Author Event – “I Don’t Care” with Molly Idle and Juana Martinez-Neal

Like the two stars of this story, illustrators Molly Idle and Juana Martinez-Neal know that petty differences just make a good friendship stronger. As artwork passed back and forth between their mailboxes, childhood versions of each artist came to life and came together on the page into one unified creation. The simple palette of teal and yellow over graphite was an easy choice: their two favorite colors.

Award-winning author Julie Fogliano’s rhythmic rhymes bring it all together, expressing the unconditional love any best friend can relate to: “Mostly I care that you’re you and I’m me, and I care that we’re us, and I care that we’re we.”

about the author

Julie Fogliano is the New York Times bestselling author of, among other titles, And Then It’s Spring and If You Want to See a Whale as well as the poetry collection, as well as Just in Case You Want to Fly, illustrated by Christian Robinson. Recipient of the 2013 Ezra Jack Keats award and two Boston Globe-Horn Book Honors, her books have been translated into more than ten languages. Julie lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband and three children.

Molly Idle‘s work as an author-illustrator includes the Caldecott Honor Book Flora and the Flamingo, Flora and the Penguin, Flora and the Peacocks, Flora and the Chicks, Flora and the Ostrich, and Tea Rex, Camp Rex, Sea Rex, and Santa Rex, among other books, including Pearl, an original fable about a mermaid who learns the power of one small act. She lives with her family in Arizona and invites you to visit her at idleillustration.com.

Juana Martinez-Neal is the author and illustrator of the Caldecott Honor-winning book Alma and How She Got Her Name. She also illustrated La Princesa and the Pea by Susan Middleton Elya, for which she won a Pura Belpré Illustrator Award, Babymoon by Hayley Barrett, Swashby and the Sea by Beth Ferry, and Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard, which won a Robert F. Sibert Medal. Juana Martinez-Neal lives in Connecticut with her family. Visit her online at www.juanamartinezneal.com.