What story could this line tell?

Like magic, simple lines on the white board morphed into expressive animals, and stories were born out of thin air in the Lower School gym on May 5th, to the delight of Latin’s Lower School students.

Students exercise their imagination during Authors' Day

Eric Rohmann, special guest for the school’s Author’s Day, was the gifted artist and author who performed this conjuring for Latin’s own budding authors.

Winner of the coveted Caldecott Medal in 2003 for the illustrations in his book My Friend Rabbit, and a Caldecott Honor for his 1995 debut book for children, Time Flies, Mr. Rohmann demonstrated over and over how simple drawings can tell a story, and how slight changes in the drawing can make the story develop in very different ways.

The children watched as a few quick marker strokes became a pig on a skateboard. A wavy line above the pig’s head put him in immediate trouble. The children laughed.

Jack, the underwater skateboarding pig

“Is there any problem with a pig skateboarding underwater?” Rohmann asked innocently.

“He can’t breathe!” the children told him.

A few more strokes created a snorkel.

“He can’t see!” another child offered.

On went a mask.

“Can he move?” Rohmann asked. A small motor soon powered the skateboard.

Author-illustrator Eric Rohmann enjoys his visit to the Lower School

But what’s this? A small shark appeared in the corner of the picture. And before you knew it, the children were helping to create a story about a shark and a skateboarding pig.

With small teeth on the shark, the two animals were friends. Big teeth meant danger, especially when accompanied by heavy eyebrows. But erase the eyebrows and add a couple of hearts above the shark’s head, and suddenly you have a shark in love with the pig.

“What happens on the next page?” was a question Rohmann asked more than once, as he got the students accustomed to realizing that they were creating the story based on the information they gleaned from the drawings.

Rohmann told the students that he began drawing at a very early age. He wasn’t any different from any other kids with regard to how well he drew, he just kept practicing. He drew comics as a child and invented a comic book character that he named Army Ant.

“I have always drawn pictures that tell stories,” he said. “I have been making these books for about 12 years, but I have been making stories all my life.”

Rohmann sometimes illustrates the stories of other writers and sometimes does both the writing and the illustration. He holds degrees in fine arts from both Arizona State University and Illinois State University. He also is a painter, printmaker, and fine bookmaker. His other books include The Cinder-Eyed Cats, Clara and Asha (published last year), Pumpkinhead, and The Gift of the Black Swan. Additionally, he did the illustrations for The Prairie Train and King Crow.

The children were interested in where he gets his ideas for new books.

Lower School students are enthralled as the stories unfold

“From everywhere,” he said. “From being at the Field Museum. I used to go to the museum all the time and I used to wish it would come alive, like the zoo. From playing with my brother. From ordinary life.”

Each spring on Authors’ Day, Lower School students celebrate the creative writing process when they have an opportunity to meet with a professional writer and share their own books, written and published in the Lower School publishing office.

© 2008 The Latin School of Chicago

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