WELCOME TO THE NEW GOLDEN AGE OF CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS
WHEN EVERY CHILD CAN SEE THEMSELVES ON THE PAGE
LET US TELL YOU A STORY
ABOUT OUTSIDERS AND BOUNDARY PUSHERS
WHO SHAPE SOULS
AND GIVE OUR CHILDREN STRANGE DREAMS
The stars of this story are changing the narrative for the next generation. tHEY CREATE MAGIC from the realities of society and personal experience - even when their own lives are not fairytales.
Their work traces back to the classics of childhood - stories that challenged stereotypes and broke barriers.
A supporting cast of authors, publishers, and librarians show us HOW picture books REFLECT the times we live in and ARE a harbinger of where we are heading.
meet our characters
Author + Illustrator Christian Robinson went from sleeping on the couch at his grandmother's tiny apartment to a Caldecott honor. Grappling with unlikely success and fame, he creates his first autobiographical children's book Milo Imagines the World - about a child visiting a parent in prison - while also trying to reconcile with his mom, who is now living homeless on the streets of Skid Row.
A New York Times best-selling author of over 50 books and host of the online sensation "Mac's Book Club Show," Mac Barnett is a historian of the genre who wrote a picture book on the author of Goodnight Moon. Raised in a single-parent home, Mac’s hilarious and subversive works acknowledge how kids absorb and overcome hard things every day.
Arriving in the U.S. as a young mother who didn't speak English, Yuyi Morales discovered a new language and identity through picture books from the local library. Her breakthrough Dreamers, a favorite for the Caldecott Award, is a counter-narrative to the demeaning, anti-immigrant messages children see in mainstream media. For her follow-up, Bright Star, she returns to the U.S./Mexico border to create a love song to the fragile ecosystem of the region, at a time when it is threatened by an expanding border wall.
WHAT MAKES A PICTURE BOOK STAND THE TEST OF TIME?
At a time when most books for kids were moralistic and educational, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are was radical in showing fierce, untamed emotions. While shocked critics called to ban it, claiming it could be “psychologically damaging,” the book still resonates with children who feel at home in this fantasy of rage.
Can a children's book author live an adult life?
Unlike our creators, for most of his life Sendak could not truly be himself in public, fearing retribution if he disclosed his sexuality. Books and authors that challenge the status quo continue to live in the cultural crossfire. The pushback is a sign of the progress.
What happens when you don't see yourself in a book?
The Snowy Day was a breakthrough in showing the first African-American protagonist in a children’s picture book, allowing them to simply be alive experiencing wonder and joy. But our film will also showcase the darker narratives that children’s pictures books have sometimes perpetuated, and had to push against.
Who are the helpers in hard times?
When schools close their doors due to a global pandemic, our characters rush in to create virtual communities for children who are isolated and afraid. Through their work, they remind us how story and art help us heal and make sense of the world.
Like a good picture book, we see a transformation.
Deluged by media attention due to high profile commissions and awards, Christian doubles down on making books that show all children that they matter - a message intended for the one single reader he yearns to reach the most, even though it is too late.
During the COVID-19 shutdown, Mac finds thousands of new fans through his weekly book club show. Then, he produces the greatest work of his life.
Yuyi’s brilliance catapults her almost to the peak of the US publishing industry. But, realizing she may never be truly accepted there on her own terms, she is drawn back to her roots: to produce work that champions the most marginalized.
our love affair with picture books
- Goodnight Moon has sold over 48 million copies.
- A copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar is sold somewhere in the world every 30 seconds.
- Dr. Seuss books have sold 700 million copies globally.
- Children's books are a 2.6 billion dollar industry in the United States, and growing.
- In 2020, juvenile nonfiction saw a record 23.1% increase in book sales.
- Published books "by or about" racially diverse authors/characters have tripled in number in the last 30 years.
this film is recommended for you
Transporting audiences into the fantastical world of children's books with nostalgia, urgency, and purpose, STORY & PICTURES BY presents a beloved but provocative history in the vein of films like Won’t You Be Neighbor, Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street, and Summer of Soul. Weaving the evolution of the form with three intimate narratives of young creatives turning their personal experiences into art, it also sits alongside films like Miss Americana, Mija, and Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry.
the team
Joanna Rudnick
Director & Producer
Joanna Rudnick is an Emmy-nominated and duPont-award-winning director with over two decades of experience directing and producing documentaries. All of Joanna's films engage with ideas of family, the importance of the arts in society, human health and wellness, social justice, and youth issues. Joanna's first feature documentary In the Family (PBS|POV) took a personal look at the effect that testing positive for the breast and ovarian cancer mutation had on her and several others as well as the bioethical implications of the new medical technology. The film was broadcast in over a dozen countries, shown on Capitol Hill and used in a Supreme Court case brought by the ACLU on gene patents. Joanna directed the animated short Brother (Independent Lens|PBS); the Chicago Film Festival Audience Award winning short On Beauty (Shorts TV) and an episode of Hard Earned (Al Jazeera America). Her producing credits include the Emmy-award winning Robert Capa in Love and War (PBS|BBC); Crossfire Hurricane (HBO); Bill T. Jones: A Good Man (American Masters|PBS); and Prisoner of Her Past (PBS). Joanna has a masters degree in Science, Health and Environmental Journalism.
Korelan Matteson
Producer
Korelan Matteson has worked as a writer, director, producer, development executive, and show-runner of non-fiction television and documentary films for two decades. Her last feature documentary, “They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead”, directed by Morgan Neville for Netflix, told the tale of Orson Welles’s final, unfinished film and premiered at Telluride and Venice. She also produced, “Nobody Speak: Trials of The Free Press” for director Brian Knappenberger, which premiered at Sundance. Her television credits include series for Discovery, Science Channel, ABC, FX, ESPN, Travel Channel, A&E and NatGeo.
Tim Horsburgh
Producer
Tim Horsburgh is an independent producer and distribution consultant. Current clients include National Geographic Documentary Films, covering the production and distribution of films such as FIRE OF LOVE, THE TERRITORY, WE FEED PEOPLE, TORN, THE FIRST WAVE, THE RESCUE, BECOMING COUSTEAU and FAUCI. He is the Executive Producer of Steve James' 2022 Venice Film Festival world premiere A COMPASSIONATE SPY. Between 2009-2021 he held various roles at Kartemquin Films, a period in which the organization received three Academy Award nominations, won five Emmy Awards, and was the recipient of an Institutional Peabody Award. As Kartemquin’s Director of Film Strategy, he managed an annual slate of 20+ original documentaries, covering acquisitions, development, financing, creative guidance, production management, business affairs, marketing and distribution on titles including MINDING THE GAP, EDITH+EDDIE, and ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL. Tim's experience covers the theatrical, broadcast, and digital releases of over 60 completed films, series, and shorts; founding and managing artist development programs; leading advocacy movements on behalf of the independent documentary field; and teaching and consulting on audience engagement and impact campaign strategies.
Brenda Robinson
Executive Producer
An entertainment attorney, producer, dedicated philanthropist in the arts and entertainment community and advocate on behalf of creative artists, Brenda currently serves on the boards of Film Independent and The Representation Project founded by California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Brenda is also a proud board member of Cinema/Chicago and the Chicago International Film Festival and currently serves as legal counsel to the festival. Brenda was most recently a financier on the Academy Award-winning documentary ICARUS as well as WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR, and STEP. Brenda is an executive producer on numerous projects and has had films premiere at major festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW and DOC NYC among others. Her film credits include UNITED SKATES, alongside executive producer John Legend; THE GREAT AMERICAN LIE by director Jennifer Siebel Newsom; JUMP SHOT: THE KENNY SAILORS STORY, alongside executive producer Steph Curry; MARIAN ANDERSON: THE WHOLE WORLD IN HER HANDS directed by Rita Coburn for PBS' American Masters series and the upcoming THE EMPIRE EBONY directed by Lisa Cortes and produced by Roger Ross Williams. Brenda is a member of AMPAS.
Gordon Quinn
Executive Producer, Kartemquin
Artistic Director and founding member of Kartemquin Films, Gordon Quinn has been making documentaries for over 50 years. Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun Times, called his first film Home for Life (1966) "an extraordinarily moving documentary." With Home for Life Gordon established the direction he would take for the next four decades, making cinéma vérité films that investigate and critique society by documenting the unfolding lives of real people.
At Kartemquin, Gordon created a legacy that is an inspiration for young filmmakers and a home where they can make high-quality, social-issue documentaries. Gordon currently executive produces and works creatively on all of our current productions. Kartemquin’s best known film, Hoop Dreams (1994), executive produced by Gordon, was released theatrically to unprecedented critical acclaim. The film follows two inner-city high school basketball players for five years as they pursue their NBA dreams. Its many honors include: the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, The Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, Chicago Film Critics Award – Best Picture, Los Angeles Film Critics Association – Best Documentary and an Academy Award Nomination.
Other films Gordon has made include Vietnam, Long Time Coming, Golub, 5 Girls, Refrigerator Mothers and Stevie. Gordon executive produced Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita and The New Americans (he also directed the Palestinian segment of this award winning, intimate, seven-hour series). Recently he produced a film that deals with the human consequences genetic medicine, In The Family, and executive produced two films, one about community based conservation in Africa, Milking the Rhino, and At The Death House Door on a wrongful execution in Texas. In the role of director, he recently completed Prisoner of Her Past, about a Holocaust survivor suffering from late-onset post-traumatic stress disorder, and co-directed the 2011 release A Good Man, about the dancer Bill T. Jones, which was broadcast on PBS' Emmy-winning documentary series American Masters.
STORY & PICTURES BY is produced by Storied Studios in association with Kartemquin Films, Wavelength, NiKA Media, WOHPRO, and Alba Collis. The film is executive produced by Jenifer Westphal, Joe Plummer, Hallee Adelman, Ken Pelletier, Brenda Robinson, Gordon Quinn, James Costa, Jamie Wolf, Shizuka Asakawa, and Melissa Sage Fadim.
Contact us: joanna@storiedproduction.com