The main character in A Year Without Mom evolved from thesis to book. In the final book she’s got blond curly hair, like the real Dasha. “I thought maybe she should have curly hair even though I hate [drawing] it. I feel like she’s pretty severe in the [first] version. I had all of these conversations with different art directors about doing picture books and them wanting things to be cuter. I was trying to figure out how to make things cuter but still retain my own way of doing them. When I sent the first sketches of the revised character to Groundwood they were like, ‘Yeah, this is great. We really love her, but she’s maybe too cute. We want to go back to the [original character].’ It ended up being sort of a medium between the two.”