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Drive down Glen Arbor Street in Sugar House during the holiday season, and you’ll quickly understand why it’s nicknamed “Christmas Street.”
It’s not just the “Christmas Street” sign hung overhead, lit up in red and green. Nearly every house is decked out in holiday paraphernalia, from scores of stringed lights to glowing figures of angels, snowmen and toy soldiers. There’s even a Christmas tree in the middle of the cul-de-sac.
This is where Utah children’s author Caralyn Buehner recommends families go to celebrate the season. And when they get home, they can enjoy her book “Merry Christmas, Mr. Mouse,” illustrated by her husband, Mark Buehner.
The husband-wife team, who both grew up in Sugar House, have been publishing together since 1992, when they released “The Escape of Marvin the Ape.”
They’re most well known for their “Snowmen at Night” series, about the secret lives of snowmen after dark.
Their holiday tale, “Merry Christmas, Mr. Mouse,” follows a family of mice living under a stove as they celebrate Christmas for the first time.
Kids will enjoy Caralyn’s simple rhymes and Mark’s beautiful illustrations, each done with remarkable amounts of color and detail. For some extra fun, look for the cat, rabbit and T-rex he’s hidden in every picture — just don’t go crazy trying to spot them all.
Caralyn recently spoke with The Salt Lake Tribune about writing for children, Mark’s art career and what she loves about picture books centered around Christmas.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
(Provided by Caralyn Buehner) Mark and Caralyn Buehner are the Utah husband-wife team behind "Merry Christmas, Mr. Mouse," a children's book about a family of mice celebrating Christmas for the first time.
How did you and Mark start creating children’s books together?
We were living in New York at the time because Mark had gone there looking for general illustration work. I thought he’d be doing book covers, editorials, that kind of thing. He went for a long time with just very small jobs. So when he had an opportunity to do a children’s book, that started it. A second book was in the works almost immediately. After a while, it became pretty evident that this was a good fit for him. He’s very whimsical, he’s very creative, very colorful.
He had a couple of books out before we did one together. I’m not artistic, but I’m a big reader. He’d get manuscripts, and I’d say, ‘Oh, I like it, but they should have changed this.’ I was always trying to edit them from the backside. And so he encouraged me to start writing. We were fortunate because we had a very supportive editor.
What inspired “Merry Christmas, Mr. Mouse”?
All of the elements that are in the book are things that we grew up with. My family didn’t have a lot of money, but we had traditions. When I married Mark, it was like the magic of multiplied Christmases. He’s Mr. Christmas. He decorates, he’s the one that loves the busyness.
Christmas books are a nice option. You can’t do them all the time, but people tend to buy them because they’re looking for new Christmas books to share with their children. And it’s a good time of year to sit down together to read. It’s cozy, it’s warm, you’re indoors. If you write a book about the Fourth of July, I don’t know who’s shopping for that. But Christmas is a good time to share a book.
Why use mice as the characters?
They’re cute, and Mark has a tender heart. He loves creatures. He’s the kind of person that will carry a spider outside.
In every illustration, Mark hid a rabbit, a cat and a T-rex. Has he always hidden animals in his art?
The very first book that he did, he didn’t have hidden things, but he had a black cat on every page. By about book five or six, he was hiding a cat, a rabbit and a T-rex on every page. There are a few books where it’s something different, but it’s generally those three things. They’re always the last things that go in. It will take days to find just the right place. Occasionally, they’re a little abstract. There are a couple of pages in some of the books that I get emails about — somebody will say, “We’re going crazy. We can’t find the dinosaur on this page.”
What does the holiday bring to “Merry Christmas, Mr. Mouse” that might not be in your other stories?
There’s a magical feeling about the holiday season, and part of it is anticipation. There will be something that you’re going to do — you’ll gather with someone, whether it’s your friends or your family, you’ll share food, you might share gifts.
There’s a kind of joy in Mark’s illustrations, so I can have a text that’s more basic. I’ve learned that I don’t have to put a lot in there because he will put the details in, he’ll put the magic and light in. I’ve had people comment to me that they feel good when they read our books, and I realize it’s not so much my words. It’s the pictures that bring that feeling. It’s like a movie, it’s an escape. But it should be a safe escape for children. There’s nothing in there that’s going to disturb them, but there will be things in there that will make them think, “Oh, I wish I was there.” You want to have that feeling of warmth.
Do you have any advice for people who want to write children’s books?
One thing that I suggest to people who are writing is to read out loud what you’ve written and notice if there are places where it gets bogged down or where people start to lose interest. Also think about if you’re telling your story clearly. Writers tend to get hung up on certain words, especially when you’re writing your story as a poem. You can get hung up on wanting it to sound exactly a certain way that may not fit the movement of the story. So can you tell your story to a group of preschoolers, and will they understand it?
Are you currently working on any projects?
Mark is working on another “Snowmen” book, but we haven’t shown it to our editor yet. It’s another Christmas book. We’re also working on a “Snowmen” book about Valentine’s Day.
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