Entering the World of Children's Books

Tita Berredo and the girl from her picture book, The Dress

Hello everyone, it's nice to see you again!

Alright, recap: I moved to the UK, took a Master’s in Children’s Literature and Illustration, and then I was out there in this new world with a portfolio under my arm.

I think it's important to share some really valuable lessons I took from my MA. One of them is how much weight we carry in the social responsibility of making books for children: how we can positively affect their lives with character shaping, sharing windows and mirrors to the world and offering a safe and empowering space to deal with their own emotions. 

The other one is how much you learn about yourself by experiment and play. It might seem contradicting but the more you share your work with peers and follow other’s works, the more you learn about how different you are and can be. What I mean in practical terms is that we all start drawing or writing for ourselves. Once we take it seriously we start thinking we must draw and write for others, only to find out that most of it is noise and you can only really connect to the other by doing it for yourself.

6 yo me wearing a dress I made of wrappings 

2017 developing my style with colours at Goldsmiths UOL

As human beings, our first instinct when arriving at a new environment is to mimic the others there. It’s safe and natural, but the more we get comfortable in such an environment the more we can show our differences in order to be authentic. Though, to get comfortable one must take risks and try to expand which brings me to the next step of my journey.

The first thing I did when I was out in the world as a recent “kid lit”  graduate was to share my work at any opportunity I had. That’s when I saw that the London Book Fair had a paid space for illustrators to showcase their artwork. It was provided by the Association of Illustrators and you could pay to put up two large canvases with your work printed on. I became a member of the AOI to get a discount, and that actually led me to an incredible community of artists for which I would end up volunteering, like SCBWI. Anyway, that two canvas option was a great one, because it meant that I could play it safe and take a risk. I then chose to exhibit two very different styles: a cutesy and traditional one with perfectly connected outlines filled with colourful anthropomorphised animals, that I thought would please publishers; and an edgy and expressively artsy one with rough brushstrokes and splashes of one bold colour, that pleased ME. 

Goldsmiths University of London Degree show 2018

London Book Fair 2019

My traditional cutesy more commercial style

My edgy and artsy more ME style

If I had to choose only one style to showcase, there’s a big probability I would have gone with the safe traditional style that was similar to every other children's illustrator, and would have been lost in the crowd. Don't get me wrong, the more traditional style is also full of me, and I still use it for some commercial work – and, most importantly, it pays bills whenever I have to compromise. But it is so important to keep a space where  you can develop something just for you, because it will set you apart and make you stand out. Showing both sides of me – of what I could do and what I wanted to do – was key for my creative career. I wish I could tell my younger self what a smart move that was at the time. It led me to my first professional jump: being scouted by my agent – who fell in love with… the ME style!

There’s another important lesson here: you should always show your work at any stage you are, even if you think you are not ready. As creators we are incredibly attached to our egos and surprisingly blind to our own potential. That affects our decisions about when, how, and if we share our work. The best favour we can do for ourselves is to doubt our insecurities and let other people judge our work for themselves. I was still quite raw and needing some shaping on the narrative side, but my agent saw the potential of my work and bet her chips into mentoring me. Because, as a professional, she could see beyond the stage I was and knew exactly what I needed to get there. So, when you do show your work as is, you allow others to decide what’s ready, what's appealing, or in need of development themselves – and trust me, they are better at it and more forgiving than you.

My agent, Sorche Fairbank, and I during a meeting at the Bologna Children's Book Fair 2023

After this change of perspective, I realised something similar about contests, showcases, submissions and reviews: it's all so very subjectively personal that you have to keep looking for people who share something with you personally. In other words, it's the people who are a bit like you who will connect with the you in your work. So the main point of submitting your work is multiplying the chances of your work being seen by the people like you! I applied this perspective to my own goals, which also helped to overcome any fear rejection. If someone is not into my work, they're either not enough like me or I might not be showing myself that well through my work in some way – and I can always revisit my work under this healthy perspective.

As you can see, even after being agented, I kept chasing different ways to share my art and expand my network. The best way in my opinion, was yet to come... which will bring me to SCBWI.

I know that's where I stopped last time, but you are watching it unfolds as we go.  ;)

See you next Thursday! Beijos!

Tita Berredo is a Brazilian children’s writer and illustrator. She holds an MA in Children’s Literature and Illustration from Goldsmiths UOL and a BA in Marketing from PUC-Rio. Her work has been recognised internationally, including a London's House of Illustration award and selection for the Bologna Children's Book Fair. She has illustrated books for the US and Brazil, and is making her author–illustrator debut with a Seuss Studios early reader published by Random House Children's.

Tita is the Illustrator Coordinator for SCBWI International Central, and a Picture Book reviewer for My Book Corner. 

Find Tita's work at www.titaberredo.com follow her on Instagram: @titaberredo

Golden Kite Awards 2026

To kick off the 2026 Virtual Winter Conference, on February 6th, SCWBI held the Golden Kite Awards ceremony for the best children's literature published in 2025.

Open to the public, with opportunities to mix and mingle with the Golden Kite finalists and winners in a virtual "afterparty," it was a wonderful celebration of these outstanding book creators and their books! 

Watch the recorded live stream HERE on SCBWI YouTube.

*  *  *

Sid Fleischman Award for Humor

Honoree

Big Changes for Plum! 

by Matt Phelan 

(Greenwillow Books) 

Winner

Never Take Your Rhino on a Plane 

written by KE Lewis and illustrated by Isabel Roxas

(Clarion)

*  *  *

Picture Book Text

Honoree

Fireworks 

written by Matthew Burgess and illustrated by Catia Chien 

(Clarion)

Winner

We Go Slow 

written by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie and illustrated by Aaron Becker 

(Atheneum)

*  *  *

Picture Book Illustration

Honoree

Fireworks 

written by Matthew Burgess and illustrated by Catia Chien 

(Clarion)

Winner

When Alexander Graced the Table 

illustrated by Frank Morrison and written by Alexander Smalls and Denene Millner 

(Denene Millner Books)

*  *  *

Nonfiction Text for Younger Readers

Honoree

One Girl's Voice: How Lucy Stone Helped Change the Law of the Land 

written by Vivian Kirkfield illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon

(Calkins Creek)

Winner

Some of Us: A Story of Citizenship and the United States 

written by Rajani LaRocca and illustrated by Huy Voun Lee

(Christy Ottaviano Books)

*  *  *

Nonfiction Text for Older Readers

Honoree

A World Without Summer: A Volcano Erupts, A Creature Awakens, and the Sun Goes Out

written by Nicholas Day and illustrated by Yas Imamura 

(Random House Studio)

Winner

White Lies: How the South Lost the Civil War, Then Rewrote the History

written by Ann Bausum

(Roaring Brook Press)

*  *  *

Middle Grade Fiction

Honoree

Gabby Torres Gets a Billion Followers

by Angela Dominguez 

(Roaring Brook Press)

Winner

Once for Yes

by Allie Millington 

(Feiwel and Friends)

*  *  *

Illustrated Book for Older Readers

Honoree

Lu and Ren's Guide to Geozoology

by Angela Hsieh 

(Quill Tree Books)

Winner

Song of a Blackbird

by Maria van Lieshout

(First Second)

*  *  *

Young Adult Fiction

Honoree

Island Creatures 

by Margarita Engle 

(Atheneum)

Winner

Song of a Blackbird

by Maria van Lieshout

(First Second)

Congratulations again to the finalists, honorees, and winners! To purchase books from the SCBWI Golden Kite Award finalists, honors, and winners, visit The SCBWI Bookshop page! 

A Whole New World: Changing careers to fulfil your passion

Tita Berredo - Children's Writer Illustrator

Hello everyone, I am so excited to be a guest here! \o/

For those who don’t know me I’m a Brazilian children’s writer and illustrator, based in Scotland (I married a Glaswegian and someone had to move). Since I moved to the UK I have been actively engaged with the kids lit community, volunteering for SCBWI, the Society of Authors, and the Association of Illustrators. There’s no doubt that I was able to explore and expand the most with SCBWI by becoming a volunteer from the get go. I was Illustrator Coordinator of the British Isles for years, and now that I am moving back to Rio I am the IC for the International Central.

Connecting with this community has been a great joy for me, and through the years it’s proven to be an excellent way to exercise a myriad of skills I actually use for the career I've chosen. Whether it is practicing communication, networking, writing articles, hosting events, meeting people from different countries and backgrounds, learning, sharing... all of that makes me be a better creator. Books after all have everything to do with human connection. So, when the lovely Justin Campbell asked me to write a four part blog post I thought that the best thing I could share is how I found myself and grew by nurturing these connections.

SCBWI at the Bologna Children's Book Fair  2025

SCBWI British Conference 2024

Interestingly, but not uncommon in this industry, this wasn’t my first profession. Like most people, I was very young when I had to make a choice of what to study and work with. In my late teens all I knew was that I hated maths. I was good with art and literature, but that was not considered a good enough foundation for a normative profession by my parents or the society I lived in. They weren't wrong, but they also weren't right. I was good at many things, was theatrical and entertaining, very sociable, and no doubt a  creative. So as a middle ground between what I was good at and what was acceptable, I ended up in social communications at PUC University in Rio. In retrospect, it was a great foundation to what was to come later. I was able to experiment in different areas like cinema, journalism, and marketing. Ironically, on every area I worked with I would always end up drawing and making stories: in marketing I made logos and commercials; in journalism I wrote journeys and illustrated the editorial headers; and in cinema, well, I’d often work with animations. So…, I guess we can agree there were a few clues on the way, huh?

Me at the age of ten, I was always drawing 

Anyway, I was already into a mixed career in publicity and marketing when one thing really changed my life (and it’s not even a thing): my husband. Martin was living in Singapore when we met on a trip to Chile with friends (yes, very international, very romantic). Jump ahead a little bit and suddenly I was living in Singapore, speaking a second language, and reinventing myself under adulthood’s autonomy – away from parents' and cultural expectations. 

Autonomy means freedom in many levels. For me it meant freedom to play again with my original passions. Everyday I would draw something different and make a little story about it for Martin, until he said the obvious thing that I actually had never heard from outside my head before: you love this, and you have a talent, go take it seriously. That was the very start of what would become a happy and fulfilled life based on a career that deeply reflects who I am.

In my studio in Glasgow, with my cat Juca 

I was already deeply focused on children's publishing and picture book making when we moved to London in 2017. There I enrolled in a Master’s degree in Children’s Literature and Illustration at Goldsmiths. Note, I did a Master’s because I also wanted to teach – you don’t need that to make books and become published. But that really opened up my horizons and helped me develop my art along self expression rather than pleasing a public (hmm, I should have learned that but then, wasn’t this the whole point of changing careers?). When I finished the MA we moved to Glasgow in Scotland, and there I was: a new beginning, in a different country, in a different language, and a new career knowing zero people. Then I met SCBWI.

MA at Goldsmiths with Axel Scheffler 2017

Early sketches for the MA degree show 2017

Well, I shall leave a gap between then and now so I can share it in different ways on the next posts (I still have three to go, and there’s a whole lot of fun to explore). The point is: I took a long circuitous path to end up where I always was supposed to be, and this probably made me better at it. I was able to reinvent (or, in this case, rescue) myself and grow in a completely different industry from scratch within a few years. That’s to say that wherever you are in your life, you can always change your career, you can also work with different things that reflect you or not, or keep a side job that allows you to pursue a passion. Our priorities change, our limits shift, and we should always be open to changing our minds. Because there’s no doubt that you will always be who you are, even if you don’t end up where you were meant to be. It might be a cliché, but “be yourself” is never overrated.

Presenting for SCBWI at the Bologna Children's Book Fair 2025

Whoah, that was a philosophical trip down memory lane! Next time I’ll jump ahead and talk about more recent discoveries, how I was able to generate new opportunities and learn to deal with them professionally. 

See you then! Beijos! (that’s kisses in Portuguese)

Tita Berredo is a Brazilian children’s writer and illustrator. She holds an MA in Children’s Literature and Illustration from Goldsmiths UOL and a BA in Marketing from PUC-Rio. Her work has been recognised internationally, including a London's House of Illustration award and selection for the Bologna Children's Book Fair. She has illustrated books for the US and Brazil, and is making her author–illustrator debut with a Seuss Studios early reader published by Random House Children's.

Tita is the Illustrator Coordinator for SCBWI International Central, and a Picture Book reviewer for My Book Corner. 

Find Tita's work at www.titaberredo.com follow her on Instagram: @titaberredo

2026 Virtual Winter Conference: THIS WEEK!

The 2026 Virtual Winter Conference is almost here! Join SCBWI on February 6th and 7th to continue the fun with exclusive industry panels, hands-on sessions on writing and illustrating, as well as networking opportunities to meet other creators.

Get inspired by keynotes from renowned children's book creators, like Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich and Traci Sorell.

Attend the several panels, like Ready, Set...Submit! and  First Pages Panel, where you will get insider knowledge on how to make your first page hook in the reader instantly, with real-time critique of attendee's work. I am always interested and enlightened when I attend the State of the Children's Book Industry panels, moderated by the wonderful TeMika Grooms!

With wonderful Creative Labs to attend, this is your chance to join in, for those who couldn't attend the In-Person Conference back in January.

So take the leap and experience the chance to boost your children's book knowledge, and career!

"Whether you’re looking to sharpen your skills, gain insider knowledge, or connect with other talented authors and illustrators, this event is for you! If you can't make it to the live sessions, video replays will be available to view through March 15th."

Register HERE for the 2026 Virtual Winter Conference!

Draw What You Like. Draw What You Know.

Only a month has passed since the New Year, but with so many things happening around us that drain our emotional and physical energy, it feels like years. It is a hard time to sit down and create. We might feel angry but also lethargic, hopeful but also despairing. But as Justin said in a previous post, creation is a form of resistance. We do what we do, and we do what we can. Creators help fill the world with joy and spread hope—especially for children, who see what we see, hear what we hear, and feel what we feel. 

When we're not in the mood to create—affected by everything happening in society—it is especially daunting to face an empty canvas or blank document. When this happens to me, I try to remember what I want to create. This is my last guest post, so I’d like to share the mantra of my artistic endeavors for the past decade. It consists of two simple phrases that took me years to truly understand:

Draw what you like. Draw what you know. 

These are deceptively simple phrases (yes, so deceptive I couldn’t even believe it) from late Marshall Arisman, the chairman of Illustration as Visual Essay MFA program at the School of Visual Arts. He was a fantastic artist and a master storyteller. I remember so clearly how I felt when he said this in a classroom over a decade ago: I felt deeply inadequate. I didn’t know what I knew. I didn’t know what I liked. 

It seemed like my classmates and other artists were interested in and passionate about something big and meaningful. They seemed to make illustrations to address social, political, and environmental issues, or expressing admiration for the grandeur of nature. But what did I know? What did I like? In despair, I remember jotting down three words in my sketchbook:

Cat, Korea, Food

That was all I could come up with. They are three solid items, right? Sadly, to my young and immature eyes, these three didn’t feel significant or impressive to draw. It is often hard to grasp the value of the things closest to us. Today, cats rule the internet, Korean culture is a global phenomenon, and food is all anyone talks about—but back then, before my friends and I even had Instagram accounts, I wasn't sure. I wondered: Shouldn’t I be addressing society with my art? Shouldn’t I use my illustrations to change this unfair world?

 

Regardless of that inner struggle, I kept working. I published picture books and told the stories I wanted to tell. I didn’t stop to think about why I wanted to make a book about a stray cat riding a bus on a cold winter day. I didn’t analyze why I felt so passionate about making a book about kimchi pancakes, moving through draft after draft and workshop after workshop. It was only years later, while preparing a guest lecture for college students, that I realized all my books have been about those very three things:

Cat, Korea, Food

 

A blurry photo I saw online that inspired
my first book, Cat on the Bus

Coincidence? Of course not. Without consciously trying, I was making stories about what I knew and what I liked—just as Marshall Arisman had advised. I think that’s when I finally made peace with myself. I realized I can focus on what I love and what I know, however "insignificant" they may seem. By telling stories that amplify empathy—something we desperately need right now—I am building a career I can be proud of and contributing to society in my own way. This realization gave me the confidence to keep working, no matter what the outside voices say. So, I want to tell you today: believe in yourself. Believe in what you love and what you know. Tell it the way only you can tell. I hope this mantra helps you face the uncertainty of these times, just as it has helped me.

All my books have 1, 2, or 3 elements from Cat, Korea, Food

Thank you SCBWI and Justin Campbell for letting me share my stories in the blog! It has been an honor and has gotten me off to an amazing start for the new year. I hope everyone's 2026 is filled with joy, fulfillment, and love for one another.

________________________________________________________________

Aram Kim is an award-winning author and illustrator of many acclaimed picture books, including the Yoomi, Friends and Family series. Aram's work has been recognized by the Junior Library Guild, Bank Street College of Education, the Mills Tannenbaum Award for Children's Literacy, and more. Raised in South Korea and now living in Queens, NY, she creates stories that bridge traditional Korean culture with universal childhood experiences. Find more about Aram's work at AramKim.com.