 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving has become one of the most popular Thanksgiving books of all time. But believe it or not, this book was rejected 23 times by 23 different publishers. Dav was so discouraged by all the rejections, he almost quit writing children's books altogether. Finally, Orchard Books accepted the book, though they didn't expect it to sell many copies. As it turned out, the book that nobody wanted to publish ended up surprising everyone. 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving has become the third largest selling picturebook in Orchard Books' history.
Dav Pilkey wrote 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving because a librarian in Cleveland told him to write a Thanksgiving book. Never one to question a librarian, Dav began working on this book right away. He went out to the middle of a cow pasture with a large quilt and a tablet of yellow paper, and began writing.
| "All of a sudden, these cows came out of nowhere and were standing around staring at me. I was so delighted that I left my quilt and yellow notepad, and ran back across the feild to grab my camera. On my way back to the cows, I noticed they were all eating something. Something yellow. As it turned out, those cows were the very first creatures on earth to get a taste of my story. They ate the whole thing up, and I had to start over from scratch.
...At least they liked it." — Dav Pilkey |
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