RK: When you were little did you always enjoy drawing, and when did you first know you would use your artistic talent for a career?
JB: I liked to draw as early as I can remember, and I must have liked to draw even before that, because the endpapers of my parents' books were filled with very early drawings that were done before the period that I can remember clearly. The type of drawings that appealed to me most were cartoons. By the time I was in 5th or 6th grade I had decided that I wanted to be a cartoonist when I grew up. I wrote a fan letter to Walt Disney, and I was ecstatic when he sent back an 8 by 10 inch glossy photograph with a real signature! Later on, I changed my mind about wanting to be a cartoonist. I went through a short period where I wanted to be a scientist, and then for a long time I wanted to be a journalist. It was only after I had graduated from college and tried several jobs that I didn't like that I decided that I had had the right idea in 5th grade, and I decided again to try to be a cartoonist.
RK: What exactly does your career involve, and what experience do you think most helped you in what you do today?
JB: One of the things that has helped me the most in my kids' book career was getting married! When I first decided I would like to try to write and illustrate a children's book, and then try to sell it to a publisher, I did this entirely on my own. For my first book, Fanny and May, I was the sole author as well as the illustrator. It was my wife, Susan Schade, though, who came up with the basic idea for the next book, The Noisy Counting Book. Since then we have worked as a team on 23 books. Sometimes she thinks of the story idea, and sometimes I come up with it. In either case, she does the actual writing, although I will offer suggestions as the book goes along. Then I will do the line drawings for the book, and she picks out the colors from a box of color swatches. I do the actual painting of the colors onto the watercolor paper. Her name comes first on the books for younger kids, where she generally thinks up the story ideas. My name comes first on the books for older kids, where I generally come up with the plot. And a few times publishers have asked me to illustrate a book that they have bought from someone else.
RK: Where did you go to school, and what is your favorite elementary school memory?
JB: I went to grade school and high school in Levittown, Long Island. Looking back now, it strikes me how much more time I spent laughing then than I do now. I still laugh, of course, but it is usually a few quick ha-ha-has. When I was in school there would be two or three times most days when I would have an uncontrollable laughing fit, sometimes almost falling out of my chair, sometimes trying to stop because it was making my stomach hurt. I had that feeling again at a funny movie I saw a few weeks ago, but in general those major laughing fits seem to be getting scarcer as I get older.
RK: Where did you live when you were growing up and what are your favorite memories of your hometown?
JB: Levittown provided a safe and healthy environment for kids, for the most part, and I made several good friends, some of whom I still see, or write to, occasionally. But, to be honest, I found it to be a little bit on the dull side, especially as I grew older. That is why some of my favorite memories of that period involve leaving Levittown. When I was in high school I would earn money by mowing lawns, and sometimes on the weekend I would buy a train ticket to New York. I remember one time I decided to visit Greenwich Village, because I had heard that this was a spot where artists lived, and where there were people who did unconventional things. When I got off the subway at Sheraton Square I looked around and I was very disappointed. It just looked like another greyish city street. I wandered around for a while, not knowing exactly what I was looking for, and then I got back on the subway and headed north for Central Park. It was a pleasant, sunny day. I walked around Central Park for a while, until I heard some music coming from a little grove of trees. When I got closer I could see that there was a large rock inside the grove of trees. Sitting on the rock was a black man, wearing sunglasses and a beard, and playing an unaccompanied version of Poor Butterfly on a tenor sax. I had found what I had come looking for!
RK: Who was your role model in life, when you were a kid, and why? Has that changed, and who do you most admire now?
JB: When I was a kid I think I tended to admire people who made me laugh, like Jackie Gleason and Audrey Meadows on The Honeymooners, and like Carl Barks, the cartoonist who drew the great Donald Duck cartoons of the 50's. Now I still admire people who can make me laugh, like Woody Allen and The Simpsons.
RK: If you could have had any other career, what do you think it would have been and why?
JB: If, for some reason, I could no longer be an illustrator, I think I would like to be a teacher. I have taught some after-school classes at local schools, and have enjoyed them very much.
RK: What is your favorite book that you have illustrated, and why?
JB: I guess I would have to say Space Dog Jack. I feel that it is fairly successful at doing what it sets out to do, which is to provide a simple, lively, funny book for kids who are just learning to read.
RK: Do you have any advice you could give kids my age (11) who might want to do what you do someday?
JB: There are many parallels between the arts and athletics. In both, you increase your skills by using them. So if you want to be a good basketball player in college, for instance, it is not a good idea to begin learning how to play basketball when you get to college, although it is still possible. The same is true with writing stories and drawing pictures.