A great children’s book says as much through the images as it does with its simple words.
That’s the balance brothers Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey have been finding with their series of beautiful picture books, exploring time, family, and what every kid loves: vehicles.
The Pumphreys are based in Central Texas. Their latest book is “The Old Sleigh,” a wintry companion to their award-winning “The Old Truck” and its celebrated follow-up, “The Old Boat.”
The brothers stopped by the Texas Standard studio for a chat. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Well, we first had you on the show in 2020 when “The Old Truck” started making best-of lists for that year. Jarrett, did you imagine, when you first started on that particular book journey, that it would become a sort of loose series?
Jarrett Pumphrey: I don’t think that we had that in mind, really. Not when we started.
As kind of happens, you start working on a project and then you get towards the end and you start thinking about what’s next. And with “The Old Truck,” that’s kind of what happened. We were at that “what’s-next” moment and then “The Old Boat” sort of came into picture.
And it was when we were working on “The Old Boat” – actually, it was the winter that book was about to come out. Texas was hit by that winter storm. And we were thinking, you know, trucks, boats… Those aren’t so great in the snow, but what is great in snow? Sleighs.
Well, these books are tied together, not just thematically, but aesthetically.
Jerome, you guys made something like 250 stamps for “The Old Truck.” Are these some of the same stamps? Are they finding new uses in newer books or is it starting from scratch each time?
Jerome Pumphrey: We do use those stamps newly to create art, and pieces of art, that we might give away or something like that. But for each book, since they have such unique settings, there are new stamps from scratch.
Well, they also share sort of a color scheme. I was trying to find the right words. It’s simple and warm, but not overwhelmingly bright or basic.
Can you talk about finding the right tone?
Jerome Pumphrey: Yeah, and I think that tone was started with “The Old Truck” and what we were going for was something that looked timeless because these stories have one generation passing on to the next generation. All of them have that in some regard and we wanted something as a theme, timelessness.
So I think it is a bit of a muted palette which you might see when inks dry and are there for years. So that was very intentional.
Jarrett, the passage of time that Jerome was just talking about can be pretty an overwhelming topic. I think maybe even more so for adults than kids. But can you talk about how you make it natural and digestible in your books?
Jarrett Pumphrey: Sure. Well, for us, you know, it’s a natural part of any story, is the passage of time – and in these books, in particular, generational stories and family and they all kind of tie together in our minds a little bit.
And it’s commonality between these books. You naturally sort of want to see what happens from moment to moment. And in a picture book, you only have so many pages and so many words. And so we always want to tell the richest story we can manage.
And so what we found with these books in particular, a great way to do that is just show jumps in time from spread to spread. You see the world changing around these vehicles, around the family. The vehicles tend to be the constant in the book, but we see that world change and what happens around them, and we ask ourselves, what might that – in this case, sleigh – what might the sleigh have seen in all those years?
And you’ll see big changes – big changes in the family, big changes in the community and the world around it, the landscape. And so time, we love time, we love old things and the stories that can kind of be captured there.
Well, you touched on this, but there’s this theme, too, of this small town growing into a small city. I imagine that’s something you’ve experienced, yourself, here in Central Texas.
Jarrett Pumphrey: Absolutely, yeah. I live in Round Rock, Texas, and Jerome’s up in Georgetown. But as Austin has grown and our communities have expanded, we’re seeing growth, like, exponential growth out there.
And the expansion wave, so to speak, is just growing out and out and out. And we had a reader wonder sort of if that kind of change could happen to a small town. Could a small town really, in a lifetime, become a small city? And absolutely. I mean, we see it here in Texas.
Yeah, Jerome, I wanted to invite you guys on before the holidays, but despite the sleigh in this book, there’s no Santa.
Jarrett touched on this early on about your inspiration. Would you describe it as just a generally wintery book?
Jerome Pumphrey: I think so, but there is a tie to the holidays, which is when we were writing it, we were thinking of that theme of holidays and what do they mean to us.
And one thing that did come up is traditions or rituals, but we think like family traditions. And there’s something in experiencing a tradition with another generation and then passing that on. That was very fascinating to us, and so there’s a bit of that happening in this.
Which is, you know, that’s a core to holidays, and I think it’s our hope that people of different faiths can find something that resonates with them about this, because all holidays do have that in common, that sharing family traditions or rituals in one way or another.
Yeah, and it really is a celebration of community in this book.
Jerome Pumphrey: Absolutely.
Well, before I let you go, I also want to highlight your new work that’s reaching slightly older readers. I had the chance to interview you both at the Texas Book Festival and I was surprised that writing about brothers, considering you’re brothers, hadn’t occurred to you.
Jarrett, could you tell me just a little about “Link + Hud”?
Jarrett Pumphrey: So, “Link + Hud,” it’s a story, it’s part graphic novel, part illustrated novel. It’s our sort of exploration of brothers and sort of the antics they get up to. These two brothers, they have these wild imaginations and we find the humor in where those imaginations sort of collide with the real world and their family and community around them.
And so there’s currently two books in the series. The first book is called “Heroes by a Hair.” It’s about the brothers and their father who is a podiatrist, but also an entrepreneur and inventor, and he comes up with a Black haircare product. The books are largely based on our own lives. Our dad was a dentist and came up with Black haircare products.
But the boys helped their dad figure that out. And they also have a babysitter, her name is Ms. Joyce. She’s their arch nemesis. Very much a real person. We had a Ms. Joyce. We loved her dearly, but we also did want to get rid of her. But yeah, that’s the first book.
The second book, it’s the summer. It’s called “Sharks & Minnows.” The boys have a bunch of fun at the community swimming pool.
And actually, I just finished the text for the third book. It’s called “Creatures from the Cul-de-sac.” It’s set around Halloween, and it’s coming out next year.
Well, it’s got to be so fun to make that transition. And Jerome is the primary illustrator here. I mean, the imagery in “The Old Sleigh” and its companions are so sweet. And, as we said, sort of subdued.
It must be also fun to just really explore the silly and lean hard into that in the “Link + Hud” books.
Jerome Pumphrey: It definitely is. And it’s even a different art style. It’s cartoony. So it’s these thick, fun lines, lots of activity, and a lot of visual jokes that I get to draw. So I really enjoy that.
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