This Writer Is . . . Motivated

It takes skill and hard work to write a good children's book. But what if you could illustrate it too? Millions of children across the country recognize certain authors' names because they've added book after memorable book to library and bookstore shelves. Their characters are funny, unusual, and endearing. Their stories are snappy and fresh. And most of them draw their own pictures.

Kevin Henkes saw his hopes fulfilled early, when he published his first book at nineteen. Now he’s a successful full-time writer and illustrator. And no wonder. The mouse characters who appear in many of his stories are charming. Each one is a distinct person who must overcome an obstacle or understand a situation under the observance of warm—but usually surprised—parents. Children and the adults who read to them will quickly fall for Chester, Lilly, Chrysanthemum, Wendell, and other individuals whose little worlds sometimes overlap.

Henkes, Kevin. Chester’s Way. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1988.

Chester and his best friend Wilson are fastidious mice. They know exactly what to expect from each other, because season after season, they do the same things. “Wilson wouldn’t ride his bike unless Chester wanted to, and they always used hand signals.” Chester even “duplicated his Christmas list every year and gave a copy to Wilson, because they always wanted the same things anyway.” Then Lilly, a rambunctious squirt-gun toting, disguise-wearing white mouse exploded onto the scene and Chester and Wilson realize that turning a twosome into a threesome can really spice things up.

Kevin Henkes provides detailed pictures created with watercolor and black pen for every line or so of text in this story. And one can delight in the details. There’s Chester and Wilson riding in tandem on their bikes sporting identical sunglasses. When Wilson’s parents are observing the pair, Chester and Wilson are sitting in a chair reading Advanced Croquet Tips. Later on, while Wilson cavorts in a wading pool, Chester sits in a lounge chair and reads Bike Safety. I counted about sixty pleasant pictures in this book. For its clever, simple details that children find irresistible, for its dozens of colorful illustrations of funny mice, and most of all because my preschool daughters quote from it, Chester’s Way gets an A.