Go Bananas!

Project Overview

Go Bananas! by Emily Cole follows Hannah, a confident and fun-loving girl whose sense of self begins to fray under the weight of her classmates’ teasing about being born without her left hand. As her confidence diminishes, an unforgettable trip to a Savannah Bananas baseball game becomes the turning point — surrounded by energy, colour, and characters who celebrate what makes people different, Hannah remembers who she is. Emily Cole writes with genuine heart, never using Hannah’s limb difference as a lesson for other characters to learn but as Hannah’s own story of rediscovering her strength.

The illustration challenge was making Hannah’s limb difference visible and natural from the very first page — not highlighted, not hidden, simply present, so that her wholeness as a character was established before any of the story’s conflict began.

Role

The illustration challenge was making Hannah’s limb difference visible and natural from the very first page, not highlighted, not hidden, simply present, so that her wholeness as a character was established before any of the story’s conflict began. Carrying that same steady, matter-of-fact confidence through the ballpark’s noise and color meant Hannah’s difference never became the story’s lesson, only one true fact among many about who she is.

Full illustration across the book covered character design for Hannah and the Savannah Bananas ballpark cast, natural and confident representation of limb difference throughout, baseball park atmosphere and crowd energy illustration, and print-ready file preparation for Mascot Books.

Process

Every project follows this same structured path, so you always know where we are and what comes next. You review and approve at the sketch stage and the line art stage — nothing moves to color until you’re happy. By the time the final spread is rendered, there are no surprises.