The Picture Book Buzz - Interview with Jason Lefebvre and Review of So Much Slime

Jason Lefebvre lives in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He spent fifteen years as a preschool paraprofessional and has worked since 2005 as a children's librarian.

His work as a preschool paraprofessional and children's librarian nurtured his love into a desire to publish his own books for children. A glue spill of epic proportions inspired his first picture book. The greatest part of his journey into publication has been connecting with students and teachers and attempting to impart some of his love for being an author onto them.

Book cover - boy in a classroom with stringy globs of glue streching from both hands to the carpet.

Jason is the author of Too Much Glue illustrated by Zac Retz (2013).

His newest picture book, So Much Slime, releases September 3rd.

Welcome Jason, thank you so much for stopping by to talk about yourself and your new book.

Thanks so much for having me.

Tell us a little about yourself. (Where/when do you write or illustrate? How long have you been writing or illustrating? What is your favorite type of book to write or illustrate?)

I write whenever I can find the time and I am always scribbling down notes, or taking a note on my phone when something comes up in everyday life that might lend itself to a story idea. I have a small office setup in our house, and I try to find regular time to flesh out these scribbles. I keep a flash drive on my key chain so if I have a spare moment and a laptop around, I can usually find time to write anywhere. I started trying to write around 1998 and became more serious about it in the early 2000s. My experience with Flashlight Press started around 2009 when Shari Dash Greenspan first agreed to look at the MS for Too Much Glue. While I have attempted longer form works, my first love will always be picture books because they can be cartoony and fun.

I love the flash drive on the key chain idea. Who was your favorite author, illustrator, and/or your favorite book as a child?

During the 80s when I was growing up children’s literature started to explode, particularly picture books, so I was lucky. Shel Silverstein was always a popular author at my school. He was irreverent in some of his writing (in the best way) but also a brilliant wordsmith. I feel like everyone in my age group at least read Where the Sidewalk Ends when they were young. Poetry is hard to introduce to younger audiences so I’m sure teachers in the 80s loved Silverstein too.

Book cover - boy wrapped in a blanket walking down the stairs.

Bernard Waber was also influential to me. Ira Sleeps Over was one of my favorite story-time stories at home, and I can still sit down and read through it today feeling just as satisfied. Judith Viorst was another inspiration. Her books are unbelievable. As I got older and moved into longer fiction, I got into the choose-your-own-adventure genre for a while. It seemed to be everywhere in the mid to late 80s. Then I moved into fantasy and got really into Terry Brooks. A friend at school got me into Stephen King. Reading a book like Salem’s Lot when you’re twelve feels like a rebellious act (when you’re a quiet introvert).

What was the inspiration or spark of interest for So Much Slime?

Book cover - a boy holding and stretching a massive bit of slime - almost as big as he is. As his father and mother play with their own pieces behind him.

Shari Dash Greenspan at Flashlight Press had the idea to do something slime-related after we had run through some tape scenarios as a sequel. Originally, I had wanted to do a story called Not Enough Tape where Matty has taken the principal’s advice from the end of Too Much Glue too seriously, has used up all the tape in the house, and now can’t wrap Mom’s birthday gift. I thought the idea of a kid trying to seal the seams of wrapping paper with things like maple syrup was funny, but the story never really made it past the early stages.

When Shari brought the slime idea, I drew on my classroom experiences with slime. Me and the people I worked with stored our slime in zip-lock bags in the classroom fridge and on one occasion I forgot to zip the lock. A few hours later the fridge was arguably more slime than fridge. It’s fun taking a simple mistake, dialing it up to 11, and going from there.

Oh my goodness! What is a (or the most) fun or unusual place where you’ve written a manuscript or created an illustration?

In 2024, I think it qualifies as unusual to say that I used to write all my MS in spiral-bound notebooks by hand. THEN I would have to type them for submission. Technology and I don’t always agree so it was a bit of a process transitioning to keeping everything on a laptop, but it is for the best. My handwriting is atrocious. When I was working in preschool an Occupational Therapist once saw me writing and asked if I was actually left-handed or if I was just writing with my left hand because my right hand was hurt 😊. True story.

With that said, when I would write sometimes the idea would move faster than my hand and my writing would get even worse. It is safe to say that I have entire sections of stories that might be great, but the world will never know because no one including me can decipher the words. That doesn’t happen now that I only write on a computer.

Ha! That's hilarious and sad. You are lucky your fingers can keep up with your brain. What was the toughest part of writing So Much Slime? How long did it take from the first draft to publication?

Slime started the idea/draft process in late 2017 or early 2018. I’m not sure which. In an initial draft, it’s more important to get the progression of the action down because the details change a lot as the process continues. Where is the story beginning, how is it going to end up, and how to you bridge that gap in a fun and engaging style. The serious editing started in the summer of 2018.

At some point, the three-ingredient concept entered the mix and things started to progress more quickly from there. The best part of working with Shari at Flashlight is how thorough she is. That also means that text is edited right up to the printing process. I can’t lie, after the book is made, I still make some tweaks when I read it aloud to kids. The shortest answer is that for me, and I’ll bet for Shari, the editing never really ends, but the printing process definitively ends the draft stage. There is no turning back from there.

So true. Thank you for your honest answer. Did anything surprise or amaze you when you first got to see Zac’s illustrations? What is your favorite spread?

Nothing Zac does surprises me. We met in person back in I think 2017 (I’m not great at dates), when the students from the DAC at Colorado University Denver used Too Much Glue for a student project. These were incredibly talented kids in a high-quality program. It was obvious to me once I met Zac that at that point, he had no idea what a rare talent he was. Zac was giving an illustration demonstration in front of the class, and I was sitting in between some of the students. As Zac turned a blank screen into an intricately shaded image over the course of about an hour. One of the students leaned over and said something like “I thought maybe he would show some kind of a trick or a tool that he uses to make it look like that. He’s using the same things I use, he’s just way better at it.” They weren’t upset or jealous, they were just kind of flummoxed.

Internal spread - on upper right, a boy sits on the kitchen floor in the light of a crescent moon packing lots of baking soda and glue in his backpack. On the bottom the boy is at a long table surrounded my his glass and teacher, holding aloft a glue bottle. With more glue bottles and baking soda on the table.

Text © Jason Lefebvre, 2024. Image © Zac Retz, 2024.

It will sound weird, but I have always wanted to have a night spread in a story. I love the way illustrators present night or darkness in a variety of ways in a picture book. Early on when Matty is packing his supplies the night before the slime presentation, I love the way Zac handled it, and the last page with the glow-in-the-dark slime is beautiful. I love those two illustrations.

I am totally in awe of his illustrations. As your second picture book collaboration, did you still work individually or was there any more interaction with Zac Retz?

Zac doesn’t need my help to be brilliant, so I happily stay out of his way. That is the weirdest part of the publishing process for me, however. For months/years as the draft is fine-tuned, you have your hands all over a project. Then for a stretch, it feels completely out of your control because as Zac begins to draft, I don’t see much of the work. Then you get those first early sketches, and you feel whole again.

This was much more of a stressful process during Too Much Glue. Not knowing if you are going to like the way a person puts your words into pictures is tough, but when I first saw what Zac did with Glue, I could have cried. With So Much Slime, I was much more relaxed during that process, which was good because with Zac’s busy schedule, it was a little longer wait, but good things come to those who wait 😊.

It was definitely worth the wait. What's something you want your readers to know about So Much Slime?

That you don’t get anything you want by yourself. So Much Slime happened because Shari and the team at Flashlight spent long hours reading, editing, and communicating with me. My agent Alyssa Eisner Henkin thought enough of it to read it and give input on it. Zac spent a lot of time making the pictures look just so. Other people printed it, will deliver it to stores, and will (hopefully) be involved in selling it to lots of people. All the books that kids see at bookstores and libraries have their own story behind them. Nothing special happens overnight and patience in a process is maybe the most important thing to have.

Well said and I hope that my interviews help readers and kids realize all that goes into the process from the spark to the book in their hands. Are there any new projects you are working on now that you can share a hint or tidbit with us?

JASON – I’ve written over 70 picture book MS and also a lot of short stories and two-or-three chapter books that are in various stages of completion and editing so I always have something on the back burner. Since it will probably never see the light of day, I will share the longest titled story that I have written, a middle-grade novel called Frekas, Short E, Fineds, Short I, and the Land of Oose, as in Moose: A Story with Very Little to do with Pronunciation. It’s a story about the world that exists in the dust and debris under your bed and believe it or not, even with such a succinct title, no one has been interested in publishing it 😊.

Well . . . umm. I'd change the title. 😊 But seriously, best of luck with your other projects. Last question, what is your favorite National Park or Forest, regional park, or city park? Or the one you’re longing to visit. Why?

Photo of Bigelow Hollow State Park in Union, CT.

JASON – My partner Jeannine and I have done a lot of hiking, often in places that have water (ponds, lakes, reservoirs, etc.). One of the best places we’ve hiked is called Bigelow Hollow State Park in Union, CT. We slightly mistimed the sunset the day we went and ended up hiking out just as it was getting dark (and one of us is afraid of the dark) so it’s still something we laugh about. It’s a beautiful place in daylight and a longer hike than it initially appears.

Thank you, Jason, for sharing with us a bit about yourself and your newest picture book.

To find out more about Jason Lefebvre, or to contact him:

Website: https://www.jasonlefebvreauthor.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JasonLefebvreAuthor

Review of So Much Slime

From the duo who created Too Much Glue comes a humorous picture book about a science experiment gone awry. It's a fun picture book about a classroom's adventure in making a batch of slime. One that kids will want to read over and over again.

So Much Slime

Author: Jason Lefebvre

Illustrator: Zac Retz

Publisher: Flashlight Press (2024)

Ages: 5-7

Fiction

Themes:

Slime, mistakes, and creativity.

Synopsis:

Matty and his family make slime all the time. They know that it's simple, stretchy, scientific, and super-squishy. But Matty's slime demonstration at school turns into a disaster when he forgets the most important ingredient – saline! Instead of squishy slime, he's up to his elbows in an icky sticky swamp, and it's spreading fast. Can his classmates' creative ideas save him, or will someone find some saline at school soon?

So Much Slime is an explosion of color with vibrant language, wild facial expressions, hands-on-activities, and a hilarious, outrageous plot. Perfect for art time in an elementary class or at home, So Much Slime celebrates creativity in every sense of the word. Companion to the award-winning Too Much Glue.

Opening Lines:

My family loves to

make slime. My dad says

slime is stretchy. My mom

says slime is scientific. But

I say slime is super squishy.

“Oooh!” I shout. “I can

show my class

how to make

slime!”

What I LOVED about this book:

Okay, first off, great opening! The text and the character's expressions immediately capture the reader's attention. And having parents who don't mind (and in fact encourage) a multi-colored, slime covered kitchen would be so cool. I love the colorful, realistic, and super detailed illustrations. Even before the story gets going, Zac Retz has offered the observant reader a plot hint. In addition to strategically placing glue, baking soda, and saline containers on the table - one of each container sits on the back counter with a number in front of it.

Internal spread - Dad stands by the sink playing with blue slime, Mom is by the table with green slime, and the boy is excitedly dumping a bottle of glue into a bowl to make more slime.

Mom agrees that Matty can take the ingredients to school and teach his class to make slime if it's okay with his teacher. Then runs through the three things he needs. That night he stuffs "ALL the slime-making supplies" into his backpack. Or does he? The text and illustrations do a great job playing off each other. Readers will relish knowing more than Matty or later discovering these fun clues on a second read.

Internal image - On the left, Mom, Dad, and boy are making and playing with purple, blue, and greenslime. On the right, on upper right, a boy sits on the kitchen floor in the light of a crescent moon packing lots of baking soda and glue in his backpack. On the bottom the boy is at a long table surrounded my his glass and teacher, holding aloft a glue bottle. With more glue bottles and baking soda on the table.

As a possible wink to the first book, Too Much Glue, Matty dumps SIX bottles of glue in a bowl (six times the amount they use at home!), adds the baking, and "um….the third. Oh, yeah! Pizzazz!” With a flourish, and a "COWABUNGA!", Matty dumps the mix onto the table and suddenly realizes he's forgotten the saline and instead of slime, he's created an "icky, sticky, swamp."

The teacher's expressions are priceless, as one by one his classmates try to help by adding anything they can find in the craft closet - pom-poms, sand, and felt letters, When that doesn't work, they start trying to "whip this swamp into slime." But that just creates . . . bubbles.

Internal image - nine kids gathered around a table trying to massage a swampy pile of goo into slime, as the teacher watches and the boy is trapped up to his shoulders.

Poor Matty. Now enveloped by the swamp up to his neck, could it get any worse? Well . . . you're gonna want to check this out. The ending has a twist and lots of fun. Be sure to watch for additional playfulness in the illustrations. The bright, colorful digital illustrations beautifully compliment and play off the fast-paced text sprinkled with onomatopoeia and humor. This is a great book to spark a playful interest in chemical reactions and slime. One sure to be read again and again.

Resources:

try making some of "Matty’s Stretchy, Scientific, Super Squishy Slime" from the recipe at the back of the book.

Collage of photos of foam slime, clear slime, and galaxy slime.

then make some fluffy slime, clear slime, or galaxy slime. Or add a few squirts of glow-in-the- dark paint to Matty's slime recipe and see what happens.