Marie Boyd: Hi. My name is Marie Boyd. I'm the author and illustrator of the picture book, Just a Worm.

I'd like to start by reading from the book. Before I do, I'd like you to imagine a beautiful sunny day with a blue sky and fluffy white clouds and a little worm crawling across a green lawn.

Okay. Here's Worm.

Slop. Slip. Wiggle. I'm taking a little twirl. Stop. Dip. Squiggle. I'm off to see the world.

"Ew!"

"It's just a worm."

Just a worm? I'm not just a worm. I can do lots of things. I know I can. I can ...

So what I just read is part of the beginning of Just a Worm. When my son was younger, he didn't like walking past worms on the sidewalk after a rainstorm, and I'd often tell him, "It's just a worm."

One day I thought, "How might a worm feel if it could understand my words?" That question led to Just a Worm. In the book Worm encounters several insects and other creatures in the garden, and each of them has important qualities. But what can Worm do?

Thinking about that question made me think about what I can do and what I could bring to the book that was different. I had never seen a quilled picture book, but when I imagined Worm's world, I imagined that it was made out of quilled paper. So I was thrilled to be able to illustrate the book with quilling.

What that means is that I created Worm's world out of paper. I cut, curled, coiled, and glued narrow strips of paper to make the pictures in Worm. And if you'd like to learn more about quilling, the book shows how you can make your very own quilled butterfly.

The plants in Worm are inspired by plants in my and my parents' yards. Sometimes I'll pick a flower or a leaf from the garden and then try to make a version of it out of paper.

One of my favorite pictures in the book is a spread where Worm encounters a bee in a strawberry patch.

Bees are so important to the environment and our food system. One of the things bees do is to help pollinate flowers like strawberry flowers. When I was a kid, there were strawberry plants in my family's front yard. I love strawberries, and I enjoyed looking for the very best strawberries and helping my mom make them into jam. Well, at least the ones I didn't eat. I also spent quite a bit of time picking snails off the strawberries. Snails seemed to like strawberries too, and one of my jobs in the garden was to collect snails.

If you look closely at the spread, you'll see a snail crawling toward a ripe strawberry. This was also one of the most difficult pictures to make because I wanted it to look like the page was being turned. It took me many, many tries before I got the paper to roll correctly.

I hope that Just a Worm will encourage you to think about what makes you unique and to think about how you contribute to your family and community. I also hope that it will encourage you to try making your own pictures out of cut paper and perhaps to try your hand at quilling.

Thanks for listening and happy reading.