There are times I wish all my books could be Halloween books. It’s my favorite holiday, and it is so much fun to write about!

This book took a long, looooong time to finish. In fact, I think I wrote it about ten years before it was actually published. That doesn’t mean I was writing it all day, every day, for ten years! But about every two years I’d reread it, revise it, and then put it away again. I just never felt as though I had gotten it right. I wrote a ton of drafts and tried all different angles when writing it.  I tried writing it from Madam Gray’s point of view. I tried taking it out of rhyme. I tried making it about the first day of school. Just like Shrieky, Moana, and Groana, I tried lots of different things until I came up with a solution to the story. So in a way, this book is about how I wrote, well… this book!

People often think that because a book is short, it must not have taken a long time to write. Sadly, this is not true, and especially not with this book. With picture books, since there are so few words, you have to pay even more attention to each one. If one word is off, the whole book feels off. Like most writers, I spend more time revising than I do writing the first draft.

I love Edward Miller’s illustrations! It’s a fun, silly book, and his illustrations are especially fun and silly!