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| Tony Pann, photo credit WBAL-TV |
Tony Pann has more than two decades of television weathercasting experience. He is the weekday morning meteorologist at Baltimore's WBAL-TV. Chip Bok is a longtime cartoonist whose work appears through Creators Syndicate. Pann and Bok have teamed up as author and illustrator of the new children's book Everything is You.
Q: How did you come up with
the idea for Everything is You?
Tony Pann: I have been a student of what some might call
“metaphysics” (connection between science and spirituality) for many years. One
of the main concepts is the fact that we are all connected… and something just
prompted me to write a children’s book!
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| Chip Bok |
Chip Bok: The idea came to me by e-mail! Then I drew
pictures. (Our agent brought the project to me.)
Q: What can the book teach
kids about bullying, and also about meteorology?
Tony Pann: The lesson here is not from meteorology, but
from quantum physics. Science teaches us that everything is literally made of
the same stuff. Carl Sagan once said “We are all star stuff”…and he was right!
So, I thought it would be a
good idea to teach children about this literal connection to the universe, and
other kids, in a fun way. This knowledge will hopefully help them raise their
self-esteem…. and when you feel better about yourself, other people have a tendency
to recognize this feeling.
For kids that are actually
doing the “bullying,” it is my hope that when they understand the real
connection to the other kids, it will reduce their aggression.
Chip Bok: Never stick your thumb in a bully's eye.
Instead, stick the rest of your body in your thumb. It's very Zen.
As for meteorology it teaches
us that when we see the top blow off a big thunderhead it's really just the
cloud's baseball cap falling off. Always listen to the clouds. They are very
smart.
Q: How did the two of you
work together on the book?
Tony Pann: Chip is so good, I just gave him a general
idea on the “look” and he did the rest!
Chip Bok: Tony wrote the copy and e-mailed it to our
agent, Diane, and then she sent it on to me. I read it, thought about it,
talked it over with a few cloud friends, and then doodled some sketches.
I scanned the sketches and
e-mailed them back to Tony and Diane. They liked them so I went ahead and drew
some more until there were enough pictures to fill up the story.
I then put the sketches in
oak barrels and stored them in my cellar until they were ready. Then I inked
them and scanned them into the computer. I put color on them in Photoshop and
sent them to Diane. How they ended up in that book I'll never know.
Q: Have you written/illustrated
other books for kids before, and why did you decide to write/illustrate a
children's book?
Tony Pann: I have written one
book in the past called How to Find a Good Weather Forecast…everyone would
like to know that secret!
Chip Bok: I did
a children's book with Helen Thomas called The Great White House Breakout. It
was about a little boy named Sam. Sam's mother was the president of the United
States!
Sam didn't like living in the
White House so he hatched an escape plan with his cat Warren and a lab rat named
Leonard. Leonard is named after my daughter.
Anyway they bust out of the
White House and see the sights of Washington. Eventually they become lost and
lonely. As usual, a runaway kite slams them into the Washington Monument and a
rescue helicopter picks them up and takes them home to the White House, where
they all live happily ever after. At least until the next election.
The moral is: Sam should have
listened to a cloud.
Q: What are you working on
now?
Tony Pann: I am now thinking about the next life lesson
that Cody the Cloud can teach kids through science. It might be about facing
your fears through understanding what you are afraid of.
For example: many kids are
afraid of thunderstorms, and I think the next chapter for Cody will be to teach
kids about what happens inside a thunderstorm. Knowledge is power!
Chip Bok: Right at this very moment I'm working on a
cartoon for the Tampa Bay Times about the Salvador Dali museum in St.
Petersburg being forced to close for three days due to a Grand Prix race.
Beyond that I'm illustrating
a book about deer jokes. I know... but at least they don't have thumbs! I've
also been working on a second history of the United States in political
cartoons for about 10 years - mostly in my head. I'd like to do another
children's book.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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