Rude Cakes by Rowboat Watkins
Dear Rowboat Watkins,
I feel like the RUDEst person. I scheduled this blog post to run on June 12, 2015 (yes, 2015), but it never went live. I just found it in my drafts folder. SORRY!!!
Better late than never, eh?
Happy reading!
-John
P.S. I owe you a large cake!
I wrote the words in purple, and Rowboat wrote the words in black.
Rude
Cakes is the title of my book
because calling it At Least One Kid I Know
Sure Acts a Lot Like a Petty Dictator Sometimes and It Would Behoove Her to Get
Her Narcissistic Act Together Or Else… seemed a titch wordy (and shrill). The
book was maybe a little bit inspired by my daughter, who still mistakes my wife
and me for vassals. But she’s working on it.
I created the illustrations for Rude Cakes because
those good-for-nothing book elves I’ve been waiting for forever never EVER show
up (freeloaders), and eventually some patsy has to draw the pictures or there
will only be a bunch of words, and BJ Novak already nailed that puppy out of
the ballpark, so you gotta stop whining someday and start drawing because
Sergio Ruzzier isn’t showing up to ghostdraw the book either. Because he’s
busy. Or so he said.
The barcode on the back jacket will
turn out to be some people’s favorite part of the book, and it would not be
surprising if some folks within this disenchanted constituency try to return it
(or re-gift it). I hope they prove to be
a very small minority, but the book is already printed and there’s nothing I
can do about the fact that some people simply don’t know how to experience joy,
and it’s not my fault that barcodes are unsightly or that the book elves were
no-shows and that Sergio was busy.
The Maurice Sendak Fellowship was
the single most important creative reboot of my whole entire life.
My favorite cake is
my daughter. It used to be hazelnut, when I was little. And for a long time
after it was coconut layer. The bakery around the corner from me makes an almost
indescribably refreshing strawberry shortcake. And my wife makes a wow-worthy
pineapple upside-down cake. But when push comes to shove, it’s my daughter.
She’s a cream-cheese frosting girl, by the way.
Picture books are not
one of the Twelve Labors of Hercules not because they didn’t exist back then (a
minor technicality), but because they’re so preposterously hard to pull off
well. Who would care about some “legendary” muscleman in a lion skin still
weeping at his desk because he couldn’t get his pictures to dance with the text?
Mr. Schu, you should have asked
me why
the book is dedicated to Antoinette (Portis). It’s because she understands how
a picture book works (or doesn’t) better than anyone I know. And because
without her tireless pompoms, and generous heart, and brilliant brain, I don’t think
I would have had the courage to stay afloat.
Borrow Rude Cakes from your school or public library. Whenever possible, please support independent bookshops.
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