David's Landing

Written by Judith Benet Richardson
Illustrated by Molly Bang

First published in 1984

About the Story
David’s Landing was fun to read and fun to illustrate. The story takes place in a town 'like' Woods Hole, and everything in it is familiar since I’ve lived here for most of my life. And the story is a very good story.

Judy Richardson, the author, and I talked about how I would do the illustrations, and we both agreed that simple but clear pen and ink line drawings might work best. They had to be from real life, since my imagination is never as good as real life. But—unless it’s a family member of close friend—I hate to ask people to pose, and I hate to make pictures in public where everybody tends to want to look over your shoulder. So Judy agreed to run interference for me. She would go wherever we needed to go—the Post Office, the school, a lab, a restaurant—and would tell people what we were going to do, and then I’d just sketch for about 10 or 20 minutes while she stood guard. It worked! Judy did all the hard work, I could just draw, and then we’d go on to the next place. I think I made all the illustrations in one day.

Oh, if only every book could be so fun and so easy to illustrate!