Guest Post: Candice Ransom on Working Backwards & Amanda Panda Quits Kindergarten

By Candice Ransom
for Cynthia Leitich Smith's Cynsations

People always ask writers how they get their ideas. Ideas are everywhere—people should ask how does a book come about? 

Over my 36-year career as a writer of children’s books, I’ve written a dozen picture books.

Normally, an idea comes to me and over a period of months, I’ll write the text. If the manuscript is acquired, the editor finds an illustrator, who then gets busy on the art.

In the spring of 2015, Frances Gilber...