Thanks so much. I’m incredibly honoured to be here again! Wild. The last time I was here — for I Know Here, by Laurel Croza—I felt like a total outsider. Laurel and I were sitting next to legends: Peter Sís, John Burningham, and Helen Oxenbury — all these people whose work had helped shape my — and probably all of our — ideas of what a picture book could or should be. It was…a bit embarrassing. Beautiful, but embarrassing.

Photo: Cynthia K. Ritter.

And now, somehow, here I am again. I still don’t really feel like I’ve mastered anything, exactly. And I still don’t exactly feel like I really “belong.” But I sure am happy to be here.

It’s a great privilege to get to do this job, to get to spend one’s life making art. I remember when Neal [Porter] sent me this beautiful story, one he thought my art would complement. It was called I Know How to Draw an Owl, and it was written by somebody named Hilary Horder Hippely. What a name! I must say, I was feeling pretty positive about this story before I’d read even one word.

And then I did read it — and what a beauty. Hilary’s text is poetic, evocative, and clear, with something mysterious at its centre. It’s about housing, about empathy, about motherly love — those are big themes. But it’s got more than that. Something wilder. A child sitting wide-eyed in the dark, in a forest, looking up at the stars and being visited by an owl.

She keeps that experience — that ­adventure — mostly to herself. It’s hers, a secret strength she carries until the moment she meets another kid who needs a friend. Only then does she decide to share it.

[Read Horn Book reviews of the 2025 BGHB Picture Book winners.]

Adventure! That’s what drew me in. I tried to let that feeling lead the pictures. When I’m illustrating a text, I try not to think too much at first. I just find a corner, spread out some paper, and start reacting, drawing, filling sketchbooks and iPads, without worrying whether what I’m doing is “good” or not. I’m just making puzzle pieces.

And then, pretty much, it’s more of that. Eventually, the little drawings become paintings on boards, and there are words on a screen, and these pieces just keep getting shuffled around as we try to help the story grow into a storybook. For the record, I do start worrying about things like, “Does this painting even look one little bit like an owl?” How do you draw an owl, anyway? I’m glad Hilary spelled it out for me!

This book, I Know How to Draw an Owl, was such a pleasure to illustrate, and it has been an adventure! So thank you to Hilary, for your beautiful words; to Neal, for insisting that this cover was the right one, and for rejecting all the alternatives I kept sending you; for letting me make Belle’s “drawing” a painting, without explaining it; and for allowing me the freedom to make these paintings almost too dark.

A huge thank-you to Jennifer Browne and to everyone at Neal Porter Books and Holiday House; to my agent, Jackie Kaiser; to the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards Committee; and last but not least, to my family — my wife, Rebecca, and my kids, Noble and Julius.

From the January/February 2026 issue of The Horn Book Magazine. For more on the 2025 Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards, click on the tag BGHB25. Read more from The Horn Book by and about Matt James.

Single copies of this issue are available for $15.00 including postage and may be ordered from:

Horn Book Magazine Customer Service
magazinesupport@mediasourceinc.com

Full subscription information is here.