JUST ONE OAK and PUFFINS! Interview with Maria Gianferrari + a Double Giveaway!

Please welcome Maria Gianferrari back to Picture Book Builders to talk about her two new books, JUST ONE OAK and PUFFINS! Although both books are very different in style, they both have a ton of appeal for readers and will keep them engaged while absorbing information about these two species. Read on to peek behind the scenes of each book and don’t forget to leave a comment to enter the giveaway! One lucky person will win both books!

Andrea: What were your inspirations for both PUFFINS! and JUST ONE OAK? 

Maria: I’m a bird nerd and nature lover. Back in 2016, my husband, Niko, and I took a trip to Maine—it’s so beautiful there. Puffins are so cute, but I had never seen a puffin in real life before, and I was excited to take a puffin tour to Eastern Egg Rock Island (EER). Boy was it loud, even from quite far away on the boat! I learned that they were almost eliminated from Maine’s islands in the early 1900s because they were hunted both for food and to make fashionable feathered hats. The story of repopulating the Atlantic Puffins of EER was so inspiring! I wanted to learn more about these fascinating “clowns of the sea” and the other seabirds who live there (different kinds of terns, gulls, guillemots and more) as well as the island’s history, and the book was born. Atlantic Puffins live mostly at sea, but they come here for a brief period from April to August for nesting. The habitat is very well-suited for ground-nesting seabirds since there are no land predators, only aerial ones.

I also love trees, and my research for both BE A TREE! and FUNGI GROW, gave me an even deeper appreciation and insight into these magnificent beings. [Follow the links for Maria’s previous PBB posts about these two books.] Entomologist Doug Tallamy’s book, The Nature of Oaks, totally wowed me—I had no idea just how important oak trees were to maintaining ecological equilibrium and biodiversity as a keystone species. I was inspired to write a sort-of ode to the oak, to celebrate it and all the creatures who depend upon it for shelter and sustenance. 

Andrea: Was it your intention for JUST ONE OAK (illustrated by Diana Sudyka) and for PUFFINS! (illustrated by Maris Wicks) to be companion books to FUNGI GROW and YOU AND THE BOWERBIRD, or was that just a happy coincidence?

Maria: A resounding yes to both! I had Diana in mind while writing JUST ONE OAK, since we had previously collaborated on FUNGI GROW together along with editor, Andrea Welch at Beach Lane. Diana’s art is so stunning! I adore how she always “peoples” her spreads with so many adorable critters. JUST ONE OAK makes a complementary companion to FUNGI GROW, since there are so many kinds of mycorrhizal fungi that form partnerships with trees too. Diana’s a fellow nature lover, so I suspected she would relish the experience of painting all of these creatures, especially the tiny ones—I so love her snails!

At the time I was researching and writing PUFFINS! back in 2016-2017, I hadn’t yet met Maris. I just checked my records, and it was only sent out to a couple of editors back then, who rejected it, then it languished in the proverbial “drawer” for many years. After working on YOU AND THE BOWERBIRD with Maris, fellow bird nerd, I knew she would be perfect for it! I dusted it off, and revised it with a more graphic feel in mind. After Emily Feinberg at Roaring Brook acquired it, Maris worked her magic. She was especially excited to work on a local species, since she had done a lot of science educational work in the past. 

Another fun fact: Maris actually spent a couple of weeks on EER with scientists there in 2024. We had fun working the time she spent there as well as EER’s history and puffin facts into the back matter in comics form. It’s so engaging!

Andrea: While both books are nonfiction, they are written in different writing styles: narrative and expository. (These are also two of the five kinds of nonfiction that Melissa Stewart classified in her blog here.) How did you decide on the style for each topic and how did your process for writing them differ? Did you use any mentor texts?

Maria: Since PUFFINS! is a lifecycle book, it lends itself to a more narrative structure, and in this case, more of a seasonal one focusing on the nesting period, not on puffins’ lives at sea. It’s a story of an Atlantic Puffin family set on EER, a real place, and takes readers on an island tour, so to speak, to depict various kinds of puffin behavior—how they meet and greet each other after being away at sea, mate, nest and raise their puffling together, with all of the challenges and dangers that brings. Although, as I mentioned above, there are no land predators, there are very dangerous aerial ones, like the Great Black-backed gull. And when she’s grown, it’s time for Little Puffin to leave the burrow, and make her way in the watery world, and in time, return to the island to raise a family of her own.

JUST ONE OAK, on the other hand, is an informational book, so I knew from the get-go that it would be expository, not narrative. I love expository nonfiction! The challenge is finding the right structure that just brings everything together. There is a lot of play and experimentation involved—it can be a bit of an adventure. Once I came upon the “Just One Oak” refrain, the list-structure emerged and every spread became one oak themed, and focused on a particular way that an oak tree serves as a keystone to an ecological community. It opens with an intro to the general ways that the oak is a keystone and supporter of tiny organisms in the soil and leaf litter, to mammals as large as black bears. Then each subsequent spread highlights an organism or animal in relation to the oak as a host, from caterpillars, to acorn weevils and acorn woodpeckers; to seasonal changes like marcescence, or acorn mastings, and the way it can create a microclimate. Other spreads explore different species of oaks, and a variety of habitats and the creatures that reside there, etc.

Andrea: Not only are the writing styles different, the illustration styles are, too! Please talk to us about the art.

Maria: They are quite different indeed, and yet so perfect for the tone of each book!

JUST ONE OAK is an homage to the humble oak for its beauty and its importance as a home and ecosystem cornerstone, and Diana’s art amplifies and elevates these themes, bringing everything together. Her creatures are whimsical, yet realistic. Her gouache color palette is soothing with its earthy tones, and the various shades of green, brown, gold and blue are very grounding. 

Looking at Diana’s art, taking in all of the finely wrought details is much like reading a poem, savoring the images, the pieces and parts of a puzzle. Then we pause, take a breath and see the sum of the spreads as a unified and supremely satisfying whole.

I love the variety of perspectives Diana employs—

Sometimes it’s a wide angle, panoramic type of spread:

And sometimes, it’s a close and intimate look at a tiny being:

Her art has a softness that’s warm, cozy and inviting, even when it’s wintery:

And a charming, folksy quality that feels like home. 

PUFFINS! celebrates these special seabirds too, but it takes a more humorous approach—Maris’ fun, funky, graphic-comics style works so well! It’s impossible not to feel joyful when gazing upon her art! It’s pretty evident that she’s reveling in the images she’s creating—I love how playful they are. One example of this is her use of neon orange—it totally pops, and it’s the perfect visual counterpart to these vibrant and lively birds!

She’s not afraid to get gross—the title page cracks me up! Take a closer look at the puffed up PUFFINS! title—it’s sprinkled with puffin poop—HA!

The bright blues and oranges in contrast to the black and white feel cheery; she has so much visual variety too. In addition to a more traditional picture book format, I love how Maris uses graphic elements, like panels on the page:

And my favorite: a stunning double-page spread where we pause, full of awe, as Little Puffin prepares to fledge:

The back matter takes comics form and really brings out all of the puffin behavior as well as the history of EER and Project Puffin. Here’s an example: 

And there’s another fun surprise: slipping off the book’s jacket reveals a life-size puffin which is a brilliant detail (she created a surprise cover for YOU AND THE BOWERBIRD too!) I also love that the back of the cover features a parent puffin reading our PUFFINS! to a little puffling—so cute!

I could go on and on … 

All I can say is LUCKY ME! I am so grateful to be able to partner with and co-create books with these two amazing artists (and people!) What a joy and delight to work with them as well as with wonderful editors like Emily Feinberg/TeamPuffin at Roaring Brook, and Andrea Welch/TeamOak at Beach Lane! 

Thank you for having me here, Andrea!

And many thanks to both Beach Lane and Roaring Brook for generously donating giveaway copies of JUST ONE OAK and PUFFINS!

Andrea: Thank you, Maria! It’s such a treat to hear how these books were created. Congrats on the release of both of these gorgeous books! Readers, please leave a comment below before May 12th to enter the two-book giveaway! One winner will be randomly selected. US mailing addresses only.

MARIA GIANFERRARI is a picture book reader/writer, animal-lover, and bird nerd. She writes books that honor our bonds with creatures both domestic and wild, and that celebrate urban ecosystems and the natural world around us. Maria’s newest releases are Just One Oak and Puffins!, both published in April 2026. Other recent titles include Rain and the Reading Horse, To Dogs, with Love, Fungi Grow (a Boston Globe Horn Book Honoree), Thank a Farmer, You and the Bowerbird as well as the companion books, Being a Cat & Being a Dog. Her book, Be A Tree!, won a Massachusetts Book Award Honor and has been translated into 16 languages. She grew up in Keene, NH, and lives with her family in Worcester, MA, where coyotes, bobcats and bears traverse her backyard.

DIANA SUDYKA is a Chicago based illustrator.  Early in her career she created screen-printed posters for musicians including Andrew Bird, St. Vincent, and The Black Keys. She moved into the publishing world by illustrating several volumes of the best-selling series The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. Working mainly in gouache, watercolor, and ink, subject matter and aesthetic choices for her paintings are inspired by a passion for nature and science, as well as various folk-art traditions. Diana’s author-illustrator debut, Little Land, published in 2023. Her children’s illustration book work includes Dear Treefrog, by Joyce Sidman, Angela’s Glacier, by Jordan Scott, How to Find a Bird, by Jennifer Ward, as well as Fungi Grow and Just One Oak by Maria Gianferrari, among many others. Diana’s Instagram feed features her most current work, but a disproportionate number of pictures of lichens and moss as well. When not working in her studio, she gets outdoors as much as possible with her family. You can learn more at dianasudyka.com.

MARIS WICKS is a writer and illustrator whose work has taken her all over the world, from the warm waters of the Caribbean to the frozen ice of Antarctica. Most recently, she got to hang out with all the incredible seabirds on Eastern Egg Rock, and she is not exaggerating about the amount of poop. Find out more at mariswicks.com