In 2006 and 2007, I was only a couple years out of college and trying to dip my toe into the world of children’s book illustration. I was hired by a small company called Hot Topics Hot Serials. They aren’t around anymore, but they were a serial publication that published stories for elementary and middle school kids in newspapers in schools.
I was hired to illustrate two stories that were both historical fiction and they were really a blast to create.
The first book, The Secret Life, was about two sisters growing up in the early 1900s on the east coast when women were actively protesting and lobbying for their right to vote in the United States. They went about their lives, scraping along, trying to help out their single mom when they noticed she was acting differently; hiding something. They learned that she was a suffragette and marching in parades and joining protests. The two sisters get caught up in a riot and it’s an eye-opening experience for them.
I loved researching the different types of clothing girls and women wore back then; even the differences between what working women wore versus wealthier women. Reading through different accounts of the events that led up to the passing of the 19th amendment was fascinating.
The second book, All in Good Time was about a New York City middle schooler who struggled with taking history class seriously. One day his history teacher gave him a subway token and it transported him back to Manhattan in the 1930s. He met a girl his same age who lived almost entirely on her own and had to make ends meet in a time when there was corruption and not much in place to protect kids from danger.
For this book, I actually flew to New York for a day to take some photos in the spots where parts of the story took place. I went to Times Square, the Brooklyn Bridge, Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty, Chelsea Piers, and I got some good photos of older apartment buildings in the city for painting inspiration. It was fun looking up what a subway car looked like, what Times Square looked like, and what an Automat was (Google it!).
In January of 2008, I got a random email from a reporter for the Saginaw News in Michigan. They were going to be printing “The Secret Life” in the local newspaper there and she wanted to ask me a few questions about my experience illustrating the story. It was really, really cool to know that my illustrations were going to be printed in a real newspaper! I wish I’d known someone who was local who could pick up some copies for me.
About six months after I finished the second book I got a letter in the mail from a woman named Maureen who’d seen the story All in Good Time published in her local newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune. One chapter was in each day’s paper for the length of the story. Most of the illustrations were black and white, but a few were printed in color along with a couple of teasers on the front page. She saw Alexandra Tebow listed as the illustrator and reached out to my grandpa to see if we were related. Turned out Maureen’s husband is my grandpa’s first cousin. My grandpa passed along my mailing address and she was kind enough to collect the newspapers, cut them out, and mail them to me.
Pretty cool, right?!
After Maureen reached out to me, I scoured the Star Tribune’s website for online versions of the chapters and printed them out too.
It’s funny to me how different I would make these if I was to illustrate them all over again, haha! I have no way of knowing if these stories and my illustrations have been printed in other newspapers since then. I wish Hot Topics Hot Serials was still around too, they were really fun to work with. I truly had a wonderful time illustrating these stories and if I’m ever able to illustrate historical fiction again, I’ll jump at the chance.