Trust What We’re Making Together with Juana Martinez-Neal and Molly Idle

Juana Martinez-Neal and Molly Idle, authors and illustrators of Off the Wall: Making Stuff Together (Neal Porter Books), joins Matthew to talk about the journey of a new school year and never having exactly the same class again.

Listen along:

About the book: Off the Wall: Making Stuff Together by Juana Martinez-Neal and Molly Idle. Published by Neal Porter Books.

A story about art, collaboration, and happy accidents from your favorite duo of Caldecott Honorees, Molly Idle and Juana Martinez-Neal.

Best friends Juana Martinez-Neal and Molly Idle know a thing or two about collaborative art. After teaming up to illustrate Julie Fogliano's I Don't Care, they set out to explore what it takes to make stuff together!

Off the Wall is a joyful celebration of that very process. The day begins with one little girl, alone with a wall and a bucket of chalk. Then a friend comes along to play tic-tac-toe. Before you can say "look out!", there are five friends, a cat, a dog, and a splattered ice cream cone. Chalk is flying, hands are getting dirty, and the art on the wall gets bigger and, more importantly, better.

Little artists and creative types of all ages will delight in the messmaking of a story that builds and builds to reveal what true friends make when they create together. Off the Wall reminds readers of the magic that happens when we play, experiment, and welcome the unexpected.

More:

Visit Juana Martinez-Neal online at juanamartinezneal.com 

Visit Molly Idle online at www.idleillustration.com 

Learn more about Boyds Mills and their upcoming programs by visiting www.boydsmills.org. 

Transcript:

NOTE: Transcript created by Descript. I've attempted to clean up any typos, grammatical errors, and formatting errors where possible.

Molly: Like Juana, I was also really floundering. I had gone from being, like, a full-time working artist to a full-time mom, and was trying to find my way back to some sort of balance. And I was like, "Here is an oracle of wisdom." And I said, "It gets easier, doesn't it?" And she just looked me dead in the eyes and said, "No." 

Juana: I'm telling you, we're night and day. 

Matthew: Those are the voices of Molly Idle and Juana Martinez-Neal, both writers and both illustrators of Off the Wall: Making Stuff Together (Neal Porter Books).

Welcome back to the Children’s Book Podcast, where we celebrate the books and creators who help young readers feel seen, supported, and understood. This episode is brought to you in partnership with Boyds Mills, positively impacting kids by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inspire children to become their best selves.

I’m your host, Matthew Winner—teacher, librarian, writer, and a fan of kids.

I love both of these guests individually SO MUCH. But talking to them together?! That’s some real bookmaking magic!

Here are a few of the things I learned in this conversation: 

NUMBER ONE: Molly and Juana are very different people who have very different ways of making things.

NUMBER TWO: Juana and Molly remind us that if you can just play, it’s a by-pass to any roadblocks. This feels like it has the potential to be a huge unlock for a number of us. I hope that nugget of wisdom serves you as well.

And NUMBER THREE: The path is not easy. There is a good amount of positivity in this conversation, but there’s also a fair amount of conviction and admittance that making books is not for the weak of heart. 

So, a little about Off the Wall: Making Stuff Together (Neal Porter Books) from the publisher:

“A story about art, collaboration, and happy accidents from your favorite duo of Caldecott Honorees, Molly Idle and Juana Martinez-Neal.

Best friends Juana Martinez-Neal and Molly Idle know a thing or two about collaborative art. After teaming up to illustrate Julie Fogliano's I Don't Care, they set out to explore what it takes to make stuff together!

Off the Wall is a joyful celebration of that very process. The day begins with one little girl, alone with a wall and a bucket of chalk. Then a friend comes along to play tic-tac-toe. Before you can say "look out!", there are five friends, a cat, a dog, and a splattered ice cream cone. Chalk is flying, hands are getting dirty, and the art on the wall gets bigger and, more importantly, better.

Little artists and creative types of all ages will delight in the messmaking of a story that builds and builds to reveal what true friends make when they create together. Off the Wall reminds readers of the magic that happens when we play, experiment, and welcome the unexpected.”

Time to learn to play.

Please welcome Juana Martinez-Neal and Molly Idle to the podcast.

Molly: Hi, I'm Molly Idle, and I am one of the authors and illustrators of Off the Wall.

Matthew: And Juana? 

Juana: I am Juana Martinez-Neal, and I am also an author and illustrator for also Off the Wall. 

Matthew: I'm having such a great moment right now because you are two of my favorite people, and you know this 'cause we've talked before. And so to have you both here at the same time feels like a real hangout to me.

So thank you for hanging out with me. I'll try my best to actually talk about something that listeners will wanna listen to, but mostly I just wanna [00:02:00] hang out. 

Molly: Mostly what we do, so that's cool. 

Matthew: Cool. Yeah. Molly, let me ask you, what's giving you hope today, friend? 

Molly: Oh my gosh, so many things, but I think underlying them all is just the idea of hope.

Like I, I'm, I don't know this to be true, but I believe that human beings may be the only animal that has this concept. Maybe we'll find out more. We'll find out that whales and different cetaceans do too. But the idea of hope, the idea that we can make things better than they are, and that our ideas then form our reality, that to me just underpins everything.

How cool is that? 

Matthew: I love that. Juana, what's giving you hope today? 

Juana: I fear you will follow up with that, and I, it's really hard to follow up to what Molly said. Ah, what gives me hope? I [00:03:00] hope- Oh. The, Molly and I are like night and day on everything, I think. We c- overlap in a few things.

That's how we're friends. But we are, like, such a night and day in emotions. I am a, I am not full of hope all the time. There's few things that feel, give me hope. My daughter is one of them. Seeing her, she's 13. She's still, she's becoming an adult slowly. However, you can still see that... glimmers of both the grown-up and the child, and that, those moments are just so wonderful.

She still believes in so many things. And that gives me a lot of hope, because I know that she will be us in a few years, so I hope that she retains that and we have a world that is a little better than what we have now. But yeah, once again, Molly and I are night and [00:04:00] day.

Matthew: It's wonderful though to see the world through our children, isn't it? It's a really... i'm going through... kids, they just keep getting older, and as a teacher, I'm so used to the kids getting older and matriculating through the grades. But for some reason, my brain doesn't apply the same logic to my own children.

Suddenly they're bigger, and suddenly they're developing and they're

Facing bigger problems or bigger conundrums with how to approach problems. And sometimes it catches me off-guard and helps me see the world differently because of them. Yeah, so I'm glad. So I'm glad that you're like night and day. This is a fun thing to know. So you make books together though.

I'm glad you're friends. I'm glad that works. I can't wait to break down what does this

look like, 'cause I'm sure there's a lot of people a lot of creators that create well on their own, have really close friends, want to make things with them. But that is not always easy. I certainly am one of those that I love the idea of [00:05:00] collaboration and working together, but it doesn't always pan out that way.

So let me first, Molly, ask you if you could give us a book talk of Off the Wall. That's what's bringing us together today. If you could b- give us a book talk of this new picture book, and then from there I'll follow up with understanding your process a little bit more. 

Molly: Yeah. Of cou- Matthew, I think you just kind of book talked it without realizing it, because that's- sort of what it's about. It's about how very different people have very different ways of seeing the world, interpreting the world, of making stuff. And how that needn't be a hindrance to making stuff together. In fact, it can be the best sort of starting off point of to making something really amazing that you couldn't have made by yourself, because you don't have all those different points of view and these different ways of interpreting the world around you.

And that's s- sort of a very [00:06:00] academic way to describe it. What I would say is it's about the ups and downs and the real life of making stuff together. 

Matthew: It's interesting, right? That we feel ... in your book you have a number of children making things together perhaps because they share a wall.

But w- what I- notice in this book is why? Why be drawn to making things together? Perhaps just because it's play, and we want to play together. Juana, I would love to know about, I know that, I know from reading the back of the book that you and Molly are besties. I'd love to know more about your friendship and how you met, but also I'd love to ask you about w- when you each felt like maybe we should try making stuff together.

Can you walk us through your memories? 

Molly: The look on Juana's face. 

Matthew: She can't wait. 

Juana: Juana can't wait. 

Molly: I'm just gonna sit back and sip [00:07:00] my tea. 

Juana: Yeah, I know. You make it sound very thought through. Thoughtful- and thought through, and it could be nothing bad, right? It was so messy? Oh, no.

It's, it was not... Okay, so just I don't know, not Molly's work, but just like my work, right? Things happen Because I'm in there. Oh. Not because I planned them, right? And I think that book, this book was and the other books that we've done together, and the friendship happened because I happened to be there.

And I do believe in, I do believe in being at the right place at the right time. I do believe in that. Okay, so back, we need to go back to 2005. 

Matthew: Oh. 

Juana: Yeah. And we, my husband and I, and my son who at that time was, like, four months old, moved from Ph- from California to Phoenix. It was just the three of us.

And now you have to think, this is a tiny, little baby, our first baby, right? [00:08:00] We have no community. We know nobody, and we moved because of my husband's work. We were starting a new life, and we wanted to be able to buy a house. Before, we lived in Los Angeles, and with the budget that that we had at that time, we couldn't.

Again, things happen for a reason, and everything aligned, and basically we moved to Phoenix. So this is 2004. 2005, I'm pregnant with my second child. I'm completely worried and stressed. I have two children that are 19 months apart, and I don't know what to do. My work at that time was doing graphic and web design, and I was doing well.

I was doing really well, but then the housing crisis happened, and I- Yeah ... all of a sudden I found myself with no work to do, right? So I needed to do something different, and motherhood really hit me hard. And this is important to talk about. I suffered from postpartum depression, so I didn't...

I needed something new. I was going through a lot of changes, and my husband suggested me, and this was the third year that he was [00:09:00] doing it, he suggested me to look into children's books. And because I did not grow up with children's books, so I didn't know I could make picture books because I did not grow up with picture books.

And I go to do a Google search and find SCBWI October of 2005. Less than two weeks after my second son is born, I go to the first, SCB chapter conference in Arizona. I had idea of nothing, but I did come up with a few concepts and the idea that people me- met once a month. Illustrators met once a month to, talk about work.

So I started going to the meetings. And as I'm going to the meetings, I will hear about Molly. "Have you heard about Molly?" "How is Molly doing?" They will talk, but I had never met her, right? And they will talk about Molly and it w- this was a constant, right? This is a constant throughout the months, and I still don't meet Molly.

So I honestly thought that Molly was a product of [00:10:00] everybody's imagination, 'cause she was- ... 

Matthew: they talk 

Juana: about- 

Molly: Accurate. Maybe I am. Yeah. 

Juana: Yeah. 

Matthew: I don't know, Juana. It's just you and me on the call. I don't know who everybody 

Juana: else is. So come December of '05, we had a, an organized Molly, you can add to this.

We, we- ... decided to bring an, an, an art director and we did a conference, like a mini... It was a getting together of illustrators to- Yeah ... learn 

Molly: about- Like a mini workshop kind of thing. 

Juana: Yes, that's the word. Not a formal SCBWI conference. No, it was just probably 12, 15 of us- ... and creating. 

Molly: Yeah, we went rogue.

We were like- 

Juana: Yeah ... "

Molly: Let's..." Yeah ... we knew an illustrator named Laura Jacobson, who was working with is it Boyd's Mills Press? 

Juana: Yes, was. 

Molly: Yeah. And she knew their art director at the time. And she was like- Tim Gilleland ... "I bet he would come out here." And because, he was living back east and it was Arizona in December.

Who wouldn't wanna come visit? Yeah. So yeah, we had a workshop. And we had [00:11:00] just built... So if you're looking around, this is, we had just built this workshop. And the reason that Juana hadn't seen me was because I was pregnant with my second one, and also had a little one. Mine are two years apart almost to the day.

And and we had this workshop at, in my workshop. And I saw Juana's work and I was like, "Oh." I was just immediately smitten. And then I found out she was also a new mom, and I just I thought, "Oh- Aw. "Oh my gosh." And then I found out her kids were, like, a whole year older than mine. She had 200% more momming experience than I did.

And like Juana, I was also really floundering. I had gone from being, like, a full-time working artist to a full-time mom, and was trying to find my way back to some sort of balance. And I was like, "Here is an oracle of wisdom." And I said, "It gets easier, doesn't it?" And she just looked me dead in the eyes and said, "No."

Matthew: Nice. 

Juana: I'm telling you, we're night and day. 

Molly: Wait, [00:12:00] and I was like, but I was so drawn, I was like, "I think I love her. I think this is gonna be my best friend." Because I knew in that moment she was gonna be honest with me, and that's something I really love in the people that I work with, is people who tell you the truth, not from a place to be, like, hurtful or brusque, but to help you know what you're facing- Yeah

and help you do better, right? So that was the beginning. 

Juana: That's, that was me. That was December of, December sen- 7th, I think? 

Molly: 6th- 6th, December- ... 'cause Tom was two 

Juana: months old. 

Molly: Yeah, 

Juana: my youngest ... December 6, 2005. So then came a lot of really awkward conversations, coffees, lunches, dinners, and then we worked through- Occasional critique group 

Molly: meetings.

Juana: Yeah, we worked through all that awkward stages, and then started hanging out, and then we had the, we brought the kids, right? And then we brought the husbands, and yeah, that was 20 years ago, believe it or not. 

Matthew: Wow. 

Juana: So that's how we met. [00:13:00] Yeah. 

Matthew: That sounds- 

Juana: But again, it wasn't planned. It was- 

Matthew: No ... just coffee.

That also seems unique, though. You don't need to plan those things, but also we don't always get along with everybody and let alone our families, our kids, our extensions that way. Yeah. That's really nice that it all worked out. And if it all worked out, I would imagine- just thinking of colleagues and friends that I've had, when things work out, you just keep exploring.

This was cool. What if we go meet up somewhere together? That was cool. What if we go travel somewhere together? This is cool. What if we go try to make a book together or something?" I can imagine one begets the other, Juana, like you're saying, without really planning or intending it to happen, but just because it feels like this sort of feels like the way we're being pushed to, to do something right now.

The universe is nudging this way. 

Juana: Yeah, it's our choice, right? And I think is the next part of how the first book together happened is Molly's the perfect person to tell this story. 

Molly: But [00:14:00] then you're gonna have to pick up because- Sure. All right. We'll do swapsies. But yeah so we had been friends for ages and through all this time that we've been friends, of course, because we met through our creation of artwork- 

Matthew: Yeah

Molly: we had become critique partners. De facto critique partners. It wasn't like we had set meetings or anything, but just, like, when one of us would hit a snag or one of us would, have an aspiration- Molly? Yeah. 

Matthew: Molly, can I ask, did, does this mean... I'm trying to think of timeline.

Juana, I I first knew you from La Madre Goose. I even have a a, a small piece that you made from it. Lovely. Yeah. I do. So I know that the timeline means that this was your beginning. Molly, was it also your beginning? I just don't re- I don't know how long you've been making...

It almost, to me, feels like you're almost at the same parts in your career. Almost. 

Molly: Yeah. 

Matthew: Okay. 

Molly: Almost identically. 

Matthew: Yeah. Okay, cool. Just making sure as we're going 

Juana: in. And Molly was always ahead. Molly was always a, a few years a few- But, 

Matthew: but not by much ... 

Juana: years 

Molly: ahead. No. We were, like, 

Juana: right- She was always ahead.

Yeah. 

Molly: Yeah. We were like imagine two feet [00:15:00] walking together. One of us is always... one of us is always just- 

Matthew: Juana's like, "Parenting doesn't get any easier, 200%," and you were like, "Neither does publishing." 

Molly: Yeah. I love that. I'm gonna be using that in talks from now on, Matthew, that's- That's about it But you know what?

But there is so much that we were finding and again, like I wish I could tell you, like now it seems like, oh, it's this easy rapport or whatever, but it was a lot of when you get to know somebody, you start like tentatively sharing things. I would really- I 

Matthew: do know, yes ... 

Molly: I would really like for this to happen, or I'm really worried about this other thing.

And so like both expressing like your hopes and your fears, like that's a very sort of revealing experience, and it doesn't happen in some like huge moment of light, but like I, you look back and then you go like, "Oh my gosh, now this person and I, like if I have a problem, this is who I call.

If this, like if I have good news to share, this is who I [00:16:00] call," 

Juana: but it does- And 

Molly: now I- ... 

Juana: building of- Yeah ... just trust. You're building trust. 

Molly: Yes, exactly. 

Juana: You're trusting, and then can I trust more? But there's a buildup again, right? 

Molly: Yeah. And always, there's, not to say that it was ever without friction.

Oana has to deal with my cluelessness a lot. 

Juana: And- 

Matthew: Same 

Juana: way. We 

Matthew: both feel that way. But 

Molly: but but that there's, that we would find that there was grace because with that trust, you know that person, like whether or not the news is getting delivered in a way that makes you feel however it is you're hoping to feel, you know that it's coming from a place of love.

There's never, there's never a feeling of "Oh, you have it out for me," or there's some ulterior mo- Like it's just, that's not a thing. Now I forget your question. 

Matthew: So 

Molly: you were 

Matthew: leading us 

Juana: into 

Matthew: making- The first book ... 

Molly: making the first book. Oh, first book, the first book. So Oana and I at this point at that, at the point when we, that decision happened to make the first book, we had been friends for what, like 15 years at that point, I think?

Around. Yeah. Like a long time. We'd [00:17:00] been friends a long time. A while, 

Matthew: yeah. 

Juana: A while, yeah. 

Molly: And 

Juana: it was 18 when you get the offer- ... because then the pandemic happened. That's right. So it was 18 or 19 when you got the offer. 

Molly: Wow. That's 

Juana: right. From 2004 or '

Matthew: 05, yeah. 

Molly: Yeah. So Julie Foliano and I have the same agent, Steve Malk, and Julie works a lot with Neal Porter.

And she had written a partial manuscript that Neal had bought had acquired, and they thought I might be a good fit for it, and it was just titled I Don't Care. And when I read it, the way that I interpreted it was that it was about two people who seem very different- on the outside, but where it really matters, they're very much the same.

And I thought, "Oh my gosh, that's so much like me and Juana." And my first thought was, "Oh, I could draw this like Juana and I when we were kids." We always say that we wish we had met when we were [00:18:00] little. We would've had so much more time, and we would've, like things might have been easier or more fun or whatever if we had each other when we were growing up.

And and then I thought wait a sec, Mol." "Who are you to draw Juana's perspective of your friendship?" Surely you feel this way about me, so I was like that's not right. Juana needs to have her own voice in this." And then I was like, "What if we..." I just had this idea, what if we did it together, right?

And so like Matthew, and your listeners have listened to you enough to know that like publishing happens slowly. Things like- ... it takes years for things to come to fruition. So I texted Juana and I said, "Hey, I've been offered this manuscript," and I sent it to her and and it's with Neal Porter and Julie, who I knew were two of people she really admired, and, "What would you think about doing this together?"

I sent Juana the text, and then I immediately, I thought, "But I should make sure that it's okay on this end of like the business end of things too." So I emailed my agent and I said, "What do you think that you, that Julie and Neal would feel about this?" And then [00:19:00] thought, "I have weeks to talk Juana into this as her best friend."

I have weeks to convince her this is a good idea, right? 20 minutes later, Steve emailed back and said, "Neal and Julie think this is great. Yay!" Whoa. And I still had not heard- Oh, Juana ... from Juana. Oh, no, Juana. 

Matthew: Which is 

Molly: where Juana has to pick up the story. 

Juana: Well- I am a I am real- Mol- background stor- background information.

Molly and I text all the time, and most of the time we respond really fast. I am a fast, normally by nature, fast responder. I don't sit on things- normally, if I know the person, right? So what had happened is that I saw the email and I froze. I froze in fear that I loved Molly, I loved being her friend, and again, this is the night and day of us, right?

I thought, "Now that we are gonna, we are gonna work in this book together, and she's gonna, she's gonna see all [00:20:00] my flaws. And this is gonna- Yeah ... ruin our friendships, and we will never be friends again." And my fear of that was what stopped me from responding. 

Matthew: Oh, Ana. Yeah. I feel that. What a vulnerable place to put you in.

Sure. 

Juana: I know. 

Molly: I didn't 

Juana: put her in a bind. 

Molly: Oh my gosh. 

Juana: Like- Yeah, I loved, lo- Molly knows it, Molly knew it. I love Julie Fortino's writing. Of course. And I- Oh, yeah ... it was like a dream to illustrate one of her, one of her manuscripts. And with Neal Porter. Even more so to work with Neal.

Matthew: Yes. I was gonna say. I know all- Yeah ... of those names. I know Steve as well, and that's a lot of people. There's a lot of really good people who- ... have been in the industry enough making really good stuff that they've got strong track records. 

Juana: Yeah. And so what happened is I... Then Molly told me that everybody was happy about it, and then it was a- How could they not 

Matthew: be?

Juana: wait. Like- 

Matthew: Have 

Juana: they seen your work? But the, the... Do you know what the thing, Matthew? The problem, my biggest problem, I- She's not letting me 

Matthew: compliment her, Molly. 

Juana: I know, I 

Molly: know. And she won't, Matthew. 

Juana: She's like my back." My [00:21:00] biggest fear, trust me, my biggest fear is you show up To a party without being invited that was my, that was what I was feeling I know that feeling Like, I just, I didn't want that, right? But we, it took a while to do all the contract and the back and forth with all the people involved, and then we're finally in 2019, the end of the year. I happened to go to a Highlights event, and Neil was there.

And we started talking, right? And then he started asking me, "So what about..." Asking me how long Molly and I now knew each other, and how, what do we do? How do... And I told him our children are friends, our husbands are friends. "So how would you work that book?" "Oh it's 25 minutes away from me.

That's easy." So Neil, put all his trust, trust on us and said, "Okay, you guys will figure it out." And then we signed the contract, and then the pandemic happened. 

Molly: Now nobody- When the pande- ... can get together to work with anybody 

Juana: When [00:22:00] the pandemic happened, my family and I moved to Connecticut.

Yeah. And I remember Molly telling me, "Oh, you have to tell them about your note in your notebook. You have to tell them." Do you remember that? 

Molly: Did I say "We are never," he says, "going to make this 

Juana: book?" You wrote, "Juana is moving. It's sad, period." Yeah. "We'll never finish this book." 

Matthew: Oh. 

Juana: I'm sure I 

Molly: still have

that notebook. It's sad. That's so me. I'm s- I'm sad. But we did. We found a way to make it work, and I actually... I at the time it felt like we were making do, but I... we were talking before we started recording about how things just no time spent wasted. No difficulty is ever learning lost.

We were forced to find a way to work together that I don't know we would've [00:23:00] found if we had just been able to zip over to each other's studios and work in a way that felt just naturally more instinctive to us. But we ended up having to find a way that both suited the book and suited how we were gonna have to work.

And I find that those sorts of creative, what would you call it, Juana? Not like a hindrance, but a restriction, right? Yes. You have parameters- Limitations, like- ... within. Yes, limitations Yeah ... often force you to be more creative, and that can only be a good thing.

Oh, good call. Yeah, it's good stuff. Let me ask either of you, both of you about Off the Wall. Where I Don't Care felt like both of your art styles meeting each other on the page, it felt like you both talking to each other. Off the Wall feels to me, probably by design, more like I can't tell where [00:24:00] one of you stops and the other begins, and that feels

Matthew: I think collaboration can look a lot of different ways, and I'm speaking as a librarian that way too. As well as I have co-written a, a, a book series with a friend and I know that there are times when she and I both say "I don- I, I love that part that you wrote." "Oh, I didn't write that. I think you wrote that."

I love that quality, right? But I wanna ask you, having gone through I Don't Care, what did the collaborative process look like for Off the Wall? 

Molly: I actually think it kinda started with, with I Don't Care. Juana- ... I went through my flat files this morning and found the two pieces we made at that conference.

Do you remember? 

Juana: Oh to some facility folks. 

Molly: Actually, it was, I think it was NCTE 'cause Neil was there too. Oh, 

Juana: yes. Yes. 

Molly: So we just, we were, we had a workshop where we were trying to I guess the goal of the workshop was to get people to make art together, right? You were- And- You 

Matthew: were hosting the workshop.

Molly: Yes. Okay. And to get [00:25:00] them so somebody would draw something, and somebody would draw something else, and then you'd have to trade papers with somebody- ... and add in your own way, but in their style. Finish their story. Okay. Try and- Good 

Matthew: skill, 

Juana: though ... 

Molly: match up.

And I remember, Juana, do you remember the grumpy guy who was there? He popped into my head yesterday as I was thinking about this podcast about talking about process. And there was, so NCTE, it's all teachers. Teachers and librarians. And this gentleman, an older gentleman came in and he was, when he found out that we were gonna be drawing, he was like, "I don't know if I should stay.

I think this is a waste of my time. I teach older kids. What's this about?" And we were like look, we think it's gonna be a good time, but I, only you can decide. You're more than welcome to go somewhere else. Of course, we'd love to have you." And, as we start explaining, he was like I just don't see how this is gonna go to other kids."

And it was like, "Again, like you don't have to stay, but if you stay, you have to play." And and by the end of [00:26:00] it, he was, like, so we would have them c- combine with one person, and then those two people would have to combine with two other people- ... so then it was like creating this collaborative thing.

And by the end, that guy's holding up his paper, "Look what we made. Look what we did." Oh. And it was like, and he's "I'm gonna do this with all my high school kids," and we were like, "The power of art, baby." If you can just let your guard down and play for a little bit, you can cut through so much of the surface stuff that we generally deal with in society.

What do you do? Where do you live? You just bypass, it's a bypass to all of that- but again- ... to making something together ... 

Juana: there, I think, to add to it, I think, again, there's a level of trust. Yes. Trust in that what we are going, where we're going to end is gonna be a good thing. Trust that you believe in the, what the other pers- people in the group are doing.

It's something, that you're making together, and you trust in the other person. You're trusting what you're doing, [00:27:00] right? I, I think when we were working in I Don't Care-

We had, again, we like dipped our toes into doing something together, and we both were doing something that was like two characters, a tree. Molly did the trunk, I did the foliage. Molly did the tire, I did the grass and the lake. I did a rabbit, I think it was. Or a... You did a frog?

Something like that. Yeah. 'Cause I don't like frogs, so I said, "I'm not drawing a 

Molly: frog." And she's like, "I'm 

Juana: not drawing a frog." You draw the frog. So but everything was di- divided in a way that we both could do our part, and we trusted in the other one, right? So here comes Off the Wall, and now we have five children, a dog, and a cat.

Initially there were two dogs and two cats, okay? And all the, what we call props, right? In the book it, we- The bicycle, the, those 

Matthew: pieces? 

Juana: Yeah. Yeah. Got it. But the thing is, we didn't know we were going [00:28:00] to add all of that. We started drawing, right? And I drew my daughter, 'cause Vermilion, and then Molly added Robin, her son, right?

And and then from there, okay, what are they doing? Okay, they're playing michi, tic-tac-toe, right? And then from there we started building up. Oh, what if? And what if there's a trike? What if there's a shoe flying? What if the leash gets tangled? What if the dog takes off?

All these what ifs. Yeah. And we end up with this book that was supposed to be a lot- It was supposed to go a lot faster than all the other books, and it was supposed to be half the amount of work because we're doing both half a book. 

Molly: Yeah. Turned out to be like, oh my gosh, it just grew like things do, right?

And that was ... So that was, when we were making I Don't Care together as we got to the end of it, I said to Juana "I think there's just a, there's a story in this process of how you learn to play, and you learn how to trust, [00:29:00] and you learn to roll with what the other person does." And we actually just took that idea to Neil and said "We think we'd like to maybe make a book about the creative process."

But not about the creative process, but, like, where you make something. Just where kids get together and make something. And we had a couple ideas, and he said I think that's a couple books." And we literally just had that idea when we started, and we thought it would be wordless.

... And this is where the collaboration that takes place in the book is very much like the collaboration not just between Juana and I, not just between the two of us, but then you bring in more people. You bring in an editor who says "I see what you're saying, but is that the best way to do it?"

An art director who says I like what you've done there, but is there a way we can make it even better?" You start bringing more and more people into your creative circle, and everybody has a voice. And the best things happen [00:30:00] when it doesn't matter whose idea it is or what way you do it, so long as it's good for the thing that you're making and each other.

It doesn't matter who said we should use that word there or who decided what color, if that leads to something else and something else. And so it's really important to know that the people that you're making stuff with to play the way that you like to play fair.

Goes back 

Matthew: to ... Oh, say, it goes back to Juana- ... talking about trust. Trust trust. 

Molly: Yeah. 

Matthew: Interesting 

Juana: and be open to that surprise, 'cause I think the best, more re- more important moments in the making of the book happened when something that we did not think about was done. Like- the add- adding of the text, right? We were s- we had a book. They said, "I think we need words," right? And we didn't know, but what are we going to say? What could we possibly say? [00:31:00] And Taylor... At that time, Neil had left everything, passed on everything to Taylor. So Taylor Norman. 

Matthew: Taylor Norman, 

Juana: yeah.

Yes. Taylor suggested, "Why don't you both... Why don't you write me a script?" Is that what you said? S- 

Molly: You 

Juana: should just, 

Molly: just tell me what's happening. On each spread. If you had to just describe it. 

Matthew: Oh, 

Juana: okay. Yeah. Just write what it is. And then- We decided that the best thing to do was to write the script separately- without seeing each other's, right? And that was a moment of we didn't know. It was just like, "Okay, Molly, why don't you write what and I write what I see, and then we both send it to Taylor at the same time without seeing each other's, right? Oh, 

Matthew: no kidding. Without even comparing notes.

Juana: Yeah. And then Taylor, being the brilliant person that she is, the brilliant editor that she is, she thought, "We have the text right here." I'm not kidding. And we were like, "What?" Yeah ... it was nice to be surprised. It was, it's always amazing to be surprised. 

Molly: But, but- 

Juana: Yeah ... 

Molly: [00:32:00] and Juana, I feel like that was your idea, and it was a good one because we have a sh- when you're friends with somebody for a long time you have a shorthand language between you, and Juana and I, even though our art is very different when we work separately we know what we're going for.

And so there's a lot that we intuit between each other. And so there were things that we thought between the two of us made total sense, but they weren't making sense to other people. And that the, we can't go and explain it to everybody, that's what the words are for. And like wherever there was something happening that was like, oh, clearly to us, but might not be clear to somebody else, and not having the other person, like knowing you were having to explain it, not between each other, but to somebody else who didn't share our BFF frequency language, right?

Made us be so much clearer, and yet maintained our own distinctive voices- Voices. Yes ... 

which was so important because each of the [00:33:00] kids has their own, not only their own color in the book, but it's representative of their own way of working- Their voice ... their own voice, their own way of handling things.

And and this is a, a place where Juana really turnabout's fair play, and she scared me because I've never, like- mindfully put my kids into one of my books. Like I, I've often, think of them when I'm drawing. But I never portrayed, tried to just straight up portray one of my children in, in any of my books.

And when Juana said, "If we're making this book, I think we should put our kids in it," I was just flat out terrified. I have no idea why. I just didn't think I could do them justice. I was like, "Ah, draw my children? I don't know." 

Juana: Matthew, this is something that I just learned. 

Matthew: Can I ask you? I, your kids are...

Draw my kids. I love it. Your kids are bigger- ... but you've tricked me, the reader, into thinking that whatever kids you [00:34:00] were inspired by, you asked them to write their names in the end papers. 

Juana: We 

Matthew: did. That hand written- We did ... good. We did. I like, 'cause I right away when I was looking at the end, I love that the end papers are just a line up.

I'm trying to describe it for folks. It's just a line up of all the characters, and they have these names. I'm gonna read them 'cause I pulled up the PDF. That it's Orange, Green, Chartreuse, Vermillion, Robin, Bubblegum, and Pink. Orange and Pink are the dog and the cat respectively. But I like that Green is green.

And the- ... the words go smaller, but they get underlined, and I like that Robin's name is all caps and looks a little hastily written. There's just a there's a voice to the names that you as artists could certainly create, invent. But it's neat to know you did have children do it. 

Juana: It was im- Yeah

I think it was important to keep our... Okay the, to me it's very important to think of the person I am sketching in my books. So each character has to be someone [00:35:00] I know, so I know how they do things. So even more so in this book, it shows like my creative process. And that, we, that we have...

It's f- it was important to have the character The name and the f- the way they express themself artistically on top Thank you. 

Matthew: Yes. 

Juana: So that way you can... To me it was maybe maybe Molly saw it in a different way, but to me it was like a, you know how you get a, a map at the end of the book that gives you some- hints of where things happen? So you can go back and see, oh, this is how- ... Orange wa- leaves his marks, the dog, right? Or this is how Vermillion, the X and O's are Vermillion's, or the kitty or, you know, different things like that. 

Molly: Yeah. And then we did, like we when we were at the, we were at Juana's studio doing the parts of the art that we needed to both be there to make together Juana's daughter, who is Vermillion in the book, came in and we were like, "What do you think?

What do we need? What have we not done?" And the same with [00:36:00] when we were finishing the end papers, like I, even though we were at Juana's, I hopped on the phone and I called my son, who is Robin in the book, and I was like, "Okay," I took a picture "Here's what you, here's what I think you drew.

What have I missed?" "Oh, the cat needs a mouse." Of course he does, of course he does. Okay. So I was just like, to get their... because as their moms we know them pretty well, but it's, nice to hear them be like, "Ah, but you forgot this." And I would also add that, it was wonderful. 

Matthew: If I can compliment a couple of the other things that I saw, I love the play. In the book it feels authentic. It feels like you recorded the kids playing, and then you just drew them. I like that feeling of just snapshots. I love the To contrast the endpapers in the beginning are the children all lined up and the cat and the dog.

And in the end, it's the same lineup, but they have what would we call it? Their imaginings over their heads. Their sort of passions or a drawing that represents them. I don't know even know what [00:37:00] you would call it. It just feels like another nod to personality. You have a signature that nods to personality, and you also have that.

But that comes at the end of this gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous mural. A, a chalk mural on a wall, if you will, that to me feels like, wow, you chose the most perfect colors to blend together, to bring together. And it's so vibrant and so celebratory of these children and has... I'm staring at it right now just smiling, 'cause it's so many different elements all brought together that it is a no one kid ever would've made this one picture.

It's adding the crown and adding the X's and O's and the hearts and making a cat out of the tricycle and all of these different pieces that are just really sweet. And yeah, I just think you really, you made a special thing. And I hear that it took a long time. And I'm always going to wonder with anyone, [00:38:00] how do you keep a thing special when you spend so much time with it?

Maybe it's a really delicate thing, and maybe it takes the trust of having all the right people involved to make sure that we know when to keep pushing as much as we know when to stop. We know when it's ready. But this book is really beautiful. You both made such a beautiful piece together.

I hope you feel it, too. And I am so glad also that you've mentioned, the third thing I was gonna say was that I figured that it was gonna be a lot of books, 'cause I noticed that we don't, we're not talking about the subtitle or whatever you call it at the top of the page that says Making Stuff Together.

And I was like, "Why does it say Making Stuff Together? It's gotta be, like, a series nod or something, isn't it?" So I'm so glad to know that whatever is coming, that there was a lot of playing together and a lot of- representing the creative process, and enough that we can, whatever you're gonna show in the future can continue to explore togetherness.

Juana: I think it's important [00:39:00] for those who are creating s- collaborating or creating something in general, I think it's important to to say that the path is not easy. Yeah. And there are a lot of moments when you feel like you are at against the wall and "What do I do next?" Or lost, right? So it's important to have the support of someone that says, "Hey," get you back to why you're doing- what you're doing. So if there's problems, it's not the two people that are having problems, it's it, right? We're trying to solve it, not- 

Matthew: We are looking at the problem together. The problem is not us. 

Juana: Yes. 

Matthew: It's not a part- yes ... of you and a part of me. 

Juana: But it's important to remember that because- The problem 

Matthew: is apart from us

Juana: easily you can forget. Yeah. Yeah. 

Matthew: Yeah. 

Juana: Yeah. It's a great reminder. Yeah. Creating things is amazing, and it could go really fast. It could seem like it go really fast, but it's a birth. It's a [00:40:00] birth. 

Molly: I will say I think so all the kids in the book are so different, and Matthew, you said th- we are, Juanes is like we're night and day.

But it's really, and that might seem like it could be a hindrance, but it's actually I feel like one of our biggest assets when not only as friends, but when we work together too. Because if one of us is freaking out, the odds are the other one is not freaked out at all by like what's happening.

Wonderful. And vice versa. Oh, good. And it, and it's not uncommon for one of us to be like, "Ah," but the other person will be, "Hey just a sec. Just just breathe. I actually think it's okay for this reason, that reason, and the other thing. Or if it's not okay, that's okay that it's not okay.

But we will get through it," and I think that if we were too similar, I don't know if you can be too similar, but in one way there wouldn't be a need for us to do this sort of thing together, the idea is that we're making something that no one of us could make alone.

Juana: There is [00:41:00] that tension that is interesting. A good tension, right? 

Molly: A good tension. Of, yes. 

Juana: Yes. Yeah, that makes you create something that neither one of us, as you said, I would have never made a book like Off the Wall by myself, ever in my life. Or, or- 'Cause I get stressed with like too much going on

never mind. Yeah. 

Matthew: Yeah. 

Juana: And, and- there it is. 

Matthew: I'm glad that, I'm glad that that you've had these 15 or 20 years to grow this friendship, to grow trust in one another and to be with other creatives and help them with how to trust one another. I think, and now to make a book and to model for all of the readers of all sorts of ages how to do that too.

It's a really wonderful and generous thing you're doing. And I wanna end my time together by focusing on those, those readers who will encounter this book. And I'll ask you, Juana, that I'll see a library full of children tomorrow morning. Is there a message I can bring to them from you? 

Juana: Play.[00:42:00] 

That's what I'd say. 

Matthew: Yes. Molly, I'll see a library full of children tomorrow morning. Is there a message I can bring to them from you? 

Molly: Absolutely. I would hope that they all would remember that their ideas become things, that we make our own reality through play, through imagination.

Matthew: Thank you to Juana Martinez-Neal and Molly Idle for joining me on the Children’s Book Podcast. 

You can pick up your own copy of Off the Wall: Making Stuff Together (Neal Porter Books) wherever books are found. Consider supporting independent bookstores by shopping through Bookshop.org.

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And on that note…

Be well. And read on.