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WORK TITLE: And Then Came Hope
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WEBSITE: http://www.stephensavage.net/
CITY: Brooklyn
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COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 344
NOT THE BRITISH BIOLOGIST STEPHEN SAVAGE
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Booklist vol. 117 no. 16 Apr. 15, 2021, Connie Fletcher, “And Then Came Hope.”. p. 46.
Kirkus Reviews Apr. 1, 2021, , “Savage, Stephen: AND THEN CAME HOPE.”. p. NA.
Stephen Savage is an award-winning children’s book author and illustrator whose accolades include a New York Times Best Illustrated Book (Polar Bear Night), a Geisel Honor (Supertruck), and a Sendak Fellowship. His picture book Polar Bear Night was a New York Times bestseller. In addition to children's books, he illustrates for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, and Entertainment Weekly. He teaches at the School of Visual Arts and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and their daughter.
QUOTE: It was weirdly comforting. I liked it. I do books for young kids. To feel I was doing a book about this moment, and the moment was so big, it was like my therapy, doing this book. I was thinking, Wherever this goes, it’s going to be okay.
When I’m working on a book, it becomes all-consuming. You have to be all-in. I didn’t have a book lined up to do, and was in the middle of a dry spell. When this came along, it was great.
Saturday, May 8, 2021
Q&A with Stephen Savage
Stephen Savage is the author and illustrator of the new children's picture book And Then Came Hope. The book is inspired by the history of a hospital ship called the S.S. Hope. Savage's other books include Little Plane Learns to Write. He lives in Brooklyn.
Q: What inspired you to create this picture book about the S.S. Hope?
A: I got a text from my agent, who sometimes helps me grow ideas. She knew I’d done four vehicle books previously. When hospital ships started coming to New York and Los Angeles, the Comfort came to New York and I went to the docks. It was pretty impressive and inspiring.
I understood the symbolic power of hospital ships with red crosses on the side. I thought of taking the idea out of its current context, and found a ship online, the S.S. Hope. It had huge letters on the side, and I like typography—it was perfect!
It was a peacetime ship that sailed from 1960-1972. They retired the ship after that, and have an organization called Project Hope. My publisher is partnering with them—they deal with issues of child health, and you can use the book to talk to a child if they or someone in their family is sick.
The book is for toddlers, and we say that it’s inspired by the ship—ships didn’t have faces and talk! There’s a large element of fantasy.
Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: Not much of the real ship goes into the book. I researched it just for fun.
I learned some factoids that didn’t make it into the book. Julia Louis-Dreyfus traveled overseas on the ship as a child because her stepfather was a doctor. It went to various countries. The ship would give out powdered milk—it had a machine on board called the Iron Cow. They gave out milk cartons with the American flag on them. It was a way of promoting our standing in the world at a tense time.
In the book, the ship appears as a happy hospital ship. I had to get the ships right, the pictures right, to convey that they’re on the water. I would go out to the harbor in New London—I needed beautiful seascapes. In lockdown, going to the seashore was great. The journey you take to do a book is the fun part—you put some of yourself into the book.
Q: The Publishers Weekly review of the book says that “this story’s power is in the reassurance that a source of comfort and caring is never far away.” What do you think of that description, and what do you hope kids take away from the book?
A: That’s great! We wanted to convey that message, that it be a reassuring book. On the one hand, it’s a ship book. Kids love ships.
On the other hand, there’s a message that if you get sick you’ll be okay. Medical care is so complicated. The message is that you provide medical care and you trust the doctors. You tell the doctors if you’re not feeling well. Maybe both parents and kids can enjoy the book when one or both aren’t feeling well.
Q: What was it like doing a book about a hospital ship during a pandemic?
A: It was weirdly comforting. I liked it. I do books for young kids. To feel I was doing a book about this moment, and the moment was so big, it was like my therapy, doing this book. I was thinking, Wherever this goes, it’s going to be okay.
When I’m working on a book, it becomes all-consuming. You have to be all-in. I didn’t have a book lined up to do, and was in the middle of a dry spell. When this came along, it was great.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have a book to do with Neal Porter again—I work mostly with him—called Moonlight. It’s very different thematically, and I’m doing real art, not digital art. We felt we needed to be old-school and get off the computer a little.
Moonlight is a character in the book. You go through moonlit scenes from remote parts of the world to a kid’s bedroom.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Stephen Savage.
Posted by Deborah Kalb at 8:36 AM
QUOTE: “The digital illustrations carry Savage's trademark simple shapes that put the emphasis on the action. Little readers will be carried along by the bouncy rhythm, the expressive faces of the ships and boats, and the ingenious ways Hope finds to help others in need. Delightful and inspiring.”
And Then Came Hope.
By Stephen Savage. Illus. by the author.
May 2021. 40p. Holiday/Neal Porter, $18.99 (9780823445189). PreS-Gr. 1.
Author-illustrator Savage (Supertruck, 2015), whose accolades include a Geisel Honor Book and a New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book Award, here gives readers a compassionate heroine in the form of a hospital ship and a story that is sometimes comical, sometimes exciting, and most of all, comforting. The original Hope, as a note at the end of the book states, was an actual hospital ship (Health Opportunities for People Everywhere), commissioned by President Eisenhower in 1960 to help people around the world. Savage's hospital ship looks like a nurse--facial features are drawn on the bow of the ship, and the rectangular superstructure on top, with the Red Cross symbol in the middle, looks like a nurse's white cap. Hope comes to the aid of a shivering submarine, a feverish ferry, a coughing aircraft carrier, a little rowboat with a drippy nose, and a barge that gets bonked by a spool of wire that fell off a flatbed truck from the bridge above. The digital illustrations carry Savage's trademark simple shapes that put the emphasis on the action. Little readers will be carried along by the bouncy rhythm, the expressive faces of the ships and boats, and the ingenious ways Hope finds to help others in need. Delightful and inspiring.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Fletcher, Connie. "And Then Came Hope." Booklist, vol. 117, no. 16, 15 Apr. 2021, p. 46. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A662574708/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=8d423632. Accessed 13 Aug. 2021.
QUOTE: “Both text and visuals are so restrained that while the ship-obsessed will love it, it is unlikely that the book will stand up to much rereading among other audiences. A very real ship inspires a very slight story, coasting on some serious sweetness.”
Savage, Stephen AND THEN CAME HOPE Neal Porter/Holiday House (Children's None) $18.99 5, 4 ISBN: 978-0-8234-4518-9
A humanitarian hospital ship figures in a tale of ailing boats and gentle aid.
When the ships are sick, nobody’s happy. Not Barge, who “got bonked,” or Submarine, who has the shakes. Neither are feverish Ferry, coughing Aircraft Carrier, and sniffly, drippy Dory. Who takes care of these ill boats? Why, hospital ship Hope, of course! In a jiffy she treats, comforts, and cares for anyone under the weather. By the time everyone is “shipshape” again, they can rest assured that in the event of another emergency, they’ll always be able to rely on Hope. Backmatter includes a note on the real SS Hope, America’s first peacetime hospital ship, which spent 14 years traveling the world bringing care and training to other countries. Children fearing hospital visits, doctors, or nurses may find comfort in the book’s measured tone. This is reflected not merely in the spare text with its gentle wordplay, but also in the simplicity and style of the digital art. Shapes are cleanly delineated, colors and planes flat. The composition in which Barge suffers her injury is so stylized as to resemble an exercise in the play between positive and negative space. Both text and visuals are so restrained that while the ship-obsessed will love it, it is unlikely that the book will stand up to much rereading among other audiences.
A very real ship inspires a very slight story, coasting on some serious sweetness. (Picture book. 3-6)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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MLA 8th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Savage, Stephen: AND THEN CAME HOPE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2021, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A656696329/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=42a723b9. Accessed 13 Aug. 2021.