Picture #29 colored, Mother Scolds Disobedient Blue Jay

When I work on this image, which shows Momma Jay is expressing disappointment in her son, I think I’m moving the story towards more sophisticated readers, perhaps into the 6 to 10 years-old age range. This picture shows a mother scolding her son, which is contrary to what you would expect from the usual children’s book mother. Children’s books for youngsters and tykes show mothers and fathers who are invariably warm, loving, and supportive. In my story, Momma Jay is disappointed and upset that her son has disobeyed her and has done something so dangerous that he could have lost his life. The reader will be aware that she’s being unfair to Jimmy — Buddy was the instigator, not Jimmy! Momma Jay is scolding the wrong person. So much drama!

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Picture #29, Momma Jay is Scolding Jimmy

Momma Jay is scolding Jimmy because she thinks he broke here commandment against playing around the chimney. She’s warned the kids that the chimney swallowed her brother the previous year and he was never seen again and she doesn’t want that to happen to them. The problem is that she doesn’t realize the Jimmy didn’t intentionally break her rule. He was only trying to rescue his friend who had just fallen down the chimney.

I haven’t seen many modern children’s books where the hero is scolded by his parents, but I do recall that in the tale Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack was called an idiot for trading a cow for some magic beans. In that case it turned out that the adults were the idiots, not Jack. We’ll have to wait to see how Jimmy Jay’s story turns out.

This is image #29, and I still have about 5 more pictures to re-ink. My new dilemma is that I want to keep the book to the standard for children’s books, 32 pages, and I’m going to have about 38. Some of the images will not make it into the book.