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| cover of Puppy Princess -Little Golden Books- illustrated by Steven Salerno |
Puppy Princess was my 24th illustrated picture book to date, with three more picture books slated for release in 2017 and 2018.
When editor Diane Muldrow at Random House offered me this project, I jumped at the chance to illustrate the charming Sue Fliess story for very young readers and to become a part of the “A Little Golden Book” legacy. The illustrations for the book were created with crayon, charcoal, gouache with added digital composing and coloring. Even though the text does not describe the breed of the puppy in the story, when I first received the manuscript the author had noted that the puppy was a King Charles Spaniel, so that is how I depicted the puppy. (And it seems that there are many, many King Charles Spaniels where I live in Manhattan, so every time I was out for a walk I could always see one as additional visual reference in conjunction with the photo reference I had complied during my preliminary sketch stage.)
FYI: Little Golden Books were first published by Simon & Schuster in 1942 (they opened with the simultaneous publication of 12 titles) and since then have published over 200 additional Little Golden Book titles, which have been owned and produced by Random House since 2001. Within those first 12 titles published back in 1942 was the popular book The Poky Little Puppy -which was so popular in fact, that it went on to sell over 15 million copies to date, making it one of the, if not not highest selling individual picture book in history. So needless to say, I am hoping that Puppy Princess will have some of that very same puppy success!
Visit stevensalerno.com to see my many other picture books for kids, as well as my illustration portfolios for advertising, editorial, packaging, etc...
