AN INTERVIEW WITH JEFF SNOW, SPRING 2006

Jeff, you are involved in children's publishing and in creating movies for children. When you studied art and began your career in illustration, did you think that you would become so enmeshed in children's media?

I’ve been drawing pictures as long as I can remember. I’ve always been interested in cartoons and I always wanted to be an artist. As my interests were so much in the direction of animated movies, it was a foregone conclusion that I would eventually become involved in children’s media. Perhaps part of it was that I don’t think I’ve ever completely grown up.

Can you compare the two media? How does working on a Hollywood feature-length animated movie compare with writing and illustrating a children's book? Are there any parallels?

There are definite similarities between developing stories for films and doing children’s books. Obviously, both involve writing, drawing and storytelling, in general. The only real difference between the two is that the final product of each is in a different form. Children’s books are a bit more compact…the storytelling needs to be more condensed, but conceptually they’re not that different at all.

The five-year-old protagonist, Franklin, seems to bear a resemblance to author and illustrator Jeff Snow. Did you have nightmares as a child? Were there beasts in your closet?

I have been asked if this book is autobiographical, and I suppose it certainly could be! I remember having nightmares a time or two while growing up. I remember when Ravay and I were kids, before we got our own rooms, I would wake up at night at the creaking of the walls of the old house where we grew up! Terrifying wooden groans emanated from these walls, and I would be in such a state of panic that I would sneak up to my sister’s bed and curl up at its far edges, hoping for sanctuary! She, of course would wake up kicking and screaming for me to get back into my own bed! (No doubt not wanting me to inadvertently lure some beastly horror to her side of the room!)

Is there a screen version of BEASTS IN THE CLOSET on the way?

There are no immediate plans for a screen version of this book, but you never know…

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