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Billy Baldwin's new children's book, "Cookie Island."
Author Billy Baldwin, right, with artiist Liesl Bell, illustrator of his children's books, during a visit to John Jermain Memorial Library in fall 2022. ANNETTE HINKLE
Children’s book author and East Ender Billy Baldwin is bringing “Cookie Island,” his latest sweet story, to the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor for a book signing on December 3. The 300-page illustrated story revolves around the adventure of cookie-making on Cookie Island, a magical world dreamed up by Baldwin, who once owned a commercial cookie business also named Cookie Island. It’s part story, part kids’ cookbook.
The adventure is led by Daizy, Lookout and their beach bug friends, Spuds and Specks. The group treks through the incredible Valley of the Purple Sunnies, filled with talking elephant-sized grapes. Along the way, they encounter a 40-foot-tall Macademon guarding macadamia nuts and Santa at his summer retreat. Cookie Island’s leaders, Dough Tribe and Dri, who have ruled for 400 years, have fought Crag Island creatures to save Cookie Island. At the end of each chapter, kids can stamp their Cookie Island passport and fill out checklists of animals in the illustrations from each chapter.
Baldwin’s inspiration for the new book came from his old company, which he started after a career in commercial realty. He marketed the cookie business, which was, at one time, soaring, with what he calls a “magical world.”
“It’s very much like a Willy Wonka-type thing, but it was called Cookie Island,” he said. “And it was a hidden island in this dimension, off in the ocean somewhere, and these kids discovered it. We had all kinds of wild critters.”
Baldwin had opened a retail store for his company in 2001, just before 9/11, near the World Trade Center. After the terrorist attacks, his business shuttered and he turned to his true passion of creating. Cookie Island marks his eighth book and first cookbook, sort of.
“It’s a middle-grade novel, but it’s not,” he said. “It’s a cookbook, but it’s not a cookbook. It’s something in between.”
Cookies are a significant aspect of the story. When Daizy and Lookout run through the Valley of the Purple Sunnies, and the grapes are basking in the sun, they turn into raisins. The chapter ends with oatmeal raisin cookies. When the sugar moles are attacking in the sugarcane, that chapter ends with sugar cookies, and so on.
Baldwin always tries to have a character that is “a bit of a freak and doesn’t fit in.”
“Daizy is kind of like an Eloise type from the Plaza Hotel,” he said. “She’s an orphan in Brooklyn, and Lookout sees the world through binoculars. You never see binoculars off his eyes. We never really explained why. You’ve got these two lovable characters. [Daizy] hugs every critter. She loves critters. She doesn’t know any rules. [Lookout] has this adventurous curiosity that is just terrifying.”
Liesl Bell, Baldwin’s illustrator from South Africa, came to work with him through UpWork, a website where freelancers can connect with employers.
“I was almost at my wit’s end looking for an artist, and I saw this woman,” said Baldwin of Bell. “She didn’t have a lot, but she had one or two little characters. And I thought, you know, I think this will work.”
Despite his love for creating, the written word isn’t Baldwin’s favorite hobby.
“I’m dyslexic, so I just dislike reading and writing, and that’s putting it nicely,” he said. Baldwin makes it through with editors and artists. He comes up with the characters, draws sketches, and the artist redraws them.
“I draw in my primitive way, all the art — the creation, the perspective, the people, critters, everything — and then my artists redraw it to where you want to look at it. You know, because you don’t want to look at my art. It’s horrible, but I think I’m very good at this creation.”
Baldwin added that his dyslexia makes him very distractable when he’s writing. If he writes anything over 1,500 words, he hires a writer to rewrite it.
“I can see a lot of things in my brain, but I can’t see the dancing of words,” he explained. “I can actually become a really good editor. Believe it or not. I find so many things that are wrong.”
He’s also learned to hire two to three editors, as nobody catches every single mistake.
Despite his dyslexia, Baldwin is living proof that having a disability doesn’t stop someone from creating. Since he was a child, he says he always felt different, inspiring him to create characters that are different.
“I’ve always felt because of my dyslexia growing up, and other things, I was a bit of a freak, I felt I was different,” he said. “When you grow up with dyslexia, and now it’s changing, but one of the biggest problems is self-esteem and frustration. So if you go to school every day, and you walk in the door, and you feel like an idiot, you’re frustrated, you have no confidence. It affects everything you do. So, if I can give kids any gifts, I want them to understand I don’t care who you are, everybody has an asset. Everybody has a talent.”
The “Cookie Island” talk at John Jermain Memorial Library will be Baldwin’s first event there. He loves Sag Harbor, he said, and has donated money to the library, so it’s an exciting place for him to be. He doesn’t like to read in public because of his dyslexia; however, he plans to present a slideshow of the illustrations in the book and will probably pick out about 50 or so pictures from the book to share with the audience. He will also sign copies of his new book.
And in true cookie-head fashion, the kids will leave with cookies too.
Author Storytime with Billy Baldwin is Sunday, December 3, at 11 a.m. at John Jermain Memorial Library, 201 Main Street, Sag Harbor. For details, visit johnjermain.org.
