The Book to Adopt

The pieces have come and we have a new Picture book to present!

Missing Pieces is a cute picture book about adoption and finding that one place you fit and that is doesn't always happen right away.

What is really cool is this book idea was suggested many, many years ago. I still remember being at the Alberta Beach Farmers' Market and a woman walked up to our table. She was looking through our books as she worked with a organization with that dealt with children. She picked up Green Pea, "Not A Home For Me!" and after she was done reading through it she made a suggestion like... "You should make another book just like this one but instead of finding a pea pod at the end Green Pea doesn't a place that he really fits in."

I let the idea stew for a while and ultimately the thought passed and for a long time I wrote many more titles. I still remember that day when it hit me. The thought of a puzzle piece on the floor and a boy finding it. The title being called Missing Pieces and the idea that like this puzzle piece it takes time to find where it will snap into place. That you can't force it into a spot that it doesn't belong in.

The real question becomes how should we elevate the illustrations for this book?

The conclusion we came up with was make a real puzzle in this book.

The biggest problem became making the puzzle. Pascha drew out a pattern and the picture. When the illustrations were complete took the the puzzle image and removed the negative space, layered it on the illustration she created and separated each piece into cookie cutter pieces. The puzzle is a total of 101 images broken up making in a technical sense the most illustrations layered in any book.

Putting the puzzle together

Puzzle

While the book was at the publisher we came to the conclusion that the illustrations didn't hold up to how we wanted them.

The book took a huge set back as we came to the conclusion the illustrations were a lower quality scan than we desired and so the entire thing had to be done again. Making the puzzle, layering all the illustrations on the back ground, putting the puzzle together and making sure all the pieces fit on the table then spreading them around the area like a real puzzle took a lot out of me the first time and I completely avoided reworking on this book. This is why this book was on hiatus for a couple years. I couldn't mentally push myself to redo the puzzle.

What I ended up doing is using the old puzzle and layering it on a new scan of the background and was able to finish is book in a matter of weeks.

I've done tedious illustrative touchups before in past books but none have been this mentally draining or exhausting. I'm so excited to finally present this book to you and I hope you will give this book a chance and adopt a copy.

A cool little detail I can address now. The Author picture for, Allergies Bite But Taste Good Eat At Your Own Risk, Centered Adventure, Spy Over There, Story Stumped, and Missing Pieces were all taken on the same day.

Thank you for your time

Chance Hansen

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