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
Final Interiors with die-cut hole for Huffing and Puffing!
Huff & Puff
Can You Blow Down the Houses of the Three Little Pigs?
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Authors: By Claudia Rueda
Imprint: Abrams Appleseed
ISBN: 1-4197-0170-3
EAN: 9781419701702
Availability: Prepublication
Publishing Date: 3/1/2012
Trim Size: 9 x 9
Page Count: 32
Cover: Hardcover
Illustrations: Full-color illustrations
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Looks darling!
ReplyDeletethis is really cool! I like seeing the dummy pages and even the yellow package it came in! what is cool too is seeing how your design ideas helped make the book too.
ReplyDeleteI love that. The artist, author and the book designer making something really great that a child (and probably their parents, if they're smart) totally fall in love with...
awesome!
I just reviewed HUFF & PUFF on my blog today and, as a bookseller, mom and story-time-reader for over 16 years I find Rueda's book both brilliant, beautiful and unique for the quality of the story and the age group it is aimed at. Every once in a while I get a few toddlers at story time and there are so few books for them that have a narrative - not to mention an interactive aspect as well. This book is fantastic!
ReplyDeletewhat a great little book. thanks for posting the dummy pages and process.
ReplyDeleteAs an illustrator, it's awesome to get a glimpse of a publishing project from the opening of the submission envelope onwards... And what an envelope it is! You must get some gorgeous envelope art & amazing promos coming across your desk.
ReplyDeleteAny other favorite origin stories from Abrams' catalog?