Off the Wall: Making Stuff Together

A story about art, collaboration, and happy accidents from your favorite duo of Caldecott Honorees, Molly Idle and Juana Martinez-Neal.

Best friends Juana Martinez-Neal and Molly Idle know a thing or two about collaborative art. After teaming up to illustrate Julie Fogliano’s I Don’t Care, swapping work back and forth through the mail and finding ways to blend their distinct styles, they couldn’t wait to do it all again.

Off the Wall is a joyful exploration of that very process. We open on one little girl, alone with a wall and a bucket of chalk. Then a friend comes along to play tic-tac-toe. Before you can say “whoops!”, one friend becomes four friends, two cats, two dogs, and a splattered ice cream cone. Leashes are tangling and hands are getting dirty… and the art on the wall gets bigger and better.

Little artists and lovers of mess will delight in the ruckus of Off the Wall, which culminates in a reveal of the mural the friends create. Perfect for art classrooms and beyond, Off the Wall reminds us that magic happens when we play, experiment, and welcome the unexpected.