Authors buzz in for reading

ILLBROOK — The boys and girls of Millbrook Community Preschool wore ladybug and bumblebee antennae when the author and the illustrator of the popular series “Ladybug Girl” visited on Nov. 29.Author Jacky Davis and illustrator David Soman are a husband-and-wife team whose “Ladybug Girl” series is a New York Times bestseller. The husband and wife visited the preschool and read three of their books, one of which has yet to be published. The preschoolers ages 3 through 5 listened, laughed and gasped at the adventures of Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy. A few questions and answers and a book signing followed the reading.The “Ladybug Girl” series is about a little girl with a big imagination and is based on the creators’ daughter, Lucy. “I was illustrating children’s books for a long time, even before I met Jacky,” Soman said. “We talked about wanting to work together. In the summer of 2002 we had our first child. I remember one day she came down the stairs dressed something like a ladybug girl with wings, and she had a lot of hats, too. Jacky looked at her and said, ‘ladybug girl.’ We wanted to do something together and, looking at her and the cartoons I had drawn of her, we had decided to try that.”Davis and Soman said they both wrote the book without any expectations of the result, but thought it would be a fun project to work on with one another and be able to observe their daughter and work with her. “It was very homegrown from going to the playground and seeing how kids play, how they have difficult moments and how they have to find a way of figuring those things out. They were just stories that come from our daily reality,” Davis said.Davis and Soman also have a son, Sam. Soman said Sam had seen him working in his studio with all the drawings of Ladybug Girl and looking at the pictures of his sister, he asked his father where he was. Soman said this is how the book “Bumblebee Boy” came into place. There is currently only one Bumblebee Boy book, which came out this October.The “Ladybug Girl” series has been featured in Scholastic News. Soman said he believes the books are popular because kids can relate to the situations she faces.“I think it’s the fact that she feels she can do anything, and that is just a matter of putting your best foot forward exploring the world,” said Davis. “She’s just out there and living.”The author and illustrator both said they enjoyed the reading at the preschool because they were able to get good feedback from kids as to which parts of the books they liked best.“We didn’t really know what to expect, and it’s been a wonderful surprise that so many kids seem to really like the books. It’s really sweet and wonderful,” Davis said.