May 05, 2023 — A new children’s graphic novel is out this week from Adirondack author Maxwell Eaton III. Eaton’s graphic novel, “Survival Scout: Lost in the Mountains,” is the first in a series of books about a young girl and her wilderness skills.
Eaton is reading from his book this Saturday from 1-2 pm at the Adirondack Mountain Club’s Cascade Welcome Center in Lake Placid.
MAXWELL EATON III: Our protagonist Scout, who’s maybe a 10 year old girl, is competent, she’s capable, but she’s constantly being thrown in harm’s way, either by adults or by natural forces. In this book, she’s out on a backpacking trip with her brother, when he reveals that they’ve been lost for three days and he has no idea where they are, and might not even be on the map. She starts trying to figure things out when he gets scared off by a bear, and leaves her out in the wilderness three days from nowhere. So she needs to figure out where she is, where home might be whether she should stay put, whether she should head out. She’s got half the camping gear, too, so she needs to figure out a shelter, a way to make water safe to drink, and so on and so on.
EMILY RUSSELL: I know this is a kid’s graphic novel, but I wonder if it’s also geared towards adults, because as we know, adults get lost in the woods all the time. So is there an aim towards also informing parents about skills that you need to have to be safe in the woods?
EATON: Yeah, I hope that seeps in there and that they absorb some of this because they are all skills that anybody heading into the Adirondacks or any mountains or anywhere outside of town should know how to deal with— things like reading a map and how to use a compass, not everybody knows. It’s easy to say I carry a compass, but I can figure out north or south or east or west without a compass, how’s this tool going to help me?
RUSSELL: So one of your daughter’s names is Scout and a lot of characters in your books are girls. Why is that?
EATON: First of all, why not? I think the default was a little boy, especially for a book called ‘Survival Scout,’ I think that’s what comes to some people’s minds when they hear the title. My partner and I are doing our best to raise two tough, strong, confident little people, and if they can see themselves in a book, then that only helps with that effort.
RUSSELL: What goes into creating a book like this, can you sum it up? For folks who don’t know anyone who’s written a book or drawn illustrations for one, what does it take to release something like this?
EATON: Well, from the beginning to now— first of all, I’ll say it’s one of my favorite things in the world and I love every minute of it— but maybe like a backpacking trip: it’s a slog, too and it’s miserable at times during the process. But when it’s all over, you just want to do it again and you forget all of the misery. I was thinking about this book this morning, when I was brainstorming with my editor what this series might be, I think it was in 2019 before the pandemic, I remember signing the book deal in the throes of lockdown thinking, ‘Oh, I better get this signed before the world crumbles, at least I get paid for this book.’ Then I finished this book and the illustrations a year and a half ago. And the illustrations, when I’m working on the final artwork that can take two or three months of 16-18 hours a day, losing your mind illustrating, so it’s a labor of love.
RUSSELL: What does it feel like to get to this moment?
EATON: It is so gratifying, and it is with every book. This book in particular was the first graphic novel I had done in a while. And with a picture book, which is 32 or 40 pages, can be very involved depending on what style of illustrating you’re doing, but this one is, there’s no getting around 144 or 160 pages, you just got to do it. On top of that, this book feels so personal, because it involves all of my interests. It occurred to me how wonderful this book and this series are when I was buying some piece of camping equipment, and I realized, oh, this can be a business expense. When all of your worlds and your favorite things are suddenly all meshed and locked together like that it’s really cool. So I’m so proud of this book. I’m proud of all my books, but I’m really proud of this one. So I love it and I can’t wait for people to read it.
