The times we’ve been living through feel drained of color, don’t they? It’s similar to Pruett’s world in Nancy Viau’s latest picture book, PRUETT AND SOO.

Pruett is from Planet Monochrome, where everything is black, white, and gray, and everyone follows the rules and walks in straight lines. And they never, ever ask or answer questions.

But then Soo arrives from Planet Prismatic. She’s bursting with brilliant colors! She zigs and zags all over the place! When she asks Pruett questions, he finds he wants to reply…and his whole world starts to change.

With a palette that shifts from grayscale to full color, this engaging story reminds us that what you feel defines who you are—and sometimes a friend helps you see that best.

CHANGE THE RULES. CHANGE THE WORLD!

Nancy, can you tell us about PRUETT’s journey to print?

PRUETT AND SOO sold to Two Lions waaaay back in the spring of 2017. After the first round of initial revisions, all was quiet for about a year. Jorge Lacera was brought on board to do the illustrations, and that’s when the story went through countless, but amazing and extremely detailed, revisions—For. The. Next. Three. Years.

Since the whole color palette had to change S L O W L Y from black and white to full color, every spread had to subtly sneak in a teeny bit more color. Jorge did a terrific job with this, and I am grateful for his hard work and that of the entire editorial team at Two Lions. They perfected every bit of crazy punctuation, every line, every unique color for dialogue, and more.

Funny story: After many revisions, no one noticed that in the first line I referred to Pruett as an alien. A very savvy editor noted right before the F&G was finalized that since Pruett is from the planet where the story takes place, he is NOT an alien! Only Soo is. Good catch, right? This is why we value lots of editors looking over our work!

PRUETT AND SOO blasts into our universe on March 22, 2022.

And now for the reveal:

Congratulations, Nancy!

Blog readers, you can win an F&G of PRUETT & SOO. Just leave one comment below to enter. 

A random winner will be selected later this month.

Good luck!

NANCY VIAU is the author of the picture books TODAY IS A BEACH DAY!, FIRST SNOW, STORM SONG, and more. Her middle-grade novels include SOMETHING IS BUGGING SAMANTHA HANSEN, SAMANTHA HANSEN HAS ROCKS IN HER HEAD (updated for 2019), and others. A former teacher and kid-at-heart, Viau loves to visit schools, libraries, and bookstores across the U.S. to present assembly programs and writing workshops. She currently lives in New Jersey and travels around the solar system in her imagination. Connect with Nancy on Twitter or Instagram @NancyViau1 or via her site: NancyViau.com.