A story about art, collaboration, and happy accidents from your favorite duo of Caldecott Honorees, Molly Idle and Juana Martinez-Neal.
Best friends Juana Martinez-Neal and Molly Idle know a thing or two about collaborative art. After teaming up to illustrate Julie Fogliano’s I Don’t Care, swapping work back and forth through the mail and finding ways to blend their distinct styles, they couldn’t wait to do it all again.
Off the Wall is a joyful exploration of that very process. We open on one little girl, alone with a wall and a bucket of chalk. Then a friend comes along to play tic-tac-toe. Before you can say “whoops!”, one friend becomes four friends, two cats, two dogs, and a splattered ice cream cone. Leashes are tangling and hands are getting dirty… and the art on the wall gets bigger and better.
Little artists and lovers of mess will delight in the ruckus of Off the Wall, which culminates in a reveal of the mural the friends create. Perfect for art classrooms and beyond, Off the Wall reminds us that magic happens when we play, experiment, and welcome the unexpected.
Molly Idle's work as an author-illustrator includes the Caldecott Honor book Flora and the Flamingo, Tea Rex, Coral, and Pearl, among many other titles. With Juana Martinez-Neal, she is co-illustrator of I Don’t Care, written by Julie Fogliano. She lives with her family in Arizona, and invites you to visit her at idleillustration.com.
Juana Martinez-Neal is the author and illustrator of the Caldecott Honor book Alma and How She Got Her Name. She also illustrated La Princesa and the Pea by Susan Middleton Elya, for which she won a Pura Belpré Illustrator Award, Babymoon by Hayley Barrett, Swashby and the Sea by Beth Ferry, and Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard, which won a Robert F. Sibert Medal. She is a co-illustrator of I Don’t Care, written by Julie Fogliano. She lives in Connecticut with her family. Visit her online at www.juanamartinezneal.com.
A story about art, collaboration, and happy accidents from your favorite duo of Caldecott Honorees, Molly Idle and Juana Martinez-Neal.
Best friends Juana Martinez-Neal and Molly Idle know a thing or two about collaborative art. After teaming up to illustrate Julie Fogliano’s I Don’t Care, swapping work back and forth through the mail and finding ways to blend their distinct styles, they couldn’t wait to do it all again.
Off the Wall is a joyful exploration of that very process. We open on one little girl, alone with a wall and a bucket of chalk. Then a friend comes along to play tic-tac-toe. Before you can say “whoops!”, one friend becomes four friends, two cats, two dogs, and a splattered ice cream cone. Leashes are tangling and hands are getting dirty… and the art on the wall gets bigger and better.
Little artists and lovers of mess will delight in the ruckus of Off the Wall, which culminates in a reveal of the mural the friends create. Perfect for art classrooms and beyond, Off the Wall reminds us that magic happens when we play, experiment, and welcome the unexpected.
Creators
Molly Idle's work as an author-illustrator includes the Caldecott Honor book Flora and the Flamingo, Tea Rex, Coral, and Pearl, among many other titles. With Juana Martinez-Neal, she is co-illustrator of I Don’t Care, written by Julie Fogliano. She lives with her family in Arizona, and invites you to visit her at idleillustration.com.
Juana Martinez-Neal is the author and illustrator of the Caldecott Honor book Alma and How She Got Her Name. She also illustrated La Princesa and the Pea by Susan Middleton Elya, for which she won a Pura Belpré Illustrator Award, Babymoon by Hayley Barrett, Swashby and the Sea by Beth Ferry, and Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard, which won a Robert F. Sibert Medal. She is a co-illustrator of I Don’t Care, written by Julie Fogliano. She lives in Connecticut with her family. Visit her online at www.juanamartinezneal.com.
