Creator Corner: Author Heather Camlot and Illustrator Ally Jaye Reeves
Welcome to Creator Corner, a blog series where we interview the creators of our recent and upcoming books. For this post, we interviewed Have a Bite! author Heather Camlot and illustrator Ally Jaye Reeves, whose book is publishing November 3, 2026!
Owlkids Books: Heather, what’s your favorite thing about writing children’s books?
Heather Camlot: My favorite thing is researching a topic and finding some super-cool fact or moment that I’ve never heard before and hopefully readers have never heard before either. It’s like deep-sea diving and finding a sunken treasure chest full of gold. (Note, I have never gone deep-sea diving!)
Owlkids Books: Ally, what’s your favorite thing about illustrating children’s books?
Ally Jaye Reeves: First and foremost, I love getting sucked into a great story. Even in non-fiction I can see the story come to life in my head before I even start drawing. Then all I have to do is find a way to get the picture from head on to the page. That means a lot of play and experimentation, and I think that’s my favorite part. Getting to sit down with a sketchbook and some pencil crayons and really just letting myself play and explore is such a gift. We don’t get a lot of opportunities to make messes and scribble very often, so getting to do that as my job is pretty amazing.
OKB: Heather, what inspired you to write this book?
HC: Owlkids’ former director of sales and marketing, Judy Brunsek! I had posted on social media some gross photos of moldy foods discovered in my house. Judy saw the photos and told me she thought they would make for an interesting science book.
OKB: Ally, what was the inspiration for your illustrations in this book?
AJR: Heather had written such fun and engaging material, that I really just wanted to bring to life. I was also thinking a lot about vintage cookbooks and how they used to have spreads with huge piles of food. I really wanted every page of food to look like it was about to overflow out of the page. The only real goal was to make the food look as yummy as possible.
OKB: Heather, what was the most enjoyable part of bringing this story to life? What was the most challenging part of the process?
HC: Seeing Ally Jaye Reeve’s illustrations for Have a Bite! for the first time was a special moment. They blew me away with their thoughtfulness, humor, and total adorableness. Finding the right format and content was a lengthy and challenging process. The manuscript went through many, many changes before it came to be what you see before you today. That said, I think it reads and looks great!
OKB: Ally, what was the most enjoyable part of illustrating this book? What was the most challenging part?
AJR: Before I started working on Have a Bite!, I can confidently say that I had never really drawn food before. A few vegetables here and there, maybe an apple, but tikka masala? Nope. Jars of kimchi and stinky cheese? Nope. I thought I knew what food looked like, but it turns out I was really just drawing what I knew. So for Have a Bite!, I had to take a lot of time to pull reference photos to make sure the food looked recognizable but still fun and colorful. It was trickier than I thought! And the most enjoyable part? Drawing all the stinky cows!
OKB: What do you hope readers will take away from this book?
HC: When I read the review of Have a Bite! by Kirkus Reviews, I thought to myself, they got it. The writer said the book was “A plea to recognize that for all our differences of culture and belief, in at least one way we are all the same.” That’s exactly it! Let’s stop fighting over what divides us and celebrate what we have in common. And let’s do it while sharing a meal.
AJR: I know that when I was working on these illustrations, I kept getting sucked into the great food history that Heather has included. In particular, the fusion cuisine spread was so fun to learn about (and really made me want a Hawaiian pizza). I hope most of all that readers learn to love and appreciate food in a new way. I hope they leave inspired to try a new food, or to learn a new recipe, or to just sit down and have a meal with their family.
Thank you so much Heather and Ally for taking the time to do this interview and creating a wonderful book! We hope readers enjoy Have a Bite! as much as we did!
Pre-order your copy today!
