are you calling elusive? I’m right here! Oh. Not me? Never mind, then.
I moved the part about where they live to the next spread so I could expand a bit about their habitat and range. There were other changes like this throughout the book which helped round out the information as well as sharpen up the jokes so they really popped on each spread. And by the end, we had the best possible version of the book. I’m thrilled with how it turned out.
Abi Cushman's book can be found here.
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Abi Cushman is the author-illustrator of funny picture books, including Animals Go Vroom! (Viking), Soaked! (Viking), Wombats Are Pretty Weird (Greenwillow), and Flamingos Are Pretty Funky. She is the illustrator of The Quiet Forest, written by Charlotte Offsay (Paula Wiseman Books).
Abi has also worked as a web designer for over 15 years, and runs two popular websites of her own: MyHouseRabbit.com and AnimalFactGuide.com, which was named a Great Website for Kids by the American Library Association. In her spare time, Abi enjoys running, playing tennis, and eating nachos. (Yes, at the same time.) She lives on the Connecticut shoreline with her husband and two kids.
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