Creating children’s books, especially illustrated books, requires many hands and many skills.

One of my favorite projects as a freelance editor has been Zack, You’re Acting Zany: Playful Poems and Riveting Rhymes (Standard Publishing, 2010). The author is Marty Nystrom, who wrote the worship song “As the Deer” and a hundred others. Steve Bjorkman, a talented artist with a long list of successful children’s book projects, created the illustrations.

Both gentlemen are mature Christian believers, and I enjoyed helping them team up on this wonderful book. Inside are 120 poems about New Testament people, events, and teaching–all combining wacky fun with faith and awe.

Steve’s kid-appealing art pairs perfectly with Marty’s laugh-out-loud poems. Everything’s planned to entice readers to dig into the Bible themselves to learn more. Like this tag line after “Locusts for Lunch”: “Read Mark1:6 to find out what else John ate.”

You can get a look inside Zack, You’re Acting Zany and read some of the poems here.

Here’s a snapshot of the process of creating this book:

After helping Marty decide on poems to add or delete and then working with him to polish the text, I sent the poems to Steve. Some illustrators want specific instructions, but Steve had great ideas of his own! I reviewed his sketches and approved his final art.

Then everything went to a designer who combined the art and text according to a basic design template they had developed earlier. I also worked with a proofreader, created the back cover and jacket text, and gave all the design files a final check. Then, off to the printer!

Marty and Steve first collaborated on Don’t Mess with Moses: Peculiar Poems and Rib-Tickling Rhymes in 2006. That one introduces kids to the Old Testament. My friend Laura Derico edited that project.

For read-aloud fun that will entice children 6 and up to investigate the Bible on their own, these books are a perfect pair!