Matthew Holm, New York Times-bestselling author and illustrator, stood at the front of the cafeteria at Little Britain on Tuesday January 14, 2025, as he gave a demonstration on how he draws some of his iconic characters. Students eyes’ darted towards Mr. Holm as his hand swiftly moved across the easel.
Before showing off his artistic skills to the audience, Mr. Holm spoke to students about his profession and the graphic novel series he has created with his sister, Jennifer.
“I work on graphic novels for kids,” said Mr. Holm. “Our main series are “Babymouse”, which is about a girl who’s a mouse and all the other kids in school are animals; “Squish”, which is about an amoeba and his other microscopic friends; and “Sunny Side Up”, which is about a girl in the 1970’s.”
Mr. Holm proceeded to share with the audience his love for drawing and graphic design at a young age, seeking inspiration from iconic comic book characters such as Batman. He then spoke about how he and his sister, who is also an established author, created “Babymouse.” He touched upon the process of creating the graphic novels with storyboarding and how they bring the character to life.
“It (the assembly) was good because he taught us what he did to write a book,” said Avery Bowe, a fourth grader at Little Britain who has a passion for writing stories and started writing a “Harry Potter” sequel. “I learned that it takes a really long time to make a book and you have to be patient.”
After his presentation, Mr. Holm displayed his talents to the audience before inviting a lucky student to come up and help him draw. The assembly concluded with students having the opportunity to purchase books for Mr. Holm to sign.