Former Shelley native and children’s book illustrator publishes her first children’s book

SHELLEY — Illustrating children’s books for 30 years led this former Shelley native to write, illustrate and publish one of her own.

Throughout her career, Nancy Peterson has illustrated 16 children’s books and worked with children’s authors such as Jean Richardson and Patricia Eytcheson Taylor. She just recently published her own book and wants to share it with the people in her hometown of Shelley.

“I was the youngest, I have four older brothers, and I’m the only girl. Consequently, nobody wanted to play with me. So pencils and paper and crayons were always my go-to to let my imagination go,” Nancy said.

Nancy grew up with her family on the east end of Center St. on a few acres of land on the way to Taylor.

“We didn’t have art supplies. We didn’t have much money for those kinds of things,” Nancy explained about her childhood. “I did not know they had poster board and large pieces of paper. All I ever knew was my dad brought home used office papers. So I drew on the back of them.”

When she was a teen, for the first time, Nancy got paid for using her artistic talents.

“The Davis’ owned a clothing store, and they were having a big sale and they wanted me to do all their sale signs,” She said. “I remember they asked me how much I wanted to get paid. I had no idea. I’m only about 15 or 16. And they had a really great pair of red shoes that I wanted. So that was my payment.”

After graduating from Shelley High School in 1973, Nancy attended Boise State University where she took one semester of art classes. That was her only formal art education until she was in her 30’s living in Texas with her husband where she took a couple more art classes.

It was also in Texas where Nancy found her first job illustrating a children’s book.

“We were living in Kingwood, Texas when I heard there were some children’s book authors coming to our local bookstore,” Nancy said.

On a whim, she decided she was going to go meet those authors.

“I said, ‘hey, I just came to pick your brain. I’m an artist and I would really like to be in the children’s book industry,'” Nancy said.

One of the five authors at the library that day was Jean Richardson, who also happened to be looking for an illustrator to work with.

“They took me over and introduced me to her–she’s an amazing lady -and she said, ‘great, can you draw rabbits?’ Of course, I said ‘yes.’ I don’t think I’d ever drawn a rabbit,” Nancy said.

Richardson told her to send some samples and she and her publisher would consider them.

“I had no idea what kind of books she wrote. I had no idea what kind of rabbit she was talking about. I just drew three distinctly different rabbits and sent them into her. And, they chose mine,” Nancy said.

That first book, “Tag-Along Timothy Tours Texas” published in 1991, Launched Nancy’s illustrator career.

She would go on to illustrate other books such as Patricia Eytcheson Taylor’s “Scamper” series, Jean Richardson’s “Grumpy Granny Grumble” and, her favorite, “Johnny Airplane” by Steven T Bales.

Over the years, Nancy has developed various characters of her own. Occasionally authors might use Nancy’s original characters to create a book around. As is the case with Richardson’s “When Grandpa Had Fangs.”

The story is about a grandpa snake that loves telling stories to his grand snakes. Nancy said the idea for the character of the grandpa snake came to her in a dream.

“I had this dream about a grandpa that tells stories to his grand snake, and it was so clear. I knew exactly what grandpa looked like and his grand snakes with him,” Nancy said.

She explained that the dream woke her up in the night. So she decided to quickly draw a sketch of the grandpa and go back to bed.

“I got up and drew him again in the morning exactly how he was in the dream,” Nancy said.

She later pitched the character to Richardson who then turned it into a story. The original drawing Nancy made the morning after having her dream is featured in the book.

Nancy explained that it’s not very often that an illustrator creates a character that the author then turns into a story. More often than not, it’s the other way around.

However, just like with “When Grandpa Had Fangs” Nancy created the characters of her own book before writing the story.

She said while she was recovering from knee surgery, she was learning how to use the digital art program Procreate. While practicing on the program she drew a penguin and a polar bear.

“I sent the polar bear and the penguin off to my daughter and she said, ‘mom, I think these characters should be in a book.’ I hadn’t thought about that. I was just drawing different things,” Nancy said.

When her daughter said that, Nancy began thinking of things that her characters could do. That’s when her husband mentioned that polar bears and penguins are never together because they live in different parts of the world.

“I said, ‘you’re right. Why would they be together? Why do people always put them together?'” Nancy said.

That’s when she came up with the story for “George and Harriett’s arctic adventure.” A story about George the polar bear and Harriett the penguin getting on a research ship and visiting the arctic.

“I like Harriett. She’s a little bit me. She’s probably about a seven or eight-year-old that asks a lot of questions and says exactly what she thinks,” Nancy said. “They’re very unlikely friends, but they have things to share.”

The names George and Harriett are based on an elderly couple Nancy and her family got to know while living in Texas.

“He was a retired banker. He’d take his little dog out in the wheelchair and go for walks all the time. She was very sweet and made little aprons for my daughter. Just very colorful characters. They were southern, through in through,” Nancy said.

Now that her book is published, she wants to share it with her hometown. She has plans to donate a copy to one of Shelley’s elementary schools and would like to do a presentation for the elementary school children if the school will let her.

While Nancy has relationships with various children’s book publishers, she decided to self-publish her own book. To purchase a copy of her book, Nancy said people should email her at ngpartist@gmail.com.

“I just shipped out a bunch of books and I have some more to ship out and some to deliver locally,” she said.