The Lost Property Office

Mitzi, an American girl attending international school in Tokyo, discovers the mysterious Lost Property Office while searching for her friend Maki's homework in the sprawling Tokyo subway system. Mitzi gets her own chance to become a Finder like Mr. Motomeru and his nephew Yuki, and she soon learns that there's more to Finding than traveling through space-time!

This is a two-part young adult short story by Marji Napper in the March and April issues of Cricket magazine. It was a lot of fun to illustrate and research (Tokyo subway tunnels! Japanese houses! Tokyo Station in the 1930's!) and I'm pleased with the results. I worked on both chunks of illustrations at different times, but I tried to keep the feel and colors relatively tied-together.
Thanks to my AD Karen Kohn--I met Karen way back when I was still in college and I interned at Carus Publishing for a summer. I subscribed to Cricket magazine when I was a kid, so it was wonderful to get a chance to contribute!

Looking at the images all together, what I remember most are the things I was listening to while I worked on these illustrations. For the last 3, I specifically remember listening to the Feast for Crows/Dance With Dragons audiobook mashup, Victo Ngai's interview on Your Dreams My Nightmares, and Stella live in Boston. This seems to happen with most of my illustrations....the strongest memories are what I was watching or listening to while drawing them. Go figure, brains!