| 6/18/2008 11:16:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | It takes a family (and some good friends) to pen a novel
Stephanie Green
Review staff
When fourth-grader Amy Nielson, daughter of Minnesota-based author John Nielson, lost her toenail after an unfortunate incident with a concrete rock, she woke up the next morning and presented it to her father, asking for monetary compensation.
Thus began the story of Toe Jam and The Toenail Fairies: Toe to Toe with The Tooth Fairy, a graphic novel written by Nielson and co-created with the help of Amy and his other two daughters, illustrator Michael Mullowney, art director Brian Bjerketevdt, and a number of kids with creative insights from the Maplewood area where Nielson resides.
"It's a pretty funky book," said Nielson. "Kids are loving it."
Nielson said the idea for the novel "presented itself" to him through the inspiration of Amy's toenail accident. Though he has had many ideas for children's stories brewing in his head for decades and had been working in a writer's studio at The Open Book in downtown Minneapolis for two years at the time this was his first idea to follow through to the end.
"I went to the [writer's] lab, and Toe Jam just jumped on the page," said Nielson. "There's a whole story that opened up."
With a background primarily in marketing and advertising, Nielson has been working with art directors and artists for years, which is where the idea for a graphic novel originated.
"That was really the driving spirit behind this, to make it pretty visual," he said.
After Nielson met with Mullowney and Bjerketevdt, the three of them began developing the story through their areas of expertise. Nielson spent much of the early stages of writing the novel placing Post-Its on the walls of his home and having his daughters help him create characters, storylines, and even raps and rhymes that would become a part of the story.
Mullowney illustrated the characters, and Bjerketevdt was in charge of taking the words and the art, creating spreads, and choosing the typography for the novel. Throughout the entire process, Nielson's daughters and their friends were also invited to share their input on what would make the best children's graphic novel.
"It was that co-creative process with the kids that was most inspiring," said Nielson. "The real thing for me... was getting the kids involved and really learning from them. It was sort of their book, if you will. That's fun to see."
At the heart of the story, said Nielson, is creative self-expression. "The fairies are marginalized and yet they find a way to self-express. That's just what they do. That's the main theme," said Nielson. "The next level for us is that for kids, if you have a story to tell, tell it. Write it, draw it, rap it, sing it. Whatever moves you, put it out there."
Following that notion of self-expression, Nielson published Toe Jam and The Toenail Fairies through his own publishing company, Picklefeather Press. Nielson, Mullowney, and Bjerketevdt worked together on their own layouts and computer filing and sent them to a company in Montreal, Canada for printing.
Nielson said his decision to self-publish reflects his challenge to the claim that writers need to negotiate with prominent companies to have their works published.
"Nowadays, with digital print, there's all different kinds of resources," he said. "There's really no excuse."
According to Nielson, the graphic novel is a fairly new concept one that not all educators are keen on supporting.
"[Graphic novels] are challenging views of what a book should be," he said.
But despite teachers' initial aversion to the "raunchy dudes" and the "grossness" of the characters and the storyline, Nielson said, many understand there is an educational undercurrent to the novel. For instance, the book is approximately 80 pages long, but no page numbers are indicated.
"We wanted kids to develop a certain visual with that... to describe out loud what's on that page," said Nielson.
There are also valuable lessons to learn in reading the story of Toe Jam and his smelly, out-of-the-ordinary fairy friends, including astronomy, math, class and race, alternative energy, and Minnesota history, according to the Picklefeather blog, www.picklefeather.blogs.com/toejam.
Nielson and his team have already visited six schools in the Roseville and Rochester areas, including Edgerton Elementary School, where Amy is now in sixth grade. Schools hold hour-long assemblies presenting the graphic novel before Nielson and his co-collaborators go into classrooms and explain the creative process to students. Kids are invited to create new plots for possible future novels with the Toenail Fairy characters, and they can even rap along with the rhymes found in the book.
"Kids have already been asking, 'When is the movie coming out?'" said Nielson.
Though there is no definite sequel to Toe Jam and The Toenail Fairies on the way, Nielson assures that it is certainly a possibility, along with a few new stories in the works.
"You'll see some other books [from Picklefeather]," said Nielson. "Hopefully we'll do a couple more books for sure."
Stephanie Green can be reached at 651-633-2777.
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