Where The Water Takes Us by Alan Barillaro Press Release

Debut author Alan Barillaro delivers a stirring story about a sensitive, shaken young girl who
must face that growing up means coming to terms with the things you cannot change—and
taking responsibility for the things you can.
WHERE THE WATER TAKES US

ALAN BARILLARO
Ava’s mom is about to have twins, and the pregnancy isn’t

going well. All Ava wants to do is stay by her mother’s side,
but instead she is sent away to stay with her grandparents.
Normally, spending time at the lakeside cabin with Nonna and
Nonno is wonderful, but everything is different now. While
her mom’s hospital visits are getting serious back home, Ava
grapples with anxiety. Summer storms rock the island, the
electricity goes out at the cabin, and an annoyingly cheerful boy
named Cody seems to pop up everywhere she goes, but Ava
can’t be distracted from the feeling that something terrible,
something irrevocable, is going to happen to her mom.
When a bird dies in front of her, Ava is sure it’s a sign that she
is cursed—the last thing she, or her family, needs. But if a curse
has been placed on her, there must be a way to break it. So Ava
makes a deal: if she can take care of two orphaned bird eggs, she
will have paid off her debt and her family will be all right.
With everyone she loves on the line, Ava will do everything in

her power to make sure that her mom, her twin baby brothers,
her birds, and even Cody all come through the summer safely.
Alan Barillaro is the Academy Award–winning writer

and director of the animated short film Piper and has been
On sale July 4, 2023
supervising animator on many other popular theatrical releases,
HC: 978-1-5362-2454-2
including The Incredibles, Incredibles 2, WALL-E, and Brave. He
$18.99 ($24.99 CAN)
Ages 8–12 • 208 pages
began his career in animation at the age of sixteen and spent
more than twenty-five years at Pixar Animation Studios. Alan
Barillaro lives in Canada.
Illustration copyright © 2023 by Alan Barillaro

Q & A with ALAN BARILLARO
Where the Water Takes Us is your publishing debut. Can you talk about what it’s
like to introduce new storytelling work in a different artistic medium for the very
first time? How does this experience differ from premiering a film, for example?
It’s freeing! I’d even go as far as to say necessary for me as an artist, especially when the shift
in medium has a positive impact on the story, which I believe is completely the case for Where the Water Takes Us. That’s always
the journey for me, trying to solve what path will allow me to create the best version of the story. It’s story first in my head, and
the rest of the time is honestly me just trying to dig myself out of the trouble I’ve gotten myself into.
As far as the differences in premiering the work, I’d say that film is much more a communal art form, as it’s often made with
hundreds of artists. When the lights go down at a film premiere, I find myself holding my breath, waiting for the audience’s
response. But it’s also everyone’s work up on the screen, so you can find support in that. Writing a novel completely exposes
you, which I’m not fully used to. There’s a vulnerability that seems necessary to writing—at least in my experience. My closest
comparison to this is as an animator/actor. You have to find a certain amount of vulnerability to play the moment honestly
and pull off a great performance, so I’ve tried to just accept that as a part of my writing process in hopes that it translates to
something that resonates with young readers.
The book deals with a specific but universal time in childhood when kids become increasingly more aware of the
worries and concerns of the adult world but aren’t quite ready emotionally to deal with the impact or have the
agency to change the outcome. How did you decide to play that conflict out so believably for Ava, and do you think
it’s a feeling young readers will really relate to as the story progresses?
The novels I loved growing up never trivialized a young person’s anxieties or avoided certain truths about life, so I lean in that
direction. Even if I wrote a fantastical story, I’d want to play out the underlying internal conflict with as much believability as
possible. That applies to everything in my work, whether I’m animating a clownfish who’s lost his son in Finding Nemo or I’m
writing a tender scene between Ava and Cody in Where the Water Takes Us—I want the audience/reader to care deeply for that
character.
Also, I have three young readers of my own, and they’re smart! I’ve seen them abandon a story if they sense a certain falseness
to the telling of it. I tried my best to be sensitive to that for this novel.
Two of the greatest strengths of the novel (there are many!) are the gorgeous imagery throughout and the sense of
place you create with your language. How does your experience as an animator inform your writing? Do you start
with an image?
I’ve been lucky over the last twenty-five years to be a more dramatic actor as far as the type of animated films I’ve been part of.
One of the things I’ve learned through that experience is that the real drama in a story is never the actual line but what’s behind
that line. It’s all in the subtext of the writing that’s beyond the surface of things. That certainly informs my approach as an
author, along with many other story lessons learned during my time at Pixar. Overall, I try not to ever fall in love with my own
text or illustrations. To me, that means you have to be willing to throw it all away for the sake of telling the best story. I try to
stay focused on that.
Also, I can’t ignore that each page of this novel is actually animated! The flip-book animation is composed of hand-painted
watercolors and is meant to echo what Ava and Cody go through together throughout the story. I’m excited for young readers
to stumble upon that. To me, that animation serves a specific story purpose. I hope it brings the story to life in the reader’s
imagination without getting in the way of how they might be imagining the world and the characters. It was always upsetting to
me as a young reader when I’d read a wonderful description of a character but feel the image told a different story altogether or
simply repeated the same information, or, worst of all, ruined my impression of something. I’ve always been inspired by E. H.
Illustration copyright © 2023 by Alan Barillaro

Shepard, illustrator of Winnie-the-Pooh, on how to handle illustrations and text. He always helped tell the story and knew just
what information to include and, more importantly, what not to include so that space was left for the reader’s imagination.
As far as starting with an image, I consciously avoided drawing in the earliest stages of this book, because truthfully, I just
couldn’t see how drawing the characters (for instance) was going to be helpful, and I didn’t want to repeat something the text
was already communicating. However, once the themes started to emerge, I started drawing and painting what I felt might
represent the tone and themes I was searching to express. It was the feeling of Ava being pulled away by a current (which is
really her anxieties) that I needed to express somehow and that led me down a specific path, artistically. I wanted the reader to
get pulled into the story as well, and this idea of a continuous line started to form in an attempt to represent that.
This is just the first of many writing projects in your creative pipeline. What is your biggest hope to achieve with
your storytelling for young people growing up today, in whatever form it takes for you?
There’s always a lot an artist can say about what they hope to achieve or try to communicate with their work! We’re
unfortunately at a very divisive time in our society. Young minds are attuned to that, whether we like it or not. My reaction is
to put forth stories where characters work hard to find how they connect with others in this world rather than selfishly conquer
that world. Nature, in my view, is a key to having a deeper understanding of ourselves as well as those around us. It teaches us
we are not so important as we might think and are not the center of the universe. Ultimately, it’s these connections that are
most interesting to me. Our connection with nature is our connection with one another. To me, they’re one and the same.
So a small preview of what’s to come from me is to say I will continue to explore these themes as best I can, but the way I achieve
that will be completely different from one book to the next. I hope that’s really exciting for young readers. They’ll never quite
know what form my next novel will take, but I hope they’re willing to give it a chance.
Illustrations copyright © 2023 by Alan Barillaro

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Debut author Alan Barillaro delivers a stirring story about a sensitive, shaken young girl who

WHERE THE WATER TAKES US

Ava’s mom is about to have twins, and the pregnancy isn’t

With everyone she loves on the line, Ava will do everything in

Alan Barillaro is the Academy Award–winning writer

Illustration copyright © 2023 by Alan Barillaro

Illustration copyright © 2023 by Alan Barillaro

Illustrations copyright © 2023 by Alan Barillaro

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