It's official: Just received contracts for RUBY ROSE books!

Last year, I mentioned that I was going to be illustrating two picture books by Rob Sanders for HarperCollins.

Then Rob and I found out that his editor, Maria Modugno, was leaving HarperCollins to join Random House. Since I still hadn't received the contracts, I didn't know what would happen. Would the new editor prefer a different illustrator?

Margaret Anastas was named the new editor and happily, she still wanted me as the illustrator for Rob's books. Yay! The fully executed/signed contracts arrived this week:

The first book is called RUBY ROSE ON HER TOES, and is a fun story about a little girl who loves to dance. You can read more about Rob's story on his website. I was delighted when HarperCollins sent me the mss -- those familiar with my Daily Doodles already know how much I love to draw dancing children, adults and creatures.

Margaret invited me to come visit HarperCollins earlier this year, and I enjoyed meeting her and Jeanne Hogle. Here are some photos:

Margaret Anastas & Jeanne Hogle

Visiting HarperCollins (NYC) for the first time

Thanks to Jeanne Hogle for taking the photo above

They haven't named an art director for the project yet. Final art for the first RUBY ROSE book is due October 2014. Before then, I'll be finishing the illustrations for NAKED! (picture book by Michael Ian Black, published by Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers in Summer 2014) and as well as a yet-untitled picture book that I'm writing AND illustrating (Simon & Schuster BFYR, Spring 2015).

Thanks so much to my agent at Curtis Brown, Ginger Knowlton, for all her help.

I'm so looking forward to working on RUBY ROSE!