In this episode I chat with illustrator and author, Rachel Ignotofsky about blending illustration and education, crayons, women in STEM, and her latest book, What's Inside A Caterpillar Cocoon?
Rachel Ignotofsky is a New York Times Best Selling author and illustrator, based in California. She grew up in New Jersey on a healthy diet of Star Trek and pudding and graduated from Tyler School of Art in 2011 with a BFA in Graphic Design. Rachel’s career as a scientific communicator started by nurturing her own curiosity. Out of college, she created art and infographics about topics she found interesting and important- with a focus in science literacy. She had many friends starting their careers in teaching, and Rachel wanted to create resources to help them with their lessons. Soon Rachel’s online store was selling her posters to schools, labs and science enthusiasts across the country and her work was scooped up to be featured on the likes of Scientific American, Fast Company, PRI and PBS. Rachel’s art has been embraced by the science community and she has spoken at and partnered with institutions like NASA, The Salk Institute, The San Diego Natural History Museum, The Chicago Field Museum, The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and many more!
Rachel believes when you take the time to organize complex information—and then take the next step to make it beautiful with art — you can reach even the most reluctant learner. Illustration is a powerful tool when it comes to education. With her first book Women in Science (2016), Rachel used her art to address the growing gender gap in STEM and shed a light on women’s stories. It became an instant success and was on the NY Times Best seller list for over 90 weeks.
Since then, Rachel has continued to use her background in graphic design and her skills as a storyteller to make dense information and fun and accessible. Her work is published in over 24 different languages and enjoyed by readers all over the world! She has written more books about women’s history like Women in Sports (2017) and Women in Art (2019). As well as tackling topics like conservation and climate change in her book The Wondrous Workings of Planet Earth (2018). She has introduced backyard biology to the youngest readers with What’s Inside a Flower? (2021) which is the first installment of her new picture book series with Random House Kids. Now she is excited to share her newest book The History of the Computer (2022). This book is the first of its kind — a fully illustrated book that spans over 25,000 years of human history and tells the story of our evolving relationship with technology. Rachel sees all of her books as a love note to educators, and is thrilled to see them used in classrooms.
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, Steve Brusatte
The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, Steve Brusatte
In this episode I chat with illustrator and author, Rachel Ignotofsky about blending illustration and education, crayons, women in STEM, and her latest book, What's Inside A Caterpillar Cocoon?
Rachel Ignotofsky is a New York Times Best Selling author and illustrator, based in California. She grew up in New Jersey on a healthy diet of Star Trek and pudding and graduated from Tyler School of Art in 2011 with a BFA in Graphic Design. Rachel’s career as a scientific communicator started by nurturing her own curiosity. Out of college, she created art and infographics about topics she found interesting and important- with a focus in science literacy. She had many friends starting their careers in teaching, and Rachel wanted to create resources to help them with their lessons. Soon Rachel’s online store was selling her posters to schools, labs and science enthusiasts across the country and her work was scooped up to be featured on the likes of Scientific American, Fast Company, PRI and PBS. Rachel’s art has been embraced by the science community and she has spoken at and partnered with institutions like NASA, The Salk Institute, The San Diego Natural History Museum, The Chicago Field Museum, The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and many more!
Rachel believes when you take the time to organize complex information—and then take the next step to make it beautiful with art — you can reach even the most reluctant learner. Illustration is a powerful tool when it comes to education. With her first book Women in Science (2016), Rachel used her art to address the growing gender gap in STEM and shed a light on women’s stories. It became an instant success and was on the NY Times Best seller list for over 90 weeks.
Since then, Rachel has continued to use her background in graphic design and her skills as a storyteller to make dense information and fun and accessible. Her work is published in over 24 different languages and enjoyed by readers all over the world! She has written more books about women’s history like Women in Sports (2017) and Women in Art (2019). As well as tackling topics like conservation and climate change in her book The Wondrous Workings of Planet Earth (2018). She has introduced backyard biology to the youngest readers with What’s Inside a Flower? (2021) which is the first installment of her new picture book series with Random House Kids. Now she is excited to share her newest book The History of the Computer (2022). This book is the first of its kind — a fully illustrated book that spans over 25,000 years of human history and tells the story of our evolving relationship with technology. Rachel sees all of her books as a love note to educators, and is thrilled to see them used in classrooms.
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, Steve Brusatte
The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, Steve Brusatte
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson Beverly and I'm a Bibliophile. Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast. Each week, I present interviews with independent bookshop owners from around the globe, authors and specialists in subjects dear to my heart the environment and social justice. To help the show reach more people, please share it with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. You're listening to Episode 224.
Speaker 1:Rachel Ignatowski is a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator based in California. She grew up in New Jersey on a healthy diet of Star Trek and pudding and graduated from Tyler School of Art in 2011 with a BA in graphic design. Rachel's work has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, Science, Friday, Brain Pickings and more. She is the author of Women in Science, Women in Sports, Women in Art. I Love Science, the Wondrous Workings of Planet Earth, what's Inside a Flower? And her latest book, what's Inside a Caterpillar Cocoon. Rachel believes when you take the time to organize complex information and then take the next step to make it beautiful, with art, you can reach even the most reluctant learner. Illustration is a powerful tool when it comes to education. With her first book Women in Science. Rachel used her art to address the growing gender gap in STEM and shed a light on women's stories. It became an instant success and was on the New York Times bestseller list for over 90 weeks. Hi, Rachel, and welcome to the show. It's lovely to have you here.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk about my books with you.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to talk about your books too, because they are a sensory smorgasbord. But before we get to your books, let's begin with learning about you and what led you to the world of illustration.
Speaker 2:Well, I've been drawing ever since I was a little kid. I mean, I always knew that I wanted to be an artist and you know, when I was really young, I actually struggled a lot with reading. I was tested multiple times for dyslexia and ended up that I didn't have a learning disorder or anything like that. I just wasn't connecting with the material. And then I discovered super illustrated, super fun graphic books, comic books about science and history, and I just fell in love and I knew from a very young age that not only could I learn anything if I approached it in my own way, but I wanted to make books just like the ones that excited me when I was a kid. So, yeah, I went to art school and the rest is history I've published. I'm actually working on my ninth book right now, so I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 1:Well, that's fantastic and fabulous news for educators and children. When my children were young, I discovered that getting to know the world's greatest composers and getting to know the world's greatest artists series of books, and I paired these books with visits to art museums in LA and listening to all genres of music with the kids. Every child learns differently and by exposing them to multiple sensory forms of learning, education becomes fun. I'm interested was there a tipping point for you when you decided to melt graphic design with facts to design posters and books?
Speaker 2:When I graduated art school and I went to Tyler School of Art, I immediately had a job waiting for me at Hallmark. Greeting cards that kind of came and recruited at my school and so, yeah, by 21, I was drawing happy birthday and little cakes every day and for a lot of people, for a lot of people, that would be a dream job. But it wasn't my personal dream. I always wanted to be an author, I always wanted to write books and I actually I was in Kansas City and I was making a lot of friends with a lot of the transplant people who kind of moved all over the country, just like I did, to get a job in Kansas City, missouri, and a lot of them were doing Teach for America at the time, and so I was talking to them a lot. I was talking to them about the struggles that they were having in their classrooms and I kind of really just wanted to make materials that they could use, but also I wanted to illustrate topics that I was interested in, about learning and educating others about. So for me that was science, that was history and especially women's history. I was talking with my friends and they were like you know, we just don't have a lot of resources to teach women's history in our classrooms and for me, I was reading a lot about the US Census at the time that just came out it was 2013,.
Speaker 2:So the 2010 Census like all the analysis of the data was coming out, and there's just this huge gap that was being talked about in the field of STEM and having, like, women in STEM roles. They were graduating with engineering and science degrees, but they just weren't landing those jobs and I thought you know well, it would be really cool if there was a series that celebrated women's history in the sciences. So I started creating posters about women in science and they were just such a huge hit and actually led me to write my first book, which was women in science. That then published in 2016. And these resources were just really needed.
Speaker 2:It began immediately it was being taught in classrooms. Since then, it's been translated into 25 different languages and used around the world to teach women's history, but also to talk about sciences. Like you know, we're talking about women who have dived down to the deepest oceans, who have gone into outer space, who have won multiple Nobel Prizes, like Marie Curie, being able to educate people about these like amazing role models. It's just been such a privilege and an honor to do and to be able to draw their pictures even better.
Speaker 1:I love that story, and what makes it wonderful is that our young teachers were guiding you. They were saying this is what we need, this is what we want, this is what the children need.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean teachers know what they need and they ask for it constantly. It's just whether or not society is willing to listen to them. You know we make them wear so many hats and it's like expecting them to also be able to then, especially like the elementary school teachers, expecting them to have the time to plan lessons for every single subject and then do the independent study to come up with like brand new research materials. Coming up with the research materials like a new book. That's not their job. That could be the job of artists and storytellers to then supplement and like support our teachers. So if you really think about them, you can really create some cool content. My newest book that just came out, what's Inside a Caterpillar Cocoon I mean I got the idea for that entire series, what's Inside a Flower, what's Inside a Caterpillar Cocoon, and coming out soon, what's Inside a Birds Nest, based on reading elementary school science curriculum. So I could support those teachers who really would like to bring together story time and science time into one little lesson.
Speaker 1:Well, as an ex educator, I would love to see your books as part of school curriculums. That would be very cool. Oh, it would be wonderful for the children and for the educators. Something else I love with your books is that you keep the text short, which I think is imperative when your audience is young children. So what is your process, from research to choosing which elements to use as text?
Speaker 2:Well, for me the research always comes first when it comes to design and illustration. I really believe that, like, form should follow the function. So first I do a ton of research to kind of really be able to honor the information that I'm going to be displaying, and then I go straight into layout. Actually, the first thing I do is I open up Adobe Illustrator, I start laying out the page with the typography, trying to figure out the hierarchy of information that I'm going to be using, and I kind of write and illustrate simultaneously while creating that design, especially for my bigger books like the history of the computer and the wondrous workings of planet Earth.
Speaker 2:Those books are really taking complicated topics and turning them into kind of like what you were saying, like these kind of cool super illustrated textbooks. But to be able to do that I really have to figure out the layout while I'm writing. So I know sort of where the illustrations are going to go, how much space I have for the text, kind of what sort of buckets I'm going to be filling, and it really creates this like little hand in hand, like to be able to not have too much text. You have to do a lot of show, don't tell. And that's why illustration is so cool, Because I mean, ain't that the king of show don't tell yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Can you talk a little about this in relation to your latest book? What's Inside a Caterpillar Cocoon Working with your chosen color palette, and how you organize the illustrations and text on the pages? Where I live in Ojai, california, there are times of the year when swallowtail butterflies and monarch butterflies are just everywhere. It is absolutely beautiful. And you're in California right, I'm in California. Well then, I'm sure you understand why those butterflies came to me when I saw the color palette of the book. It's absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 2:Well, this book really does go pre-K to almost like all the way up to fourth, and the way that I went about it is that this was really like hand in hand you do the black and white sketches, you story map the whole thing, you go back to your black and white sketches, you move everything around. The illustration and the words really happen simultaneously with this one and what I think is really cool about it and how it reaches such a broad age range for elementary, is that I've woven in so many little fun facts and sort of almost like sidebar illustrations within each page. Each page I thought of as almost like an infographic poster that also told the story. So it's like very detailed and it's almost like a game to see everything.
Speaker 2:The color palette it's really interesting that you said that the color palette was actually decided during the first book in the series, which is what's Inside a Flower. So when I'm creating a series like that, I create a rule structure for myself so everything looks cohesive and that's just like my graphic designer coming out and for that the color palette was just really based on, I guess, earth tones, the colors in my own garden. I wanted to create this really beautiful, almost dreamy like world that was also had the structure of the color palette to tie together from one book to the next. So as you go from flower to caterpillar, cocoon to birds nest, they really feel like they could be opened at the same time and Almost like you're reading a continuation of one big book. Although you can whatever order you want, they really do build on each other with the concepts.
Speaker 2:So creating a system that works individually and together, it was really exciting for me and the type also has a lot to do with that as well. So reading different fonts that are all hand-done and then use the fonts in different ways to highlight different parts of the story as you're reading, you'll also do that. A Hand-domed typography also is very like. There's a lot of love that goes into it and also all matches throughout each series.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can tell that by looking at your website, which is so vibrant. I mean, I saw your books and I immediately wanted to read them, but I guess I'm a kid at heart, right, and you have an Etsy saw too, and the link to that is on your website and I'll make sure to put all of those links in the show notes, have you?
Speaker 2:type in my name, oh, everything comes up. I'm the only writer in the top ski in the world.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a fun fact. As I mentioned earlier, I used to teach and I can say that most of the things like posters, books that were needed in the classroom I bought myself. Budgets are super tight for teachers. They get the necessities any extra they bring into the classroom themselves, which is really sad. With this in mind, if you'd like to donate some of Rachel's books to a classroom, I'm sure if you go to Rachel's website and to her Etsy store, you are going to be delighted with all the things that you could purchase for a classroom, from posters to books to cards. They just make education fun for kids. So I did want to point that out back to you, rachel, can you share your publishing story, from your first finished manuscript to finding an agent and landing a publishing deal? Wow, my publishing story.
Speaker 2:So my publishing story is really it's sort of tied to how the internet worked Back in the early like 2010s. So I always call it like the golden age of social media, where you could really post something and everybody sees it and there are real people running blogs and people can. Everything was just sort of like this moment where if you were online and you had something to say, people could hear it. So as soon as I graduated, I established my online presence. I immediately Started an Etsy shop. I immediately started an online presence where I showed all of myself motivated work, and For me that was stories about science and history, posters about human anatomy, because I love human anatomy and Immediately I started getting a response.
Speaker 2:I actually Started my shop with a poster series all about the human body, where I drew each Organ system as sort of like a character, and one of them in particular Was this it was this character that was just. It was just the respiratory system, so it was a pair of lungs and a little diaphragm. It was really cute because I put happy faces on everything, and so I put these out. They start getting a great response. People start buying them, for you know, they're classrooms for their nurses offices, for their bathrooms. And I get this response from this dad who has a daughter who has CF and so because of that they have to use a respirator every night when she goes to sleep To help her get oxygen while she's sleeping, which for her at four years old was very scary, and he Wanted to explain to her what was happening in her own body. But a lot of the human anatomy posters that were out there were very technical and traditional and you know, to a four-year-old that could look really scary, having someone sliced open in half. But my illustration with this happy little character where the diaphragms like raising the roof and he could use that to trace the path that oxygen was taking into her nose all the way down Into her avioli, the little lung cells, and so it became a part of their nightly routine and she really liked them and so he reached out to me to just say thank you and to tell me his story, and For me that really clicked where I was like you know what? This is what I should be doing, it's what I'm passionate about. I'm gonna quit my job and I'm just gonna devote myself to creating educational materials, because there's something very powerful.
Speaker 2:That happens when you make information-friendly, which is what I love doing, and I kept making work, I kept putting it online and eventually the sort of attention I wanted came to me. So my agent reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to be represented. The publishing companies came out to me and asked Me if I wanted to have a book deal. So and also, that's every single freelance job I've ever got in my life it's been people reaching out to me. It's never been the other way around, because I established that online presence so early on.
Speaker 2:So when I had the idea for women in science, I knew it was gonna be a book. But creating a book takes a lot of time and it also takes a lot of time alone, where people can't see your progress, and At that point in my career I knew that that wouldn't serve me as well as creating a poster series. So I created a poster series about women in science where I could get the information out there very quickly, where I could get the illustrations out there very quickly, knowing in the back of my head that I wanted it to be a book. I just need to get paid first, as in, get a publishing deal and an advance first, and so when those posters became really popular, that's when the publishers began calling.
Speaker 2:I already had my agent. She actually reached out to me maybe a month before the publishers came calling and we were in conversation about creating a pitch together to start going after publishers. But they came to me first and we were able to facilitate a bidding war basically and I decided on 10 speed press, which is a part of Penguin Random House, and now I publish with both 10 speed press, random house, kids and they're sort of gift, like sort of puzzle journal imprint, clarkson Potter. So there's a three Publishing companies that I work with under the big top of Penguin Random House. So it's been really, really wonderful.
Speaker 1:Okay, Rachel, you have so much going on. Do you have an assistant?
Speaker 2:You know that's a great question. My husband actually helps me with everything. We worked at a hallmark together and then he was in the film industry and my stuff got so big that he was like why am I working for like theater-aid commercials when I could be helping you out with the same skill set? There was a moment around, I believe, like 2018, where things got too big for me to just handle alone and he completely took over my shop and Anything I need he's there to assist me with. So when I'm organizing all my research, he's helping me organize all that. While I'm, you know, doing press like this and Finishing up my next book, he's actually booking my research trips for me for the next book Example. So I'm working on what's inside a caterpillar cocoon and what's inside of bird's nest. That was my last year, knowing that my next book is going to be Dinosaurs.
Speaker 1:Oh, that'll be fun for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it comes out, it's. It's going to come out in 2025. So I just started this project. So while I'm working on all of this, he's booking me trips to Utah to go to dig sites to see dinosaur bones, like stuck in the rock, and all these like Amazing hikes. When you write nonfiction, you have to go on adventures, you have to talk with scientists, you have to go out into the field so you know, so you can have that sense of wonder while you're researching and writing. That spark can only come if you go out and experience it in the real world. So I'm all about finding those primary sources, traveling to get myself in the headspace for my next book, because it does take over a whole year of my life.
Speaker 1:And how wonderful that your husband just stepped in and that you two are able to work together. I mean, that's fantastic.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's like one of the greatest joys of my life that my husband and I have this partnership and we work full time together. It's just like it's so much fun to have someone who's like also like as invested as the work as you are, because when you're an artist, the work is always like in the front of your head. You know you want to talk about it all the time, you're so excited about it. And to have someone who feels that level of excitement, especially when you're working in nonfiction, it's really, really cool. And you know what? Because I went on this digging adventure, I have a trilobite fossil from, like, the Paleozoic era. Yeah, so this is like before the dinosaurs and like these little, cute little insects they were around the Cambrian explosion all the way to the great dying that happened right before the dinosaurs ruled the earth, so I like to call it my oldest antique yet. And that's all from just like driving around Utah visiting dig sites, talking to Palantau.
Speaker 1:And Rachel, where do you think your interest in science came from?
Speaker 2:I mean, I always had it, ever since I was a little kid. I've always really wanted to learn more about the universe and the world around me. I think a big click was my human anatomy class that I took my senior year of high school. It was just this wonderful class. It was one of those moments where, like, your third eye opens up and you're like, wow, by learning more about my body, I understand myself a lot better. Just like understanding that different parts of your sandwich digest in different parts of your body, like the bread digests in your mouth, the meat digests in your small intestine. Having that knowledge that you didn't have before, you realize that there's so much more going on under the surface of what we take for granted. And only by understanding how our world works can we make informed decisions, and on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:So science has always been a big part of my life. My parents were both STEM professionals. The only reason I didn't go into it professionally is because I got that art bug and I had it way too young, and every second that I wasn't doing homework or hanging out with friends, I was just drawing. Even in high school I would like go to the art room and I would spend two hours every single day after class, from like the ages 14 to 17, working on my portfolio, working on my projects, and I would take the same bus as like the athletes home to get back to my house. The first thing I ever purchased with my own money that I earned myself when I was a teenager was comic books and expensive colored pencils and you have that sort of like, almost like compulsion to draw, draw, draw. You can't ignore it because you can't deny it.
Speaker 1:Hearing you talk about buying pencils as a little girl took me back to my childhood and that first box of crayons Well, they weren't crayons Castells, but they weren't the chalky ones, they were like greasy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the oiled pencils. I know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:That was like the highlight of my school year. Forget everything else in the classroom. It was actually smelling and picking up one of those brand new pastels. I just remember it felt so good. Okay, enough of me reminiscing. In your TED talk from a few years back, you shared a poignant story about a shy little girl and wombats. I'm from Australia and wombats are one of my favorite animals, so would you tell the story and its significance in igniting a love of learning in children?
Speaker 2:Well, you know what? I was on a book tour for my most recent book at the time, which I believe was Women in Sports. So I was going around, I was going to classrooms talking about women in sports and of course, they always ask what's your next book? And for me I was working on the Wonders' Workings of Planet Earth. Now that book is a profile of different ecosystems all over the world. So we talk about different places, we talk about the animals and plants who live there, how they interact with each other and, of course, we talk about the biggest ecological benefits and also the greatest risk that those places face. Now I also put in a ton of fun facts, and so I'm telling everyone.
Speaker 2:I'm working on a book about planet earth and this little girl who wasn't speaking at all, who is literally hiding behind her mom, who came to the presentation, all of a sudden and, like the loudest voice in the room, pushes her mom out of the way and yells at the top of her lungs wombats, pooping cubes. Can you put that in your book?
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness and I was like you know what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can. So I did. I put it in my book. It was this moment where I was talking about something that this kid was interested in and, all of a sudden, her love of that topic, her love of that goofy fun fact overrode her shyness and made her want to like, teach others. She wanted to teach the teacher, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yes, I do, that's just so precious.
Speaker 2:And that's the power that, like little cartoons and fun facts have. They ignite so much joy in the reader that they can't help but want to share it with others. It's almost like a that they receive that they want to give someone immediately. So all of my books I try to layer in as many fun facts as possible. In my newest book that just came out, what's Inside a Caterpillar Cocoon?
Speaker 2:I do that a lot and one of my favorite fun facts in the book is actually that I didn't know this that monarch butterflies, when they're in their caterpillar form and I live on the monarch butterfly migration route, so my yard becomes like this sort of like at a color grazing town. I didn't know this that their markings actually say that they're it means that they're poisonous, so that they get birds to leave them alone because there's this beautiful bright yellow and have these beautiful black sort of stripes all over them. So it's just little things like that where you're like, oh you know, even like the colors that are on a caterpillar. There's a really good reason for them and like evolution has sort of created this sort of diversity and beauty that's all around us and it's really interesting.
Speaker 1:Nature is awesome. It's beautiful. Okay, I have two more questions for you. What are your tools of the trade? In other words, what's on your desk or desks?
Speaker 2:My desk has changed a lot over the years as the technology has changed, so you know, and also as my income has changed. So when I was like just starting out, it was literally a laptop and a scanner and I would draw, like while sitting in my bed in my studio apartment and I would use my cron pens and tracing paper and I had a tiny little laser printer that I would plan everything out on Adobe Illustrator and print it out and then take my tracing paper and like draw my letter forms over and over and over again. And since then the tech has changed so much so I have like four screens going at once. Where I have my, you know, I have my like big souped up computer with a giant graphics cards in it. I have that connected to a 6k display that can color proof accurately, and that is then also I actually use a mirroring program where I mirror that onto a tablet that is on a drawing desk to be like as ergonomic as possible. So I'm not using a program that's on my tablet, I'm actually using full Photoshop, the full graphics card, and it's just a mirroring program. And then I have another screen and that's where I watched, like the Great British Bake Off.
Speaker 2:So I have the Great British Bake Off going and I'm drawing little caterpillars all day, and so that's what it looks like when I'm drawing, just because the tech has gotten so good where you can really like draw directly onto your Photoshop files and it's like there's no difference than using a micron pen. That being said, all of the textures that you see in my book are real textures that I paint, draw, sketch out on tracing paper and then scan in, because I just think that happy accidents are just so important and you don't get that if you're just using Photoshop brushes. So I actually don't use any Photoshop brushes at all. I just use like basically like the solid circle brush, and then all the textures you see are then painted on like vellum or tracing paper, scanned in. I break them out in channels and then I recolor and apply them so that they all match this intelligible.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a lot of work, a lot of layers of work. Oh yeah, and, by the way, I'm a huge British Bake Off fan. Oh yeah, let's talk about books. What are you currently reading?
Speaker 2:So right now I am currently reading and it's because I'm in deep, deep research mode. I'm reading two books right now that are fascinating the Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs and then the Rise and Conquering of the Mammals. So I'm reading those two books right now. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is so good. I really suggest that if you're really interested in geological time, I always say to write these children's books, you have to read the thickums, you have to read the like 500 page basically, encyclopedias, the research books, the pop science books, all of it to be able to distill that information. So I'm going to write all of it to be able to distill that information now. So right now my research is all the way back to the creation of earth during the Hadeon Eon, all the way to like humans and woolly mammoths and cities, which is all one very short period in geological time all together.
Speaker 1:In becoming an artist and a graphic designer and a writer. You've kind of reeducated yourself.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, every time I write a book I just feel like my brain is growing. I mean, when you love learning and when you continue to really prioritize that in your life, the feeling of almost like wonder that you had as a child never goes away. If you nurture it, it continues to grow. And as soon as I graduated from college, I felt like this need, this compulsion, to be like I really do have to keep nurturing my curiosity and I need to marry that with my love of art, and it's brought me a lot of joy. So, yeah, you just got to follow what you love.
Speaker 2:And if you're in LA, maybe you can find that book at the Tarpits, one of my favorite places in LA, oh, my god, every time I go to the Tarpits I'm like I think it's really funny, because almost every plaque is like they were no match for the Tarp. So like the ferocious Sabertooth Tiger, they were no match for the Tarp. Like my shoes are no match for the Tarp Because I'm like everywhere, but it's such a fun place.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, rachel, this has been such a great chat. I love what you're doing. Kudos to you for bringing the sciences into classrooms and homes around the world, and I look forward to having you on the show next year so we can talk about dinosaurs.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. Well, the next book that comes out is what's Inside a Birds Nest, and that comes out this spring. So please stay tuned. You know, the lead time on making books is so long that my next book hasn't even come out, and I'm talking about the project I'm working on now.
Speaker 1:And you know I've only seen the e-book version of what's Inside a Caterpillar. But you're holding the book up now and I didn't notice it had a light gold in it. It is beautiful. That cover is stunning.
Speaker 2:It's. You know what it is. It's that excitement that you felt when opening the box of pastels for the first time. I try to capture that in every single one of my books. I try to make it look like this delicious, like almost piece of chocolate, piece of candy that you just, you're just like, oh, I can't wait to open that up, but I don't want to like hurt it. Like that freshness. I try to put that in everything I do.
Speaker 1:And it works. The books are delicious. Rachel thanks again for being on the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on the podcast, and you know what a wonderful start to my day. I love it.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to my conversation with writer and illustrator Rachel Ignatowski about her new book what's Inside a Caterpillar Cocoon. To find out more about the Bookshop podcast, go to thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, instagram and Facebook and on YouTube at the Bookshop podcast. If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via the contact form at thebookshoppodcastcom. The Bookshop podcast is written and produced by me, mandy Jackson Beverly, the music provided by Brian Beverly, executive assistant to Mandy, adrienne Otterhan, and graphic design by Francis Verralla. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.