The Genesis of This Book

A couple summers ago when my grandson, Gus, was turning four, I began looking for a book for him. My habit is to purchase one toy, one clothing item, and one book for each grandchild for their birthday.

Gus is enamoured with big machines, so I wanted to find a book for him with big machines, and I wanted it to have a Christian perspective that a four-year-old could grasp. I began my search. I remember the day I went into a bookstore and asked the store clerk if she could help me find a book like that. After scanning the shelves together, she looked in her computer. Then she said, “I’m sorry, I’m coming up blank. There doesn’t seem to be such a book.”

Without much hesitation I answered, “Then I shall write one.“ There was quite a long gestation period between my proclamation and the actual completion of the thing. Rather than a birthday present in August, it became a Christmas present.

This book was produced on my old iPad. I used a program called Paper. It too is an old program. It allows you to draw with your finger or a stylus.

All the pictures in this book were drawn using a finger or a stylus. They were all painted the same way. All the words in the book were “drawn”, not typed, except for the few pages that tell ABOUT the book.

My original intent was to create physical works of art for each page. I was just using the Paper program as a brainstorming tool to figure out how many pages I’d have and to block out where images and text would go. I was making simple sketches to familiarize myself with each big machine. After working this way through several pages, those simple sketches began to grow on me. Eventually, I decided to stick with the iPad and create the book in Paper.

For that initial Christmas gift, I emailed the file from Paper to a local printer and had them print each page on a large mailing label. Then I trimmed them for precise fit and adhered them to the pages of a blank book. It turned out great! The man who helped me at the printer’s said, “I hope you are planning to get this published. I’d buy one“.

On Christmas morning, I didn’t have very high hopes. I knew Gus would be surrounded by many new toys and flashy gifts. He loves books, but in that kind of competition, I wasn’t expecting his undivided attention nor that he would be much impressed.

I’m delighted to report that I was wrong! Four-year-old Gus sat on my lap and interacted with every page. He even made a little game out of pretending to be contrary. Each page begins with a declarative like “this is a bulldozer.“ Then Gus would interrupt saying, “That’s not a bulldozer!” And we would laugh together at his silliness.

This was a fun project. Every page was like finger painting and experimenting with new art supplies. This fresh process of using words backed up with pictures, and pictures enhanced by words was a delight for me.

I hope you and your littles have as much fun reading “Jesus is Kinda Like a Garbage Truck” as Gus and I did, and still do!