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When asked about his artistic process, award-winning author and illustrator Oliver Jeffers says, “I’m still making it up as I go along.” And that seems to be working for him. His latest project, The Way Back Home (Philomel, $17; ages 4 and up), features the simply drawn but endearingly expressive hero of How to Catch a Star and Lost and Found. In this outing, the nameless boy befriends a stranded Martian after crash-landing his own single-propeller airplane on the moon.
The 30-year-old artist, too, has ventured into new territory: He recently relocated from his native Belfast to New York City to immerse himself in the local art scene. Within his Brooklyn storefront studio, he’s been illustrating, painting, working on site-specific art installations and tinkering with a new picture book, the details of which are still under wraps. It’s this can-do spirit, combined with a gift for exploring themes like friendship and longing without forcing a message, that makes his books so appealing. “Kids are pretty clued into when they’re being sold a con,” he says. As legions of fans can attest, Jeffers’s stories are the real thing.
—Alexis Burling
