Heather Stratton and Professors Richard Hull & William McCleary, Visual Arts and Microbiology

With all the hype and paranoia in our media today about disease causing microbes, the need arises for a more complete picture of these tiny organisms and some of their other roles in our lives to be presented. I have written a children’s story in an attempt to do just this. The book is titled Microbes. It is an acknowledgement of the dangers of microorganisms, but also an explanation of their necessary influence.

Since I am an artist interested in pursuing a career in the children’s book market, the book served a dual purpose for me of helping me develop an illustrative style and learn how good picture books are put together. I wanted to create a work that would be read and enjoyed for its own sake as well as its value as an educational tool.

There were two parts to this project: Writing the story and designing the accompanying illustrations. I worked on both of these parts simultaneously, coming up with drafts of text and pictures together and then revising and redoing both as I went along.

The real challenge in the story writing process, once the basic story line was established, was to explain complicated processes and concepts in words that six to nine-year-old children could understand. This is where I spent the majority of my writing time and it is also a place where I employed much help from outside sources. I received critiques and advise from Dr. Marv Tolman, a professor of science in elementary education, Dr. Michael Morrison, a professor of children’s literature, and Dr. Alvin Price, a professor of child development before completing a final draft of the book text.

In creating the visual story through which the text would run, character design was the first and most important step. The characters are the connection point between the reader and the story. Characters have to be original and stimulating, but also attractive. Drawing the characters from multiples angles such that they still look like the same character is also important. This, particularly, was a test to my abilities.

Ordinarily, when a children’s book is submitted for publication the artist does not make completed pictures for the entire book. Instead, sketches for the layout of each page, including text, are made and then three or four of the designed illustrations are completed. Accordingly, I made finished drawings for only a part of Microbes and made sketches depicting the rest of the book.

The story takes the form of a dialogue between a little boy named Ruepert and his know-it-all older sister, Molly. A brother of Molly and Ruepert named Sam is sick and Ruepert wants to know why. As Molly tells him about the microbes infecting Sam, Ruepert grows frightened and gears up for a crusade against all of these invisible little creatures. Molly stops him, however, telling him of all the beneficial and necessary things microbes do for us including production of some of Ruepert’s favorite foods, waste degradation, help with digestion inside our intestines, and aid by good microbes in fighting off bad microbes and other human diseases.

Having completed this project as described, I plan to revise the story, drawing in its focus and shortening it to a more standard length. I will then convert the finished drawings to color in order to make the picture book more suitable for the children’s book market. It is my hope that it would then be published. I am also investigating the possibility of making a short computer-generated animation which would be based on Microbes with some other students at Brigham Young University.

Molly explains to Ruepert how antibiotics work and where they come from.