A Little Blue Dot: Q&A with creator Maren Hasenjäger
A Little Blue Dot was originally published in Germany by Magellan CmbH & Co. and has gone on to sell over 15,000 copies in Maren’s home country. Here Maren tells Mama Makes Books a little more about her work and the inspiration behind A Little Blue Dot.
Tell us a little bit about yourself:
Hello, I’m Maren, a freelance illustrator from Germany! I recently moved to my favourite city Hamburg where I live with my husband and our two cats, Seti and Nasa. Besides drawing I love spending time in nature, journaling, reading and playing the flute. Most of all I love learning new things about the topics I’m interested in.
Since stationery and cute things bring me a lot of joy, I founded my own online shop four years ago and am currently spending my time designing new products.
I’d also really love to work on a new book next year and am constantly brainstorming for new ideas.
www.paraplyshop.com
We love the illustrations in A Little Blue Dot – tell us a little bit about the process you use when you’re creating a children’s picture book?
At first, I create a storyboard – sometimes digitally but often on paper, since I always feel like I can think better with an actual pen in my hand. Storyboards are great for figuring out the composition of my double spreads and for deciding on how I want to tell the story. They’re also very useful for communicating with my editor, who can give me tips and suggestions on how to make improvements.
For the actual illustrations, I use my tablet and later add textures on the computer. Drawing digitally has many benefits, but I like it when my illustrations still look a bit hand-made. I used to work with water colours and textured papers and I always try to take a bit of that into my digital work. At the beginning, I like to think about the colour concept, one for the whole book and one for each double spread. Working digitally allows me to easily try out different colour palettes, which I really love to play around with.
Where do you work?
I work in my art studio at home. Since I’m autistic I am very sensitive to my surroundings, especially noise. Working from home allows me to create the environment I need to be able to work in peace and also spares me from having to commute which I find really stressful. I do however make sure to go on a lot of walks so that I don’t spend all of my time sitting indoors. Another benefit is being able to pet my cats all day long, of course :-)
(c) Hannah Staymann
What inspired you to write A Little Blue Dot?
When I studied illustration, one of my teachers told me how important it is to not create the books you think might be popular, but to make the books you want to make and are passionate about. That advice left a huge impression on me and I decided to make a book about two topics that are really dear to me: Astronomy and sustainability.
Another inspiration was my own childhood – I loved reading non-fiction books, but 30 years ago the market was still pretty small. Most of the books only had photos instead of illustrations and were aimed at much older children. I still remember borrowing my older sister’s school atlas in which there was a double spread about the universe. I loved to look at it and spend hours getting lost in the pictures, but I didn’t understand a thing! So in a way, I also wrote the book for my younger self.
What do you think is the most important message in A Little Blue Dot?
I wrote A Little Blue Dot with two messages in mind. The first is that everybody is special in their own way. Sometimes we compare ourselves to others and wish we could be more like them and lose sight of the things that make us unique. But just like the Earth, everybody is important and valuable in their own way! At the same time, everybody has their own problems and worries, even the people we admire.
The second important message is that we live on a wonderful and special planet that cannot be replaced. Other planets might be very big or exciting, but we would not be able to survive there. So, we really need to protect the little blue dot we live on, so that it can continue to be a home for us humans and all the other animals and plants we share it with.
Which is your favourite planet and why?
My favourite planet is Earth because there isn’t a single day on which I don’t think about how amazing it is to live here – when the sky is filled with beautiful colours, when I see a tiny flower growing in a crack in the pavement, when I hear a seagull’s cry in the distance.
But I guess that’s a bit of a boring answer, so I’ll also tell you my second favourite planet, which is Saturn! I love going to the planetarium, the one in my old home city had a program that took you on a tour through the whole universe. There is one scene that lets the viewer fly right through the many rocks and lumps of ice that make up the planet’s rings and it was always one of my favourite moments. In fact, it left such an impression on me that it was a huge inspiration for my own double spread about Saturn! In 2017 I followed a live broadcast on the day that the space probe Cassini was sent to burn up in Saturn’s atmosphere because its mission was over. I had goosebumps, because I kept thinking how crazy it is that we can send little space robots to another planet that is billions of kilometers away from ours!
What’s your favourite fact that you learnt while writing and illustrating A Little Blue Dot?
One of my favourite facts is that often scientists take inspiration in fiction when they name geological features on other planets and moons. Many of them are taken from ancient mythology, but there are also more modern inspirations. On Pluto’s moon Charon for example, some features are named after places or characters from Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who or the Wonderful Wizard of Oz! Many of those are unofficial names, but some have even been officially recognized.
Do you have a favourite bookshop in the UK?
I can’t name one specific shop because there were so many, but I absolutely love browsing bookshops in the UK! When it was still cheap to travel to London by train, I went there with my husband on several occasions. We even took half-empty suitcases with us to make sure we had enough space to take some books back home with us. I was always amazed by the wonderful selection of picture books in the UK and it has since then been my dream to one day spot one of my books in a bookshop in London. Since, I’m now one big step closer to my dream coming true, I hope I can one day visit again!
