Just out from Knopf, a division of RH Books, is The Bakery Dragon, a smashing looking picture book, with some comic strip elements, for four to eight-year-olds that marks the writing debut of popular artist Devin Elle Kurtz.
The Bakery Dragon is a heroic tale of a tiny dragon with a heart of gold and a taste for treats, on offer is a scrumptious picture book (yes, we see what you did, there!) for fans of funny fairytales and fantastic beasts.
Ember has always been different from the other dragons. His fearsome roar sounds more like a polite sneeze, and when he breathes fire, the villagers just pat his head and say awwww.
Ember fears he’ll never collect a respectable hoard of gold until a chance encounter with a baker causes his fortunes to turn (and his stomach to grumble). As the little dragon soon discovers, the gold you make is way better than the gold you steal — and gold that is shared? That’s best of all.
Magic shimmers on every page of Devin Elle Kurtz’s feel-good picture book that celebrates baked goods, dragons, and generosity in equal measure. A perfect read aloud for bedtime or brunchtime!
Creating Dragons – a potted guide
Devin Elle Kurtz lives in Pasadena, California, with her dog, Kira, and her thirty-three houseplants. She’s been painting in Photoshop since the age of two, when her artist mom first offered her a tablet pen. Her focus is magical scenes that combine fantasy elements with environments that feel visceral and real. She has worked in the animation industry as a background painter/designer and visual development artist since 2017.
Devin was the lead background painter on Disenchantment at Rough Draft Studios from 2019-2021. She’s illustrated the picture book, Mother of Sharks by Melissa Cristina Márquez, published last year, and has illustrated book covers for HarperCollins (Starminster, The First State of Being), Penguin Random House (The Teller of Small Fortunes), Macmillan (Juniper’s Christmas), and Simon and Schuster (Finding Normal, Escape from Atlantis series).
Other past clients include Netflix, Disney, Mondo, Dark Horse, Wizards of the Coast, Gamewright, and Adobe. If you were at Dragon Con 2024 you’ll have seen her fantastic official event shirt art, too.
The Bakery Dragon is her first picture book as an author-illustrator, and she’s touring various American locations to promote it.
Writing on Tumblr, Devin revealed the book’s origins started for with her 3dTotal artbook. “3dTotal is a small publisher in the UK, and they mainly focus on collections of artists’ work. They use Kickstarter to fund each book, and my agent (the amazing Seth Fishman at Gernert) discovered me through the Kickstarter for my artbook, Windows to Worlds.
“He asked if I had any interest in working on graphic novels or picture books, and I had already been thinking about picture books! He found me my first picture book project with Penguin Workshop, Mother of Sharks, written by the awesome Melissa Cristina Márquez, which came out last year.”
While Devin was working on Mother of Sharks, she was also talking with him about developing The Bakery Dragon, based of on a painting she created in 2021, which was (and is) one of her proudest artistic moments.
“I painted it right after a really challenging couple of months medically,” Devin revealed. “I was dealing with medical complications from my chronic illness for about six months, and I wasn’t able to finish a single painting the whole time, I was just too exhausted from hospital visits and being in pain.
“That painting was the first piece I was able to actually complete (both emotionally and literally) in about half a year. So it always held a really special place in my heart, and I really wanted to keep living in that little world. I think there’s something in it that is very special to me, about being outside in the cold, seeing warmth and love through a glass barrier, and wanting desperately to reach it.
“With Seth’s guidance, over a couple months, I developed a pitch for it. The script developed slowly alongside the designs for characters, locations, etc.
“I thought I had already read a lot of picture books, I’ve always loved them, but I read hundreds and hundreds during this process. There is something uniquely fun and challenging about telling a complete narrative in 48 pages (which is already a long picture book, many are 32!) My book also pulls some elements from comics, such as speech bubbles, which I found to be incredible assets for humour and character development.”
Devin has enjoyed creating the book. “The Knopf team is amazing, I loved working with them on this! Huge thanks to my editor Katherine Harrison and AD Sarah Hokanson.”
“Thank you all so much for your support through the years!” she enthused to her thousands of fans earlier this week. “You all are a big reason I was able to pursue this and it’s been a dream come true!”
• The Bakery Dragon is available now from all good bookshops | ISBN 978-0593710968 | Buy it from AmazonUK (Affiliate Link)
• Devin Elle Kurtz is online at devinellekurtz.com
• Follow Devin on Instagram | Tumblr | X
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The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
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