Between Two Lockers with Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

One week ago, the mesmerizing graphic novel This One Summer won a Caldecott Honor and a Printz Honor! The Caldecott is given to the year's most distinguished American picture book for children, and This One Summer is the first graphic novel ever (!!) to be recognized for the award. It's also the second graphic novel ever (after Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese) to be recognized by the Printz. (Super cool, right?!) 

Today, we have the creators of This One Summer (and cousins), writer Mariko Tamaki and illustrator Jillian Tamaki, stopping by the FYA lockers for a quick chat! 

Congrats on the honours! How did you each find out the news? Have you had time to celebrate with each other yet?

JILLIAN TAMAKI: I was lying in bed when I got the call! Best wakeup call ever.

MARIKO TAMAKI: Haven't celebrated yet although I did just receive a pretty awesome gift of champagne from our publisher.

Dang! That First Second sure knows how to treat their authors right! 

What inspired the story of This One Summer? What was the creative process like?

MT: I've always wanted to tell a summer cottage story. It just always seemed like the perfect set up to talk about being a kid.

JT: The creative process is kind of hard to distill down to a paragraph. It's pretty nebulous. But basically, for the most part, we work separately but come together at certain points to edit (text, sketches).

This One Summer, and [winner of many baller accolades] Skim before it, clearly prove that the two of you create fantastic work together. When did you first get the idea to work together?

JT: Mariko came across an opportunity to do a 25-page comic. That was the first version of Skim. We had no hopes or dreams for it, we just thought it would be a cool little book and a chance to dip our toes into comics. I had been doing minicomics before, but Skim was my first narrative story.

Did you ever collaborate on anything when you were kids? What was your relationship like back then? Did you get to hang out a lot even though you grew up on opposite sides of the country?

JT: No collaborations! I grew up in Calgary and Mariko grew up in Toronto, which are on opposite sides of Canada (which is a very big country). I didn't know Mariko really at all until I went to college at Queen's University, which [is] not far from Toronto. Now I see her more often than my parents.

Are the two of you working on another collaboration? Any individual projects?

JT: My webcomic, SuperMutant Magic Academy, is being collected and released by Drawn and Quarterly in the Spring. It's different from the books I do with Mariko, but it still has disaffected teens. Which is a great, timeless theme.

THE YA QUESTIONS 

If your real life adolescence was a YA book...

What would you, the main character, be like?

JT Sarcastic and annoyed. Waiting for real life to start.

MT: Introverted. A chronic day dreamer.

Who is your secret crush?

JT: John Lennon. The same kid you've had a crush on for 6 years, plus a rotating cast of lesser-crushes.

MT: Back then it was usually a camp counsellor. Love those ball caps. Currently, Amy Poehler.

Sigh, who DOESN'T have a crush on Amy Poehler?! MONSTERS, THAT'S WHO.

What is your number #1 source of angst?

JT: Everything? You.

MT: Me.

At what point would the reader pump his/her fist in victory?

JT: I can't remember any fist-pumping moments.

MT: Probably when I came out.

That's DEFINITELY fist-pump worthy!

And who would play you in the film adaptation?

JT: I can't think of any half-Japanese actors or actresses! Lucy Van Pelt.

MT: Amy Poehler.

The resemblances are uncanny!

Photo credit (Mariko): Sorrell Scrutton

Thanks so much for stopping by, Mariko and Jillian!