{"id":78608,"date":"2025-09-22T10:21:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T10:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/78608\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T10:21:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T10:21:15","slug":"mo-willems-on-why-the-pigeon-only-ever-has-one-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/78608\/","title":{"rendered":"Mo Willems on why the pigeon only ever has one eye."},"content":{"rendered":"

Read all of Slate\u2019s stories about the <\/strong>25 Greatest Picture Books of the Past 25 Years<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mo Willems has thought a lot about what kind of work picture books should do. He\u2019s fond of saying that his job is to create 49\u00a0percent of the story and let children fill in the other 51\u00a0percent from their own imaginations. Willems\u2019 run of prize-winning bestsellers suggests he\u2019s on to something: From his 2003 debut, Don\u2019t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!\u2014a shoo-in for Slate\u2019s 25 Best Picture Books of the Past 25 Years\u2014Willems has made books that break the rules of children\u2019s lit, that delight young and old readers equally, and that make kids think about what a book even is<\/a>. Willems came to picture books from TV animation and, two decades later, still sounds grateful he made the switch. All the books in Slate\u2019s 25 Best Picture Books list, he points out, feature individual voices. \u201cThese are people writing letters to themselves that they want someone else to pay for,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the greatness of this industry is the variety of letters that can be written.\u201d<\/p>\n

For this package, we\u2019ve been asking authors and illustrators to discuss the decisions influencing a single page or spread from their book. When I asked Willems if there was a particular page he wanted to discuss from Don\u2019t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, however, he replied that what he found most exciting about picture books was not a single page but the page turn. Together, we explored the Pigeon\u2019s central freak-out, starting with the page before that freak-out occurs. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n

\"Spread<\/p>\n

Hyperion Books for Children<\/p>\n

Mo Willems:<\/strong> OK, so when someone reads a book, they try to spend the same amount of time on each page no matter what.<\/p>\n

Dan Kois: Meaning when an adult reads aloud?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When an adult reads to a kid, each page, you\u2019re going to spend the same amount on the page. So when you have eight images on a spread like this, you\u2019re going to read that four times as fast as single images.<\/p>\n

That definitely was my experience every time I would read this book to my kids. Like, I\u2019d read them rat-a-tat-tat.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t help because you want to spend the same amount of time as you did on the single-page lines, so you find yourself inadvertently getting faster. I was writing a score, but while I was ceding control to the orchestra, I could still establish a sense of rhythm.<\/p>\n

The orchestra is me, reading to my kids.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like classical music, it\u2019s going to be performed differently every time it\u2019s performed. I\u2019m trying to manipulate your rhythm to match what I\u2019m hoping the kid\u2019s sense of humor would be.<\/p>\n

How did the design of the Pigeon come around? Here, we have the Pigeon in eight frames\u2014why does it look this way?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wanted it to be as simple as possible. When I design a character, it\u2019s reductive. I take away lines until just before it\u2019s abstract. And then I know that any 5-year-old can draw it. And, more importantly, that a parent can recognize what they\u2019re trying to draw and then make a comment about that.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re working off the assumption that a child is going to try and reproduce this in some way?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because a book is meant to be played, not just to be read. And this is a format. Don\u2019t let the Pigeon drive, don\u2019t let the Pigeon whatever. It\u2019s easy to come up with the next one. Don\u2019t let the Pigeon eat pizza! So it\u2019s already inviting that kind of infringement. So the character has to be simple enough to draw that you\u2019re not getting stuck on rendering the character. You can really let your ideas flow.<\/p>\n

And yet this spread demonstrates how expressive that simple character can be. The Pigeon is giving off eight very discrete attitudes in these panels.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right. I agree. The one formal element of this is that the eye, the window to the soul, is always the biggest and the darkest because you look at the darkest part of a drawing first. So the idea would be that you would see the eye first and then let the silhouette of the body tell the rest.<\/p>\n

But you never even give yourself two eyes. You only have one eye on the Pigeon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What a waste of eyes. I am a busy man, Dan.<\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, I think it needs to be really that simple. The other thing is, with only one eye, you know that Pigeon is looking at you. And it\u2019s very important to me not only that kids be seen, but that kids realize that they are seeable, because there are kids who live in environments where they don\u2019t feel seen or seeable. And so the Pigeon is always interested in you. You have power and you are interesting. I think in two eyes, you wouldn\u2019t get that as much.<\/p>\n

How did you decide to do speech bubbles as opposed to a traditional picture-book format, the text underneath or whatever?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It felt more immediate. If it was like, \u201cThe Pigeon said, \u2018I\u2019ll be your best friend\u2019\u00a0\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n

Right.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019re cutting out the middleman. The original premise of this book, when I was first playing with it, was it was a kid whose job was not to let the Pigeon drive the bus. The real breakthrough was firing the kid.<\/p>\n

The reader is the kid.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I already have a kid. The kid is you. The Pigeon is with you. So where are you? The Pigeon is where you are.<\/p>\n

You may get rid of that intermediary in the structure of the book, but you\u2019re always forced, as you say, to have this other intermediary, the adult who\u2019s reading it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right.<\/p>\n

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    One thing that the book does is it forces the adult to buy into the madness. There\u2019s no way to read this book without inventing a wacky voice for the Pigeon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    That\u2019s right. \u201cLook at this adult who is usually serious or telling me to do whatever\u2014they\u2019re being silly!\u201d Very, very exciting. And the Pigeon has to be a picture book rather than an early reader because when you are in a picture-book stage, you will be forgiven because most of your cultural life is with a grown-up. And so you can say terrible things and be forgiven.<\/p>\n

    But in early readers, most of your cultural life is at school, and you cannot say terrible things and be forgiven. You might lose your friend. That\u2019s why Elephant and Piggie are early readers. They\u2019re constantly repairing their friendship. The Pigeon wouldn\u2019t survive in that milieu because another character would just be like, \u201cI don\u2019t need you,\u201d and walk away.<\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s talk about the page turn as an action. You turn the page and there\u2019s this explosion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    When you turn the page, the first Pigeon you see is the big one, right? And its bright red eye. I mean, it\u2019s just staring at you.<\/p>\n

    \"The<\/p>\n

    Hyperion Books for Children<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s the first time you have saturated colors. It\u2019s the first time where there\u2019s a full spread with just one big sentence, multiple images. And then you see all these Pigeons. And you know intuitively that four siblings did not show up. Right?<\/p>\n

    You understand it\u2019s like the fractured inner soul of the Pigeon expressing itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    And you get a lot more of the sort of crunchiness. The line gets worse and scratchy and dirtier to imply that it was drawn faster. Like, \u201cI don\u2019t have time for this. I\u2019m so frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \"An<\/p>\n

    Hyperion Books for Children<\/p>\n

    Yeah. And where previously the text has been a carefully hand-drawn typewriter font, here the text goes berserk.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The text is no longer concerned with kerning or the delicacies of whether it is serif or non-serif.<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s no way to read this without cutting loose.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    You have to yell it. You cannot speak it. And then on the next page\u2014<\/p>\n

    \"On<\/p>\n

    Hyperion Books for Children<\/p>\n

    You have to make a sound here.<\/p>\n

    Right.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    What is that tornado thing? You have to make up what that sound is.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    \n Dan Kois
    \n In Our Poll About the Best Picture Books of the Past 25 Years, One Got More Votes Than Any Other
    \n Read More<\/b>\n <\/p>\n

    <\/a><\/p>\n

    I always loved making that sound. It\u2019d always be, like, [exasperated Pigeon sound].<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Yeah. [Different exasperated Pigeon sound.] The Pigeon gets misunderstood. The Pigeon is, like children, un\u2013listened to, not taken seriously. Ultimately, when the Pigeon is getting angry, it\u2019s not because it\u2019s having a fit; it\u2019s because it\u2019s not being listened to. It\u2019s not being heard. And I do fear sometimes that books tell kids what to do rather than what is. Right?<\/p>\n

    What do you mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    What is is: Things you think are super important, you\u2019re not going to get now. It\u2019s just not going to happen. You cannot be a ballerina astronaut today. Today is not the day. So what do you do with that? It\u2019s more interesting than prescribing behavior.<\/p>\n

    When I would read the Pigeon to my kids, my takeaway was always \u201cOh, the Pigeon pesters the reader just like you, my child, pester me.\u201d And my child\u2019s takeaway was \u201cI can\u2019t believe that the Pigeon doesn\u2019t get to drive the bus.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

    It\u2019s a real litmus test.<\/p>\n

    Get the best of movies, TV, books, music, and more.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Read all of Slate\u2019s stories about the 25 Greatest Picture Books of the Past 25 Years. Mo Willems…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[266],"tags":[53001,100,52959,359,3914,18,117,1652,19,17,3917],"class_list":{"0":"post-78608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-ani","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-best-picture-books","11":"tag-books","12":"tag-children","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-family","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-kids"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}