FINDING FORGIVENESS + an interview with illustrator Diana Mayo + a GIVEAWAY!

Today I am extremely excited to be chatting with an incredibly talented UK-based illustrator whose work I’ve admired for a very long time, Diana Mayo! I was so thrilled when Diana agreed to illustrate my latest picture book, FINDING FORGIVENESS, which releases from Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers on August 5^th. Today we get to peek into Diana’s beautiful brain to see how she works…

But first, here’s the blurb about FINDING FORGIVENESS from the publisher…

A loving, heartwarming picture book about empathy, sisterhood, and finding the courage to ask for forgiveness―and having the grace to give it―both to others and to ourselves. 

It’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, a time for new beginnings. But two sisters don’t know how to move forward after the fight they had the night before. As they gather for the ceremony of Tashlich, during which they’ll symbolically cast away their regrets from the previous year by throwing bits of bread into a body of water, the sisters reflect on their past mistakes. They can’t undo their actions, but they can start fresh again this year, if only they take the lessons of Tashlich to heart.

With lyrical rhyming text from Rebecca Gardyn Levington and gorgeous illustrations from Diana Mayo, Finding Forgiveness is a tender, universal story of sisterhood and making amends. It’s the perfect book to gently start conversations around accountability, apologizing, social emotional learning, and conflict-resolution with your little ones.

And now, on to the interview with Diana!

RGL: I don’t know if you know this, but I was the one who initially recommended you to our editor as the illustrator for FINDING FORGIVENESS. I’d seen your work on SNOW GHOST and thought: “Now, THAT is the feeling I want for FINDING FORGIVENESS: gentle and intimate and lyrical and classic.” I remember being SO over the moon that you said “YES!” Do you remember what initially attracted you to this project?

DM: Joy Peskin, our editor for Finding Forgiveness, mentioned that you’d suggested me as an illustrator, but I hadn’t realised that it was because you specifically enjoyed the visual feeling I’d created for Snow Ghost. Your description of it being “intimate, lyrical and classic” is high praise and I so I hope I have achieved some of that feeling in this book!

I was initially attracted by the poetic, gentle and emotional text of Finding Forgiveness, as well as being keen to draw the subject matter of the two sisters, the river, trees in Autumn (Fall) and the Jewish Festival. I think one of the main challenges for an illustrator is to be inspired enough by the subject matter to actually want to draw it. In needing to enlighten and actually add something new and special to the story, it takes wanting to get up every day and spend hours at my desk drawing and painting to try and achieve this!

RGL: Oh, I definitely understand that. It is the same for us writers, honestly. Were you familiar with the Tashlich ceremony or Rosh Hashanah prior to taking on this project? And, if not, did you find it challenging to illustrate a tradition that was new to you? Did you do a lot of research? Any other challenges you faced while crafting this book?

DM: Rosh Hashanah and the Tashlich ceremony were new to me, my not being of Jewish heritage. However, I always enjoy the initial research side of the picture book illustration process and I’m not daunted by the new (although I do often get lost down a rabbit hole!). By reading around the subject and researching photographs of the festival etc, I found plenty of inspiring imagery to draw from, which added to the things you’d already described so eloquently in the text. The challenge, then, is to edit what I’d found out and include only that which was relevant and not to try and pack too much into each spread, just because I’d learnt about it!  One of the challenges for me as an illustrator is to try and marry that which needs illustrating to make sense of the text and that which I just want to draw. I can get carried away with pattern and drawing nature when I should be painting the inside of the synagogue, for example…Drawing large crowds of people, making them appear both fresh and interesting was one of the more tricky parts of this book. You suggesting including the contemporary, colourful stained glass windows of the synagogue made this process easier.

RGL: Since I’m not an illustrator, I’m always fascinated by HOW illustrators work and the choices they make. I absolutely LOVE the soft palette you chose and all the collage details you integrated into many of the backgrounds. Oh, and the way you show the water in the river and the reflection of the girls in it. Gorgeous. Tell us a little about how you made these choices, what mediums you used and why you chose them for this project.

DM: I guess one of the things to remember when asking this question, is that when creating illustration work for your book, it was not made in isolation, rather as part of a life-long process of my making imagery. I have a LOT of years of drawing, painting and collage choosing, so I’m always drawing from this bank of experience of what I know works well and what and how I want to depict something next. I’m so glad you you liked the colour palette I chose. I was obviously inspired by the Fall season that brings Rosh Hashanah, but I also wanted it to feel delicate and pretty for the two sisters and the readers who I hope will be reading the book. I’m really enjoying adding collage to my painted work right now. For a long time, I only used acrylic paints, coloured pencils and pastels, but using found collage adds a more unexpected texture for me that doesn’t quite feel like my hand when I’m sticking it down. It adds an element of surprise to keep my interest peeked and for me to work against – a bit of push and pull adding something fresh to that paint style I know so well. I’m really pleased you think the water and reflections work well – they were pretty time-consuming to make so I’m glad you appreciate them, Rebecca! I think the sister reflected upside down is my favourite spread – I was definitely ‘in the flow’ painting that one!

RGL: That’s my favorite spread as well (although it’s hard to pick a favorite. All the spreads are breathtaking). Another thing I admire so much is how beautifully you depicted the vast array of emotions that these two sisters experience. Your ability to show on their faces everything from remorse, to anger, to of course, love and forgiveness, is breathtaking. How did you get this just right? Are there children in your life that you study regularly?

DM: Thanks for your admiration of the emotional expressions I created. Painting faces, keeping them consistent and recognisable throughout the book as well as painting differing expressions is a challenge for me. It’s something that comes less naturally to me than painting water and something I’m definitely NOT in the flow with when painting, rather something I really have to concentrate on. To make the expressions work there is a lot of my grimacing in the mirror as well as asking my now grown-up children to help out! I previously worked in a primary school for around ten years, so I also have plenty of memories of quite varying emotional expressions to call upon from memory…

RGL: And now, my favorite question to ask my guests: What is one question no one has yet to ask you about the making of this book that you would love to answer? (And what’s the answer?!

DM: Hmm, that’s an interesting one. As this is just the start of our book’s journey, I hope there will be lots of questions to come yet, both from publishing people and the young audience that I hope will read it. Maybe I’d like to answer a question about the subject matter of being able to forgive others, ourselves and about moving on. I love the sound of the Tashlich ceremony and if someone asked me to join in, I’m sure I could think of many regrets to think about, ask for forgiveness for, to forgive others for and to learn from!

RGL: Diana, thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights about the creation of this book.

And I’ll let our readers in on a bit of a secret: Diana and I are also collaborating on another book together, LOOKING FOR LIGHT, which releases from FSG in winter 2027. I can’t wait to share that one with you all as well when the time comes!

Also, in honor of our book’s birthday, I’m offering a GIVEAWAY of either a signed copy of FINDING FORGIVENESS or a 30-minute Ask-Me-Anything Zoom Call with me. Simply comment on this post to enter and I’ll announce the winner at the end of my next post, scheduled for August 19th.

And the winner of last month’s giveaway, a copy of Carrie Tillotson’s ALPACAS HERE, ALPACAS THERE is….

***MARY HASSELL!***

Congrats, Mary! Please email me at RebeccaWrites4Kids@gmail.com to claim your prize!

Diana’s Bio:

Diana mayo has illustrated numerous pictures books and non-fiction children’s books, for both the UK and US publishers, including Snow Ghost, Bloomsbury Publishing UK, Molly on the Moon, MacMillan US, and Yawning Yoga, Source Books. She enjoys getting messy with watery paint, collage, coloured pencils and pastels, before tidying up her work and supplying it digitally. Diana is currently working on her next book with Farrar Straus Giroux. She lives and works in Chelmsford, near London, in the UK.