Taking care of a cat and a baby brother turns into a series of comic adventures when George wakes up to find himself shrunk to the size of a mouse.
William Joyce, author-artist of Rolie Polie Olie lives in Shreveport, Louisiana, with his lovely wife, Elizabeth, and their children, Jack and Mary Katherine. They also have a dachshund named Rose.
In His Own Words...
I was raised by a congenial horde of southern screwballs. Everyone over fifty had dentures, which were always being misplaced and mixed up. We sometimes played shuffleboard with them. My grandfather had the added bonus of a glass eye that he swore to me could see even when outside his head. I had an uncle who convinced me he was from another planet. They were an odd and independent lot. We had artists, bongo players, photographers, opera singers, actors, and geologists all in the same family. And we had a demented number of pets: mice fish, dogs, ducks, geese, a horse, something we called a horny toad, and at the beginning of every spring an aquarium full of tadpoles that became by summer's end a house full of frogs. Needless to say, with a household like that, writing and illustrating came to me very easily.
I'm a first generation TV brat. My brain was welded to the solid state circuitry of our RCA Viewmaster black-and-white television set. Every day and night I saw Men of Steel, flawlessly heroic dogs, invaders from outer space, sword-fighting Spaniards, incredible shrinking men, monsters galore, cartoons of the gods--all the past, present, and future pulp the tube had to offer. Plus comic strips, my family, and illustrators--Maurice Sendak, Beatrix Potter, N.C. Wyeth, Robert Lawson, Maxfield Parrish. George Shrinks is King Kong in reverse. Nicolas Cricket is Casablanca with bugs.
I try to create that heady buzz I felt when I was a kid and the movies gave me worlds filled with heroes, monsters, and adventures too good to be true. In my books high spirits are always shared, good humor appreciated, and eccentricity is not only tolerated, but encouraged. My characters are willing to fight for their right to act odd and suave. Kids like to believe in these things, and grown-ups still try to do. Which is maybe why adults like my books as much as kids do. They're trying to hold on to something they think they've lost.
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