BOOKS // KIDS TITLES THAT AREN'T JUST FOR KIDS
Beasties, Besties, and Books
Elizabeth Bergeland and Ben Brashares talk boys, girls, and bugs
by Lauren Earline Leonard
EXCERPT //
Bergeland and Brashares’ rapport is that of siblings who like each other a great deal, but will always go for the laugh at the other’s expense. Also like siblings, they each have a lane and play a role. Brashares explains that Bergeland is the “energy and engine of all of our creative endeavors.” The earliest of these projects included woodworking and leather cigarette holders that were supposed to be “sexy little man accessories.” (One now holds up a window sash in Brashares’ home.) “I was very much at the time wanting to write but was so in the thick of parenting. She [Elizabeth] was the one who said, ‘come on, you’re good at this.’ That’s her role in our friendship and this partnership as artists. From the start it has been, get off your ass and let’s do something.” Fully immersed in stay-at-home parenthood, the next something was children’s books.
Being Edie Is Hard Today was published in 2019. It tells the story of Edie, a school-aged girl who copes with the challenges of her day by taking on the characteristics of various animals—a bat that hides in a cubby, a polar bear that can’t hold chalk, a cheetah that preys on bullies, a vulnerable mole rate, an immovable worm. Bergeland introduced her protagonist to Brashares with a note: “Her name is Edie, she’s putting on her emotions to help manage her day. Can you write?” Brashares responded with several pages. The collaboration evolved into a beautifully whimsical story that is wholly identifiable to anyone who has ever struggled to find comfort in their own skin.
The duo’s second book, The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collection, published in 2021, follows a more traditional—easier to market—storyline. Inspired by boys and men plucked from Brashares’ own life, it follows Chuck, a boy striving for the greatness of his ancestors by way of boredom and bugs. “Chuck is figuring out his relationship to his family, to his masculinity,” says Brashares. For this less whimsical book, Bergeland found her task as illustrator to “pay homage” to Brashares’ heartfelt, semi-autobiographical father-son story. //
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