Today’s interview is exciting for me, because not only are we talking to our friend Victor D. O. Santos, but we are also doing it ahead of the release of People Are Weird - which is easily one of the best picture books I’ve read this year. This book has everything. It’s quirky, it’s funny, it’s beautiful. It’s a slice of life kind of book that’s fun for kids and a thinker for adults. It’s meaningful and beautiful and, most importantly, it’s fun to read.

Another word that comes to mind when I read People Are Weird is poignant - which is a bit strange because it’s not explicitly sad at all by any means. But Santos does such a good job at taking a magnifying glass to our collective eccentricities - in that masterful kind of way that makes one start to philosophically wonder if we are always worrying about the wrong kinds of things in life. But, trust me, it brings up all those feelings completely on the periphery. First and foremost this book is beautiful, funny, and a good time all around.

Victor D. O. Santos has been busy lately. The first book he ever shared with me was My Dad, My Rock (before it was picked up for US publishing by Scribble) which was a good fit for a dad running a blog about picture books, and which I included on a Father’s Day picture books list many years ago. His What Makes Us Human is also internationally acclaimed, and, like all of his books, published in many languages across the world. And today you are in luck, because Victor is going to tell us about some future projects with amazing artists like ISOL, Dena Seiferling, and Mara Cerri.

It’s wonderful to see all the good things happening in Victor’s career - and it’s wonderfully exciting to sit down with my friend and to let him share his thoughts with you about his career and inspirations and, of course, about People Are Weird. I think it may end up being one of the very best picture books of the entire year. I hope you’re paying attention, Dad Suggests Picture Book Awards!

Victor! Congratulations on the new book, coming out on October 21, 2025! This very morning it was selected by the International Youth Library for their prestigious 2025 White Ravens catalog. In my opinion, People are Weird is a masterpiece. It has to be my favorite book of yours yet. It’s funny and poignant at the same time. Would it be like choosing between children for you to try and pick a favorite? You don’t have to tell me which one, but do you have a favorite book you’ve written?

Thank you so much for your kind words, Ryan! I am so glad to hear you liked People Are Weird. It was such a fun book to write and co-create with Catarina Sobral.

All my picture books are quite different from one another, and they all came from a very personal place so it’s hard to pick a “favorite”. I had a wonderful time creating each one of them and collaborating with each illustrator. That said, there are two books of mine – both published in other countries but with English-language rights still available – that had a special impact on me as an author and picture book creator. Before I Forget, on the themes of memory loss and the importance of memories and family ties, is what I consider my most emotional and lyrical picture book. It was one that I wrote through many tears, and one which has brought many readers and publishers to tears as well. Then, there is my most recent picture book, FINITO, illustrated by Polish illustrator Iwona Chmielewska, nominated now in 2026 for the fifth time for the Hans Christian Andersen Award. FINITO is what I consider to be my most sophisticated and delicate picture book. The book is about the finitude of life and the importance of appreciating every moment of it. Iwona’s visual poetry is, to me, unmatched in the picture book world.

But I love each of my books just the same (smiles).

So far, I have written picture books on more emotional, touching topics, and People Are Weird is my first attempt at a more humorous book. I had so much fun working on it that I may even be working on a second funny book. (spoiler).

How long have you been writing picture books now? How and when and why did you make the decision to make this your career and passion?

I have been an avid reader for most of my life, and I was lucky to be raised by a mother who read to me every night and really valued books. I am also a linguist by profession, so I have been drawn to words and stories for as long as I can remember.

Victor D. O. Santos with his book *People Are Weird*

I started writing picture books and really studying the art of picture-booking in 2021. My first published book, My Dad, My Rock, was published in Brazil and in Poland in 2022. It was then published in the USA in 2024, the same year that my second picture book, What Makes Us Human (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers), came out.

I absolutely love writing, creating, reading, and studying picture books. It gives me pleasure and energy like very few other things in life. Picture books can be so beautifully executed and multi-layered sometimes, and the more I develop and study them, the more I fall in love. I also think picture books have an immense value for our society (especially for the younger ones but also for grown-ups), and I like to also think of the impact picture books can have on readers and their lives.

Writing picture books is not yet my full-time career, unfortunately. I have a full-time day job (those bills ain’t gonna pay themselves!) and two children – plus a very active bernedoodle – at home, so the time I have available to work on my books is quite limited. Picture books are where my heart and passion lie 100%, and I truly hope I can make a full-time career in this field one day.

Where did the idea for People are Weird come from? And how do you like to describe the book to other people?

The inspiration for People Are Weird came from various places, but I will focus on two here. I think American society has become incredibly divided (and divisive) in the past few years. There is a lot of finger-pointing, and I think many people have forgotten to look in the mirror first before pointing their finger at others. I feel like that’s something that has been happening not just in the USA, but it’s certainly felt strongly here.

I also feel that many people today (especially younger folks) are increasingly worried about looking or seeming “weird” in the eyes of others, often to the detriment of their own personalities, likes, dreams, and inclinations. As a picture book author, an immigrant, and a father to two multicultural and multilingual children, I have come to treasure differences. To me, they make the world richer, more vibrant, and far more interesting. I want my children—and all children—to feel free to follow their own paths and be true to themselves, so long as they respect the rights of others along the way. I believe individuality and diversity should not only be accepted but also celebrated.

So, People Are Weird was my attempt to create a book that would hopefully be light, funny, and fun at the same time, while also creating opportunities for kids to reflect on the concepts of “normal” vs. “weird”. Kids will also enjoy the many Easter eggs that Catarina included in her beautiful illustrations throughout the book, highlighted on the final endpapers, for a kind of Easter-egg hunt at the end.

Tell us about your process writing this book. You’ve chosen such wonderful slices of life to highlight - so I’m very curious how many “weird” observations you left out. I like to imagine you had a journal full of possibilities to include, so what was it like whittling them down and choosing what makes the cut in the end?

I would love to tell you that I had 817 wonderful alternative scenes I could have used and that I spent months narrowing down to the ones that made it to the book. And that all those scenes have been carefully recorded in a journal I will leave in my will for my children one day. However, the truth is a bit less romantic (or exciting).

The way my texts come into being is kind of weird. I sometimes go months without writing a single word for a manuscript. Instead, I let scenes, ideas, and phrases brew in my head, organically, with no rush. Then, one day, when things seem to have taken good shape in my head and make sense as a book, I decide to sit at the computer. My texts usually come about 80% ready when I put the words down. After that, it’s a matter of running my texts by a very small number of trusted beta-readers, revising where needed, working on the ending, and tying things up toward a final version the illustrator can work with. I really enjoy this fine-tuning process, where each word in the manuscript must add value. Sometimes, during the process of creating the book, illustrators are also free to make any comments they find useful about my text and suggest certain tweaks, and I am always very glad to implement what both the illustrator and I agree will lead to a better, tighter text and a better end result for the book. There were a few cases of this while working with Catarina Sobral on People Are Weird.

Most of the slices of life highlighted in the book were those that either seemed to be something kids would enjoy and have some level of familiarity with or something I had observed in the real world and that made me laugh. I am not the kind of author that keeps a record of every single stage of development of my texts and books, and I don’t remember there being too many slices of life that did not make the cut, so to speak. Maybe 3 or 4. Once I have a result that I am happy with, I tend to delete older files and notes to as not to clutter my mind or hard drive. I also focused on scenes that I thought an illustrator would have fun illustrating. One of them – the one that talks about a writer not caring about how he dresses or otherwise characters and stories would start running away from his imagination – may have been inspired by myself (wink).

Just for fun, are there any weird observations from the cutting room floor you’re willing to share?

That’s a great question! Catarina and I worked closely on this book and we also had the book’s designer – who also happens to be an illustrator – be actively involved in the brainstorming and feedback process. Catarina really liked the manuscript when she first read it, but she did not like the original ending I had written for the book. It took us months of brainstorming to come up with an ending both Catarina and I liked (the one readers will find in the book), and that “eureka” moment only happened when a lot of the book pages had already been sketched and roughly colored. Let’s just say that a lot of possible endings were proposed by all three of us along the way, including one where the main character of the book would have been an extra-terrestrial (I am glad that one did not make the final cut!).

Let’s talk a bit more about the illustrator Catarina Sobral now. This book is incredibly gorgeous. Truly wonderful. I’m quite obsessed with the boy who says he’s a magician. The art style is absolutely perfect for this book. What was it like working together? Did you discuss other possibilities together? I’m curious if you pictured anything like the end result in your head while you were originally writing the story.

I agree that Catarina’s illustrations are absolutely gorgeous! The style she used in the book has such a great combination of humor, lightness and dynamic movement, and the palette is so bright and just draws you in immediately.

We had a fantastic time working together on the book and we met in person for the first time at the Bologna Book Fair this year, in Italy. During our work on the book, we communicated often and Catarina was free to make comments about the text and I was free to make comments about the illustrations. Granted, basically everything Catarina created was wonderful from the start and I only suggested a few very minor tweaks, as well as a small number of additional Easter eggs that could be placed in different scenes. Catarina had a brilliant insight about an alternative identity for the narrator of the book halfway through the project and ran it by me. I loved her suggestion that there could be a second interpretation of who the narrator of the book could be (besides the young boy) and that alternative interpretation would only require that I make a couple of small tweaks to the text, which I gladly did. Many readers of the book in countries where it has already been published have not yet picked up on this alternative interpretation, but we left it there, like yet another Easter egg. I am sure some of the Dad Suggests blog readers here will pick up on it. (Challenge Accepted!)

I must say that although I have been a fan of Catarina’s art for a while now, I could not have imagined that the book would have come out as beautiful as it did. I would not change a single brush stroke in her art. I may be biased but I agree with you that the art style is perfect for this book.

Tell us a bit about the inside scoop of working with Milky Way Picture Books. Why do they have so many great picture books? Do they just have great taste or are they just a delight to work with? What’s the deal?

Milky Way Picture Books (MWPB) is the English-language imprint of Comme des Géants, an established publishing house based in Canada, near Montréal. MWPB was founded very recently, in 2021, but they have been quickly gaining attention in the picture book market for their gorgeous books. Their publisher, Nadine Robert, who is herself an accomplished picture book author, has deep respect for the picture book as an object and has a very keen editorial eye and visual aesthetic. Good and beautiful design is a signature of all their books. Milky Way Picture Books and Comme des Géants publish amazing creators such as Sydney Smith, Matthew Forsythe, Felicita Sala, Qin Leng, Tom Gauld, Kyo Maclear, and several others.

Nadine and I have a great relationship, and I quite enjoy working with her. She is always open to my ideas and suggestions, for which I am quite grateful, and she truly cares about the quality of each book she produces. She is also very responsive, which is one of the characteristics I value the most in publishers I work with.

Ok, so I already said I’m obsessed with the boy who says he’s a magician. What’s your favorite page or character of People are Weird?

Oh boy, here comes the “pick your favorite child” request again . . . (laughs). I really like the boy magician scene as well. It’s such a gorgeous spread and one of my very best friends is in fact a well-known magician (sorry folks, it’s not David Blaine). I also really like the scene on the subway. There is so much going on there for kids to explore and discover on that spread.

Is there a message in this book you hope kids take away with them? And what came first for you - the humor and the quirkiness, or the thoughtful, reflective poignancy about life? Is this a chicken and the egg situation?

I would like if the book could help kids understand that it’s okay to be different and that we all have our own quirks.

What originated the book was the possibility to use it as a mirror of life in a way kids could understand and enjoy, but after that initial motivation, I would say the quirkiness and humor took the front seat.

You’ve been really busy in recent years! Congrats on all the wonderful picture books you’ve released, all the national and international accolades they have received, and all the foreign editions (over 40 languages already!). I was wondering if there was anything you could share with us about beautiful future projects to look forward to!

Thank you so much, Ryan! It’s been an intense few years indeed but so much fun has been had! Right now, I have three picture books currently in development.

The first is called Things I Learned from my Dog, which is being illustrated by Canadian illustrator Dena Seiferling and will come out with Milky Way Picture Books in Spring of 2026. Working with Dena is special to me since she illustrated Eric Fan’s picture book The Night Lunch as well as Kate Hoefler’s The Couch in the Yard, and Eric and Kate are some of my favorite people in our industry. I have also been a fan of Dena’s beautiful work for a while, so it’s an honor to collaborate with her.

I am also currently working on a more humorous picture book with brilliant Argentinean illustrator ISOL, winner of the 2013 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and the author/illustrator of the wonderful picture book Loose Threads (Enchanted Lion Books, 2024). We can’t say too much about our book at the moment but ISOL and I are having a blast co-creating the book and working together. We got to hang out in person during the last Bologna Children’s Book Fair and ISOL’s sense of humor and sarcasm is just so good, and perfect for our upcoming book.

Last but not least, I am working on my first wordless picture book with Italian illustrator Mara Cerri, winner of the 2025 Premio Andersen Award for Best Illustrator. It’s a new challenge for me to develop a wordless picture book but Mara and I, along with Emma Vitoria, the book’s designer, are having fun along the process and learning a lot.

I consider myself incredibly lucky to be working with such talented illustrators and I can’t wait for readers to be able to check out our books once they are published.

Victor, ISOL (left), and Catarina Sobral (right) at the 2025 Bologna Children’s Book Fair

Outside of your own books, do you have any predictions for the Dad Suggests Picture Book Awards this year? Which books from 2025 are you penciling in at the top of your bracket?

First, let me say I love the Dad Suggests Picture Book Awards! I am always excited to see the selected books and I make it a point to try and read as many of those as possible.

This year, I must admit I have not been able to read as many picture books as I usually do or would like to. The good news is that I am a bit geeky (weird?) when it comes to picture books and I keep an Excel Sheet where I track every single picture book I read and keep my impressions of each book. Of the picture books I have read so far in 2025, the two I have enjoyed the most are The Arguers (written and illustrated by Corinna Luyken) and Clara and the Man with Books in his Window (written by Maria Teresa Andruetto and illustrated by Martina Trach). They are very different picture books from each other in terms of their mood and visual aesthetic, but both are truly wonderful. If the skills Nostradamus has trusted me with are still functioning well, I am penciling The Arguers at the top of my bracket.

Are you up for three lighting questions? Don’t think too much - just go for it.

I am game!

Name ten illustrators you would love to collaborate with one day.

From the top of my head: Sara Lundberg, Sydney Smith, Corinna Luyken, The Fan Brothers, Carson Ellis, Valerio Vidali, Beatrice Alemagna, Erin E. Stead, Kaatje Vermeire, and Akiko Miyakoshi – I know that’s technically eleven since The Fan Brothers is made up of Eric and Terry, but I am sure you will forgive my math.

Three of your favorite picture books of all time.

The Forest, written by Riccardo Bozzi and illustrated by Violeta Lopiz and Valerio Vidali

The Night Gardener, written and illustrated by The Fan Brothers

Nothing in Common, written by Kate Hoefler and illustrated by Corinna Luyken

Best opening lines in a picture book.

Easy. From the book “We go to the Park”, written by Sara Stridsberg and illustrated by Beatrice Alemagna.

Some say we come from the stars,
that we are made of stardust,
that we once swirled into the world
from nowhere.
We don’t know.
So we go to the park.

It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown or Garfield’s Halloween Adventure?

I have never watched Garfield’s Halloween Adventure, so I would have to go with It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. Or maybe even better, I will go with Mac Barnett’s and Jon Klassen’s Shape Island Halloween Special instead. I love that show (and so do my kids)!

Is there a best way for people to follow along with your career? Or how can publishers (who may be interested in licensing any of your books with English rights still available) get in contact?

My author website and my Instagram account would be best.

Website: www.authorvictorsantos.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/linguacious_llc/

For publishers interested in English-language rights to my books with English rights still available, they can contact me through the Contact form on my author website and I can then put them in touch with my rights agent, based in France.

You can preorder People Are Weird now on Bookshop.org or at your favorite indie store - including Dad Suggests Books if you live in the area for in-store pickup! I’m very happy to say we’ll have several copies autographed by Victor in the shop!