Mishaps and Adventures: March 2012

A little over two years ago a small yellow package landed on my desk from Claudia Rueda containing a small and simple dummy book with the title of BLOW. ( We later changed the title to Huff & Puff ) What I discovered was a sweet, funny and interactive retelling of the Three Little Pigs story. The interactivity really caught my eye. The dummy allowed the reader to play the part of the big bad wolf. Three interior die-cut holes invite readers to huff, puff, and blow the pigs’ houses down! Resulting in a sad pig. This fractured fairy tale ends sweetly when, rather than blowing down the third pig’s brick home, the wolf/reader blows out the candles on a cake baked by the pigs!

Huff & Puff was the first book I officially acquired along with the editorial genius of Tamar Brazis. We both thought this book was enormously special for its unique take on the 3 little pigs story. Claudia took the story down to its simplest form and by adding the interactivity, allowed the reader to participate in the story, bring a new interest to an old tale.

Claudia Rueda’s work was twice selected for the New York City Society of Illustrators Original Art Show and for the sixth 3x3 magazine Children’s Show. Her picture books have been published in the United States, Spain, and Mexico and have been translated into French, Danish, Portuguese, Korean, and Chinese. She lives in Miami.

Original Dummy by Claudia Rueda

Interiors of Claudia's original dummy

Interiors from the final book

Original Cover Sketch.

The trick with this cover was to show that the book had interactivity to it in the design with out having to say the interactive on the cover. Our solution to make a giant die-cut cover