Behind the Book: Ms. Rachel & The Special Surprise Illustrated by Monique Dong

Ms.Rachel—the fastest-growing phenomenon in children’s educational entertainment—brings her signature teaching style to her debut picture book!  We chatted with illustrator and Bright artist Monique Dong about her experience illustrating the debut picture book for an internet sensation!

How did you feel when you were first approached to illustrate a book for someone as popular as Ms. Rachel, a figure who has become a sensation in children’s educational entertainment?

I must have been living under a rock at the time, as I had not heard of Ms Rachel before I was approached to illustrate her book. But, truthfully, I was living in China where YouTube is not accessible unless using a VPN. I immediately did my research and when I discovered her lovely videos I had to share it with my twin toddlers and they, of course, loved it! The longer I worked on this project, the more I realized how loved Ms. Rachel is and what an impact she makes on young kids (and parents) and what an honor it is to be a small part of what she is doing!

Ms. Rachel’s content is heavily focused on language development and engagement. How did you ensure that the illustrations would support and enhance these goals for young readers?

In the beginning, the story was going to take place in a classroom with children characters, but after some consideration, it was decided, in order to keep the book closer to the video format, it would primarily be just Ms.Rachel. This way it would be Ms.Rachel addressing the readers directly, just like her videos. It was important to us, my art director (Michelle Kim) and the Ms Rachel team, that Ms Rachel, the illustrated version, was very expressive in order to engage with kids. We spent a lot of time refining the design of her face to ensure kids would feel it was like the real Ms.Rachel chatting with them, experiencing the story with them. I believe, at the end of the day, the parents reading with the kids, making the sounds and acting along with the story, this is what will help children develop their language skills!

Were there any particular scenes or pages that were especially fun or challenging to illustrate? Could you walk us through one of your favorite illustrations from the book?

This was such a fun book to illustrate! It took some time to nail down the final design of Ms.Rachel, so that was challenging, but I am so happy with the final result and hope children will love her in the book as much as they do in her videos! One of my favorite scenes to work on was the scene with all the colorful boxes of different sizes behind Ms.Rachel. And of course, any page with herbie, he is so cute!

Given that Ms. Rachel’s audience ranges from toddlers to young children, how did you ensure the artwork was accessible and captivating for such a broad age group?

Yes, both children and parents adore Ms. Rachel! I really hope that parents will also love the character design and the feel of the book! I think it’s who Ms. Rachel is that captivates this broad group…so there was little for me to do!

Were there any unique challenges in translating Ms. Rachel’s dynamic and interactive teaching methods from her videos into the more static medium of a picture book?

It was indeed a challenge to translate video format to a static medium! I tried to ensure the character Ms.Rachel was expressive, that her facial expressions were clear and draw action lines where needed. I feel that with Ms Rachels words and a parent who reads emotively with all the sound effects, this book can hopefully be just as engaging as a video!

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To work with Monique, get in contact with her agent Alex Gehringer here.