MOWMT March 20: Facing Fear with Cynthia Mackey

Picture Books Showing Fear as the Central Emotion

by Cynthia Mackey

After submitting my manuscript for IF A BUMBLEBEE LANDS ON YOUR TOE to Luyang Xue, editor at Yeehoo Press, I had the opportunity to revise and resubmit the manuscript based on editorial feedback. The main goal of my revision was to clearly establish a sense of fear from the onset of the story. Though I had already consulted other titles, I knew I needed to take another in depth look at mentor texts before revising.

I began with JABARI JUMPS by Gaia Cornwall, in which Jabari overcomes his fear of jumping off the high diving board. But how does the reader know he’s afraid? How does the author show this sense of fear?

Here are some of Jabari’s words from the book. 

The diving board was high and maybe a little scary. 

You can go before me. 

Sometimes if I feel a little scared, I take a deep breath and tell myself I am ready.

The next text that came to mind right away was AFTER THE FALL by Dan Santat. It’s the story of what happened to Humpty Dumpty after he fell off the wall and you guessed it – he was overcome with fear and needed to face the fear in order to live his best life. How did Dan Santat establish that feeling of fear? 

I became afraid of heights 

I was so scared that it kept me from enjoying some of my favorite things

The higher I got, the more nervous I felt.

I was terrified.

I didn’t look up. I didn’t look down.

Both texts used words like afraid, terrified, and scary. Both texts showed characters using coping strategies like deep breaths and not looking up or down. I looked for places where I might use those words. I noted the places where my manuscript already contained the sense of escalating fear when attempts to make the bumblebee fly away did not work and where that fear needed to be shown more clearly.

Another text I might have used, OUT OF A JAR by Deborah Marcero, highlights a host of emotions, beginning with fear. She shows how we can be uncomfortable with fear and other emotions and what we typically do with emotions we don’t want to feel – put them in jars. 

Llewellyn did not like to be scared.

He tried to put the feeling away but no matter what he did, it kept coming back.

Finally, Llewellyn put his fear in a jar.

I was already showing in my manuscript how the fear does not easily go away.

I might have used NANA IN THE CITY by Lauren Castillo. Lines like these help establish the sense of fear. The book shows the city from the boy’s perspective.

The city is loud.

The city is filled with scary things. 

At night, the room rumbles and shakes.

Nana, aren’t you afraid in the city? 

My book, If a Bumblebee Lands on Your Toe, needed to be different from these mentor texts and offer something new. I added these lines near the beginning–

‘you may feel scared

your tummy may flutter like a thousand butterflies’

Unlike these mentor texts, If a Bumblebee Lands on Your Toe shows what happens when you need to face a fear of something in nature that’s out of your control. Jabari and Humpty can plan ahead to face fears of heights – but if a bumblebee lands on your toe, you cannot. So how do we manage to cope with something unexpected that flies into our lives, leaving us anxious and uncertain? One of the answers lies in nature. If a Bumblebee Lands on Your Toe shows how all of nature’s creatures react when they are afraid and how we share a similar flight or fight or fawn or freeze response.

PRIZE: A 30 minute Ask Me Anything session with Cynthia Mackey, author of If a Bumblebee Lands on Your Toe.

BIO: Cynthia Mackey is the author of Katie Shaeffer Pancake Maker and The Lullaby Monsters and her poetry appears in The Toy, The Dirigible Balloon, and Little Thoughts Press. Her debut picture book, If a Bumblebee Lands on Your Toe, will be published by Yeehoo Press in 2024. Cynthia lives with her husband in Victoria, Canada. For more info, see www.booksbycindy.com  

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