![]() Because only when you take the mask off can you be a happy little buffalo snuggling with your friends. "I wanted to give my kids a book that showed them that they can take that mask off," she says. Kalb hopes that Buffalo Fluffalo can be a mirror for kids, and a character that they can relate to. "You know when you see a kid dress up for Halloween? They have this new confidence about themselves," she explains, "and then you take that off. It's almost like that mean face is a mask, Erin Kraan observes. and this is the face I make.' And then it started this chain reaction of kids showing me their meanest face." "I was just at a reading," Bess Kalb says, "one of the kids was like, 'I act like this all the time. Including that face Buffalo makes when he's trying to be tough which, actually, a ll kids make that face. ![]() "Like any insane mother, we worked and worked until he looks exactly like my son," laughs Kalb. "But there's also comedy and silliness without it being gross-out or over the top." "It's so beautiful and dramatic," Kalb adds. Then, on the reveal page, the skies have cleared and there Buffalo is in all his scrawny glory - wet and scraggly, looking more shell-shocked than huffy, as if he forgot to wear clothes to school. You can just just barely make out Buffalo's eyes on the page - the rest of his body has disappeared in the downpour - but he looks mad, indignant. "Then, with one final thundery, blundery blupp, the humpiest, heaviest cloud opened up, And down came the rain with a splash and a spluffalo, right on the head of old Buffalo Fluffalo," Kalb writes. "I really wanted the clouds, the environment in this book to have a character of their own," Kraan explains, "because nature is what humbles Buffalo in this book." So she used an acrylic wash and hand-painted every cloud to give each page a unique look - soft and fluffy before storm, dark and bold as the sky is opening up over Buffalo's head. Buffalo Fluffalo was also Kraan's first time mixing woodcut and paint in her art. Kraan takes a roller of ink and rolls black ink onto the wood, and then onto thick paper. Once she's done, think of the woodcut like a big stamp. "From there I take all of these different kinds of chisels and carve the lines of the character in the wood." Buffalo's fur, for example, is made of lots of little swirls and whorls that Kraan carved by hand. a solvent and I'll transfer the sketch onto the wood," Kraan explains. The process starts with a well-sanded flat piece of wood. She made all of the characters in Buffalo Fluffalo out of woodcut prints. "That joke needs to land and it can only land with a picture," says Kalb. "I wanted to give my child a book that helped him understand kindness and empathy," says Kalb, "with a laugh."Īnd the joke hinges on the reveal page - when the reader and all the other characters see just how wee Buffalo really is. For this book, Bess Kalb knew she needed an illustrator who got that yes, here was a story about toxic masculinity, but that it was also a funny book about toxic masculinity.
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