Kaz Windness: BITSY BAT: SNOW STAR (Autism)
Welcome back to A NOVEL MIND, Kaz! And congratulations on your newest book in the Bitsy Bat series! Can you tell us a little about yourself?
Thanks for having me back. I’m so happy to be chatting with you and your readers today. I’m Kaz Windness, an author and illustrator of children’s books and a professor of illustration and writing. I’m also autistic and ADHD and a lover of waffles, spooky stuff, and animals, especially misunderstood creatures like bats and spiders.
Can you tell us the history of the BITSY series? How did you first conceive of your little bat?
Every book in the BITSY series deals with a different aspect of autism.
In the first book, Bitsy Bat, School Star, Bitsy goes to school for the first time and finds out she’s the only bat in a classroom for nocturnal animals. She doesn’t sit, paint, eat, or play like the other students. She tries to fit in and mask her differences, but this leads to a big meltdown.
I wrote the story after learning I was autistic when my oldest child was receiving their diagnosis. I saw how hard school was for them and reflected on my experiences growing up with differences that made me feel broken and excluded. I wanted to write a book that would help teachers and parents talk about autism and foster an environment of acceptance and celebration of differences.
In the second book, Bitsy Bat, Team Star, Crittercrawl Elementary is having their school field day, and Bitsy must face new student, Enzo Owl, in a flying race. (Enzo is non-speaking and uses a communication device and sign language.) The story deals with sportsmanship and navigating changes to a friendship dynamic.
In the third book, Bitsy Bat, Snow Star, Bitsy experiences snow for the first time. She’s excited to explore all the things her friends love about winter—sledding, snowmen, and snow angels—but soon discovers the cold activities aren’t for her. She’s too afraid to hurt her friend’s feelings to say so. When Bitsy accidently starts a snowball fight, she finds shelter inside the school where Enzo and Mo are enjoying a cozy book nook with hot cocoa and a peaceful, snowy view. Bitsy finds out that there are lots of ways to enjoy winter.
I wrote this story because many autistics, myself included, have masked heavily because they want so badly to have friends and fit in. This is exhausting. It can be scary for us to reclaim our agency because we experience so much rejection and othering. I hope this and all the Bitsy Bat books encourage inclusion, an understanding of differences, more accommodations, and easier friendships. I also hope they are just fun, exciting reads for kids.
I'm an autistic author too, and I find that my childhood challenges bubble up into my stories almost more than I even mean them to! Is this something you relate to, or not?
100% relatable. Most of my books are about friendship, because it was the thing I struggled with most as a child, and wanted the most, too. A publisher once told me that after many years of working with authors, they believe we usually write to the age we experienced the most childhood trauma. We are trying to understand it, heal it, and help kids not have it as tough as we did. This might explain why I write for all ages of kids -- picture books, chapter books, and middle grade, too. Being autistic impacts every part of who we are and how we operate in the world. Of course that’s going to find its way into our stories. I’m glad you write about your experiences. It’s important, even when your story isn’t directly about autism.
Tell us about your approach to the art in the books. You include so many little illustrative details that observant kids must delight in. (For instance, the tiny "Worm and Caterpillar" book on the schoolroom table!) How, specifically, do you create your illustrations -- what design tools do you use? How has your style developed over time?
I’m glad you noticed the book Easter eggs! My kid said I was doing shameless self-promotion by drawing some of my other book covers and characters in this one, but they all live in the same world. I think it’s fun to find a “Swim, Jim!” stuffy hidden in a Bitsy Bat book. It’s also entertaining for me. It takes a long time to illustrate a book, and if you aren’t entertaining yourself, your readers probably won’t be very entertained either!
I draw in a sketchbook or directly onto the manuscript and then I take a picture, import the drawings into a digital art program and draw directly onto the screen using a stylus. I go through many passes of sketches and revisions. When I’m creating the final artwork, I use very textural, natural-looking digital brushes along with the selection tool to trace an area of my drawing and “spray” in the paint. I build it up over several layers. I use a charcoal/pencil brush to get sharper detail or outlines.
My style is a little different for graphic novels versus picture books, but style has a lot to do with handwriting, and I think you can always tell it’s me. I’m always challenging myself with every book. Sometimes it’s a different color palette or paint tool or way of designing a character. My artistic breakthroughs started happening once I’d figured out how composition and narrative storytelling in illustration worked, combined with tools and workflow that gelled. It was years of drawing and making a lot of mistakes. I still make a lot of mistakes. That’s a good place to discover new ideas and ways of doing things.
When you are thinking of a new story, what comes first: the visuals, the character, the story-idea????
My stories all start with a character, and usually that character appears in my sketchbook. I think in pictures, so I might visualize scenes from the book first. I often write a logline (a two-sentenced premise) to see if the idea I’m visualizing has the needed story elements. If it does, I’ll pin down some of the main plot points and then flesh out a first draft from there.
Why is it important to create ND characters that all children can relate to?
A lot of neurodivergent picture books have historically focused on a neurotypical friend or sibling. It was very important to me that we center the ND character for the Bitsy series, putting the reader in her shoes (or wings). You experience things from Bitsy’s point of view.
That’s why I started the first book with the upside-down barn. You see where Bitsy’s family lives and what Bitsy sees. I also bring you close in and intensify the colors and textures when Bitsy is having a meltdown. One of the best things about books is how they foster empathy, and empathy leads to understanding and inclusion. But I also think most people experience feeling different or excluded at one time or another. I don’t specify that Bitsy is autistic in the story. It’s a metaphor for what that’s like. That means that everyone can relate. I want every child to know that they are special and loved for exactly who they are. Then, when you see my author’s note and the “more about autism” at the back of the book, you can revisit the story through the lens of autism.
Tell us what is next up for you!
I’m currently working on the art for the first picture book in a new five book series called TUX GUY, CAT SPY. In a world where all cats are undercover spies, Tux, a new spy school graduate, must rescue cat-napped agents, the Mitten Triplets. If you like cute cats, tricky clues, fast cars, spy gadgets, evil rats, and exciting escapes, you’ll like TUX GUY.
--> Also, my next Time-Traveling Chickens chapter book, NUGGET AND TENDERS’S EGGCELENT ADVENTURE, publishes next month! (On November 24.)
Thank you so much for the 'eggcelent' interview, Kaz!
Kaz Windness is the author-illustrator of picture books Swim, Jim!; Bitsy Bat, Team Star; and Bitsy Bat, School Star, which received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and BookPage. She created the Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Level 1 Ready-to-Read Graphics book Worm and Caterpillar Are Friends, which received a starred review and is a Junior Library Guild selection, and its sequel Worm and Butterfly Are Friends Always and the Level 1 Ready-to-Reads Cat vs. Vac, Go! Go! Dino!, and Squid in Pants. Kaz is also the illustrator of Ollie, the Acorn, and the Mighty Idea by Andrew Hacket and the author of When You Love a Book, illustrated by Heather Brockman Lee. When she’s not writing or illustrating books, Kaz mentors children’s book authors and artists at The Cuddlefish Academy and enjoys making deep-dish pizza. Kaz lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband, two children, and Boston terrier. Visit her at WindnessBooks.com.
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