Writing a Picture Book After Multiple Middle-Grade Novels

A box from Penguin Random House surprised me outside my door the other day. I instantly could guess what was in it and the feeling was surreal. Copies of my debut picture book, Just Right? That shock sent more shockwaves through me.

Wow. I wrote a picture book.

How’d I even write it during that time?

People know me for my four award-winning middle-grade books that I also pinch myself for writing because of where I was born and raised. Life magazine called Brooklyn’s Red Hook projects “The Crack Capital of the USA” and “One of the Ten Toughest Neighborhoods in the Country.” Jay-Z knows Red Hook’s similarities is to his Marcy projects shown in his shoutouts of us in his songs and he got it right about our shared options when he rapped, “You either got a jump shot or sling crack rock.” 

I didn’t expect to live past 18; so, I really didn’t expect to be a published author. People expected me to be my father, in and out of jail, then dead. That’s what the cop told teen-me when I was brought to the precinct for hopping a turnstile: “You’ll be like your pops. I met him.”

Yet I didn’t follow that path. I became the first in my family to go to college (shoutout to Vassar where I was the recent commencement speaker). I’m approaching 30 years of teaching in the same public school that I attended. I published a successful novel, then three more. So I guess people probably expected another novel from me. Honestly, I thought another novel was coming too. I was working on one. So a picture book?

Yet it makes sense I wrote Just Right. And writing this picture book was similar in many ways to writing my novels.

Here’s the “why” and “how” of my writing this picture book.

I can’t fully tell you how far from just right I felt when I opened my laptop to write Just Right. The COVID pandemic just hit, and I struggled with what many struggled with—the world felt upside down, shut down, and lots were down. Then, out of nowhere, my mom died.

Let’s put into context what she meant to me. My dad was in jail most of my whole life, then dead. As a single mom, my mom stepped up to be both my dad and mom. The failing schools I attended? Those prison pipelines kept turning little mes into versions of my dad and other relatives. The school dropout rates in my hometown still are alarmingly high. School left me feeling how generations of family and neighbors since the 1930s felt—uncentered, unseen, unheard, and worthless.

To fight that, my mom became my biggest champion, even when school made me repeat the third grade for a second time. She encouraged my love of reading and writing, and not only did she tell the school that I’d be a published author someday, she made me double down on my promise that my books would be on shelves. And I believed her because she uplifted me THAT much. So her dying? Plus the pandemic? My mood was steamrolled flat, and I couldn’t write. I just needed to feel right. All of my books start with that need.

I also wanted a story that feeds the need my novels supply. Betsy Bird and School Library Journal have reviewed all my books and applaud my keeping them between 136 - 195 pages, short and powerful. The effect is better said in Bird’s voice and she wrote, “The fact of the matter is that there is no other author out there writing with Maldonado’s capabilities and then consistently putting out full-length stories that are this short. A Maldonado novel never seeks to intimidate.”

During the pandemic and Ma’s death, I was so down I needed the most powerful and quickest “pick me up” and that’s why I say the picture book format chose me. I needed the least intimidating story, an even safer space than my novels. Again, I feel only a picture book could do that. Picture books break down big feelings, leaving in us big feelings in a maybe faster, easier way than novels.

So, what did I do? In the words of Lin-Manuel Miranda in Hamilton, “I picked up the pen and I wrote my way out.” Who helped me out when I was down? Ma. So she made her way into my story that was shaping into a picture book. And she brought another person who helped me out and made me feel just right when I was Toby’s age. You ever heard “It takes a village to raise a child?” There’s no way I would’ve survived Red Hook without a village. There’s no way my books could’ve been written without the village who I honor in my books. Part of my village were uncles who weren’t blood-related. I still remember one.

Ma got me from Day Care (pre-K), and we passed a garage next door. A voice jokingly boomed at us, “You gonna walk by me with my nephew?” Ma introduced me to the garage owner—her longtime good friend—and she echoed what he said—I could visit his garage anytime. That uncle’s garage became a safe space, where I’d go almost daily to feel free and celebrated. It’s why Toby visits his uncle’s garage in Just Right. I’m Toby. In that garage, Uncle shows him love, turns the world right-side up, and flips his mood way up like mine did for me. I really needed that, especially since my dad, like Toby’s, was checked out. I tell you—I wouldn’t be who I am without Ma and that uncle. I might not be talking with you. And my books wouldn’t be what they are.

Some want to know how similar writing novels is to picture books. If you’re a novelist, one tip that works for both is follow TLC’s advice: “Don’t go chasing waterfalls. Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to.” Uncle Frankie in my middle-grade book Hands is a fan favorite; so I knew readers would love him in a picture book. A librarian whose social media name is The Literacy Advocate contacted me saying she reads hundreds of books yearly, and how I’ve written the chapters on uncles in Hands is a masterclass in character development. She echoed she loved Uncle Frankie.

So I didn’t go chasing other picture books as mentor texts, which is a useful strategy; instead, I went to the rivers and lakes of the winning characters I’m used to. I went back to my village and embraced the garage-owning uncle who my mom connected me to. The uncle whose safe space and upliftment I needed as a boy. I needed his essence during Ma’s death and the pandemic.

What’s the result of letting winning characters from our lives and our novels be the models for our picture book character? A reviewer of Just Right glowed about it and said, “I want a hug from uncle.”

Are there other writing devices that are useful in both novels and picture books that I used with Just Right? Many. Yet I don’t have enough word count to share them here. But I want to circle back to a powerful step writers can take—let books be mirrors of our lives. Who helped or helps you feel just right? If they uplifted us in real life, they’ll uplift readers too.

Maya Angelou said, “Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” Well, who are the rainbows in your life? Write them into your stories to make your stories feel just right. From what I’m seeing, that helps us write well in any book format and helps our readers feel just right too.

I’m about to open that box from Penguin Random House that surprised me outside my door. Unbox who’s just right and what makes you feel just right in your lives as stories, and you’ll be surprised—like me—at what that delivers to your doorstep.

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