Continuing the circle

Best-selling author encourages kids to read and create

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When children's author and illustrator Jan Brett mentions the most important aspect of her book signing tours, it's all about future generations of authors and illustrators.

Though Brett was always convinced as a child that someday she would be a children's book illustrator, when she goes on the road her main objective is to meet her young fans, and hopefully inspire some to try their hand at literary works of their own.

"I tell them about creating the books so hopefully they'll say 'I can do that,' " Brett said. "That's the whole purpose of the talk I give."

A regular on the New York Times children's best sellers lists, Brett will stop in Henderson this week as part of a national book tour for her most recent release, "Honey Honey Lion!" It's a story inspired by her visits to the Okavango Delta in Botswana, Africa.

Brett and her husband, Joe Hearne, went to Africa for the first time for the book "On Noah's Ark." Brett said she fell in love with Africa during that trip, and returned twice more to gather material for her latest book, each time touring the area with guide Ali Tiego, a native of Botswana.

"We had this wonderful guide, Ali, who had these incredible abilities to read the nature around us," Brett said. "At night we would get around the campfire and he would tell us these stories, folk tale kind of things ... This one was about the honey guide, and it's true."

Tiego told the group that the honey guide is a type a bird that likes to eat the beeswax from a hive. Because the bird isn't strong enough to crack the hive open itself, it will lead a person or a honey badger to the hive.

According to Tiego's story, if a person or animal doesn't share the honey with the honey guide, the next time the bird will lead them to a lion.

During her trip, Brett came into contact with a honey guide bird.

"I could never understand everything Ali was hearing, but he heard one off the trail and drove through trees and stopped in front of giant tree," she said. "There was the honey guide bird, peeping away, but he wasn't going away, so we started looking around for the honey. Finally, in a crack of the tree, you could see a little honey oozing out, and that was where the hive was."

During her travels in Africa, Brett also saw lions, tigers, elephants, meerkats and hyenas, many of which ended up as characters in the book.

When it comes to creating her illustrations, Brett said developing her memory has been key.

"You have to really get to know how to use your binoculars, because (animals like) the honey badger you just saw briefly," she said. "It's not like a lion that will stay and you can watch it. I'll do a couple sketches in camp and I take pictures that I use for reference, but I try not to copy them because then it looks kind of frozen in time. But I really try to remember details when I'm looking at things, and I'm getting better at it."

She also took inspiration from the colors and designs she found in the wilderness and in the towns.

The book's borders are decorated with drawings of things like feathers and porcupine quills because Brett felt they give the reader a better feel for the place. Many of the patterns used throughout the book came from the patterns she saw in baskets the local women weaved.

"Their patterns have names like 'tears of the zebra' or 'knees of the tortoise,' " Brett said. "They dye the baskets all these different colors, and in the book I tried to use those colors and styles."

Though Brett draws her inspiration from all aspects of the world around her, she said the books she read as a child still have a big impact on her. Some of her own techniques are done in homage to her own favorite childhood authors and illustrators, including Beatrix Potter.

"She was my favorite, and the reason why was because that she didn't talk down to kids," Brett said. "She always put little nuggets, like a big word in her books, but you always knew what it meant because the context would be so well thought out.

"And I loved her illustrations because I would feel the dankness of inside the chimney or the little prickles on a hedgehog. I love to show a hedgehog with the prickles coming through the clothing. It's my little tip of the hat to Beatrix Potter every time I draw a hedgehog with it's prickles going through."

During Thursday's signing, Brett will do a drawing of an animal from "Honey ... Honey ... Lion!" and will have a small gift for each child in the audience. Children can also have their picture taken in from of Brett's tour bus, which has been wrapped with art from the book, and with Hedgy the Hedgehog.

Brett's signing will take place at 10 a.m. at Barnes & Noble, 567 N. Stephanie St. Tickets for the event are free and are available at the book store.

For more information, visit www.janbrett.com.