Byline: Rivka Galchen

Fail Funnier

How Mo Willems teaches young readers to confront problems.

A little more than a decade ago, the children's-book author and illustrator Mo Willems had an idea for a new series. "I was thinking about P. D. Eastman's 'Go, Dog. Go!,' which was something I loved as a kid," he told me recently. That classic has a running gag in which a girl dog says to a boy dog, "Do you like my hat?," and the boy dog, in different settings and in response to different hats, repeatedly says, "No." "Even as a seven-year-old kid, I knew that she should be saying, 'Well, screw you! Do you know how hard I worked on this hat? How much money this hat cost? Why should I even be trying to please you?' " In the Eastman book, the dogs part amicably, with a simple "Good-by!" "I wanted to do the dog scene again and again," Willems said. "I wanted those dogs to have it out-to have a conflict and then find a way to resolve it, to bring the friendship back into balance."

Willems considers Eastman to be "part of the 'Mad Men' era of children's books," along with Dr. Seuss. (Eastman served under Theodor Geisel in the Army; later, his books were published by the Dr. Seuss imprint, at Random House.) Willems admires those writers' books, but notes that "they're not about interiority or emotions. That's just not what interested those guys." Instead of imitating what he loved about "Go, Dog. Go!," Willems wanted to write what was missing. His duo consisted of an anxious male elephant named Gerald and a sunny female pig named Piggie-"technically, a friendship between an African and a European," he said. Gerald and Piggie appear against a plain white background, so that the reader's attention is on the expressiveness of their relative postures, the tilt of their ears, of their eyebrows. "I wanted every adventure to be them reestablishing their friendship, not just having fun, because that's a different thing from friendship." Willems recalled a formative creative partnership: "We'd be shouting at each other over decisions all morning, then go have a great time together at lunch. That was what I wanted."

Willems's publisher was not immediately encouraging. The books were intended as early readers, aimed at children who are just beginning to read; such books are written with a limited vocabulary and many repeated phrases. Early readers don't tend to sell. The ones we tend to remember from childhood are not new but classics like "Go, Dog. Go!" Also, Willems's first two proposed titles were "Today I Will Fly!," in which Piggie does not fly, and "My Friend Is Sad.," in which, Willems was reminded, the word "sad" appears-problematic from a marketing standpoint. "I compromised by taking the punctuation out after 'sad' so that the sadness wouldn't feel so terminal," Willems said. The publisher took a chance on the new characters. The Elephant and Piggie series launched in 2007; it ended,...