Comedy writer James Breakwell has been sharing his own brand of relatable father/family humor—starring his wife and four daughters—on Twitter (@XplodingUnicorn) since 2012. When his account went viral in 2016—racking up more than a million followers—publishers took notice. Since then, he’s written three comedic parenting books and a collection of autobiographical essays, a guided journal for kids, and a science fiction novel. This month marks the release of his debut picture book, You Can’t Be a Pterodactyl!, about a boy exploring the idea that you can be anything you want to be when you grow up. We spoke with Breakwell about his path to the children’s book arena, his young in-house book critics, and pterodactyls.
What made you turn your attention to writing for kids?
I spend all my time writing about kids, I thought it would be fun to write for them. My house is full of children, and none of them have ever really read any of my books. There was one guided journal for kids I did, and they read that one a little bit. But all the other stuff I’ve written, they don’t want anything to do with. So I thought it would be neat to connect on that level. I also thought it would be a fun new challenge. I think sometimes children’s books can be more profound than the big adult ones. Sometimes I take 40- or 50,000 words to say something that somebody could say with a children’s book in 500. So I went ahead and gave it a shot and it ended up being pretty enjoyable.
You obviously have a great rapport with your daughters. Did they offer any input during your book project?
They inspired it just by being themselves. They’re always going out and doing such unique things and that kind of directed my whole approach to the book. The book itself came together really fast. They really like dinosaurs, at least a few of them do, and the pterodactyl has kind of been our symbol for them as a group. We call them “the Squaldron.” It’s a combination of the word squadron and then a squall, which to me is the sound a pterodactyl would make—I have zero scientific information to back that up. They’re also the Squaldron when we play games online together. We even made up some temporary tattoos with pterodactyls on them that they put on sometimes. So the pterodactyl in the book was very much inspired by them.
What was your collaboration with illustrator Sophie Corrigan like?
We were [working] together from the pitch all the way through to the end. She did some sample drawings up front and we bounced some things back and forth. And I think I loved every single thing she did. I don’t know if I ever had an actual criticism. Her job was much harder than mine. Because with mine, I could be vague, “These words can mean anything!” But then it gets to Sophie’s part, and she’s like, “Well, no, these words need to be something specific, because I have to draw it.” That became especially clear at the end of the book, because the way I originally had it worded, this kid could have literally become a pterodactyl, or he could have gotten a job and acted like a pterodactyl, or it could have been nothing like a pterodactyl. It came down to, “What’s it going to be? I guess we better pick an ending here.” In the final picture of the book, he has a job and very much lives a pterodactyl lifestyle without literally being a pterodactyl. But at the very, very end of the book, there’s also a funny picture of him and his dad as actual pterodactyls, so you can still interpret it that way if you want.
Can you talk about any plans to promote You Can’t Be a Pterodactyl!?
I’m going to do my usual social media stuff, and I’ve got a bunch of newsletters I’m going to write about it, all the tweets and things that people love to see. And I’m only using that somewhat sarcastically. People sometimes get a little bit upset when after you’ve been doing all these things online you say, “Look, I have this product you can buy!” and they’re like, “Wait a minute! I don’t know about that. I wasn’t here to actually support you.”
Also, the publisher suggested that I make a video and I’ve been thinking about some ideas for what to do with my kids for that. I made a video for my very first book, Only Dead on the Inside: A Parent’s Guide for Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse [BenBella, 2017], and it’s still my wife’s favorite thing in the world to go back and watch because it’s when my kids were tiny and they’re sitting there reading from the script and it’s adorable. I’m thinking about doing something similar again, but now you know, they’re big and have personalities of their own. So, we’ll see if we can do some pterodactyl-like antics and put it into a fun video. The video is now live.
Have your girls given you any reviews of the finished book?
They have not. I showed them the PDF file probably a year ago, which might as well have been in another lifetime. They know I have a pterodactyl book coming out, but they’ve forgotten everything else about it. I’m really looking forward to when we get the physical copies and I can show them again because for all of them this is going to be the first one of my books they’ve actually read. They’ll sometimes tell other people that I’m an author, but I don’t think they fully grasp what that means. So now for once they’ll actually see what I’ve been up to.
Do you have any new projects in the works?
Yes. My science fiction novel The Chosen Twelve [Solaris] came out last year, and I was lucky enough to get a sequel for that. And then I made some bad choices and put it off. So, it is due in three days. I had a wonderful, big year this year, I spent time with my family and some time with friends, I got Substack up and running, I’ve had lots of things going on. I felt like my life had a very good balance, and to get that balance, the one thing I wasn’t doing was working on the sequel. So, come the start of June, I suddenly had to cancel everything and just wall myself off from the world to get this done. And against all odds, I’m going to make it. I am right at the finish line now. Once that’s out the door, it’s going to be all pterodactyls all the time for the month of July.
Are you planning to do more children’s books down the road?
I would love to write books for children and books for adults; I think it would be awesome to do both, especially since one takes a lot more time than the other. They’re a good complement to one another. It’s good to have a book that takes up months and months, and then maybe a book that’s a little bit quicker and shorter. And I think those really pair well. So yeah, I hope to stick around in both.
You Can’t Be a Pterodactyl! by James Breakwell. Penguin/Paulsen, July 25 ISBN 978-0-593-11065-2
