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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Rock star to the kids

Author Jan Brett rides into town to greet her enthusiastic followers

Jan Brett travels in a decorated tour bus like a rock star, leading to the question: Who comprises the legions of Brett-heads?

The answer: Kindergarteners, first-graders and second-graders.

Brett is one of the most popular children’s book author-illustrators in the country. Her stylish and intricate picture-books sell more than 1 million copies a year.

This Massachusetts artist is coming to the Bing Crosby Theater on Wednesday for a presentation and signing of her latest book, “The 3 Little Dassies” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, $17.99), a retelling of the “Three Little Pigs” story.

Auntie’s Bookstore will sponsor the event, but it was moved to the Bing to accommodate the anticipated crowd of kids and parents.

In an interview, Brett laughed heartily at the idea of being a rock star.

“I would never say I’m a rock star,” she said. “And you never know how many people are going to come to one of these events.”

Yet Brett has been building a fan base ever since her first book in 1986, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Since then she has produced best-seller after best-seller, including “The Wild Christmas Reindeer,” “Hedgie’s Surprise,” “Daisy Comes Home,” “The Three Snow Bears” and “The Easter Egg.”

Her presentation Wednesday will be short – 20 minutes, to fit the attention span of her young fans – but packed with fun.

“Kindergarteners, first-graders, second-graders, they have these great imaginations, and I want to reach them before they say, ‘I can’t draw that,’ ” said Brett.

“I just want kids to flex those storytelling muscles themselves, and if they can’t do it in words, they can do it in pictures.”

She’ll also tell the story behind “The 3 Little Dassies.”

A dassie is small, guinea-pig-like critter that she first came across during a camping trip in Namibia.

“We were really taken by them,” said Brett. “When people go to Africa, they are looking for lions and leopards. Nobody really pays attention to the smaller animals that are fascinating.”

A dassie, also known as a hyrax, is about the size of a loaf of bread. They live in family units in rocky outcrops.

“There’s an eagle – huge, over six feet – and when you see this shadow coming over, you see the dassies go, whoop, into their rock houses,” said Brett.

“And that’s when I said, ‘Boy, this is like the Three Little Pigs.’ And I knocked myself on the head and said, ‘Here’s an African version of the Three Little Pigs,’ because they are kind of chubby, like pigs.”

She and her husband, Joe Hearne, a double-bassist with the Boston Symphony, shot some video footage of the dassies. She went home to the Berkshires and worked on the illustrations and decided to dress the dassies in the colorful fabrics of the women of the region.

“The ladies wear the most incredible clothes, a kind of calico, retro calico,” said Brett. “They have puffy sleeves and a little shawl and big long skirts that reach the ground.”

The dassies in the story find a creative way to use those billowing skirts to their own advantage.

“I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool of they parachuted down in those big skirts?’ ” said Brett.

She travels in the “Dassies”-decorated bus not for rock-star reasons, but because she can avoid airports and security lines. Also, she can bring along backdrops, an easel and other things that “make a reading a more festive thing.”

These tours are fun for the kids, but also for Brett.

“It’s great for me, because I’m by myself all year long doing the book,” she said. “All of our kids are grown up, so it’s just Joe and I and our chickens, and the drawing takes a long, long time. It’s kind of an isolated profession.”