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Writer, illustrator debut series showing kids funny side of church

Submitted Jared Lee of Lebanon is an illustrator for "Tales from the Back Pew," a series of picture books that offer a child's unique view of church.

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Staff Writer 5:35 PM Thursday, July 2, 2009

LEBANON — He’s worked for L.L. Bean, Procter and Gamble, Hasbro, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, McDonald’s and the U.S. Postal Service.

But Lebanon resident Jared Lee is best known as the imaginative illustrator of Scholastic’s popular “Black Lagoon” series; the books have sold more than 12 million copies during the past 20 years.

For that series and dozens of other books, Lee has teamed up for more than 30 years with author Mike Thaler — the two have been dubbed “The Court Jesters of Children’s Literature.”

Now they’re lending their talents to a new series of picture books, “Tales from the Back Pew” (Zonderkidz, $4.99). The books are designed “to spread the love of Jesus to children everywhere” and to give children a silly view of church.

The idea is to introduce children to religious traditions and experiences, help them deflate anxious situations and get them laughing.

In one of the books, for example, various church traditions are viewed from a children’s point of view — from constant standing up and sitting down to the sermon and offering.

“The idea was to have something like ‘Black Lagoon’ but based on the church,” explains Lee, whose colorful and jam-packed pictures can’t help but bring a smile.

Eventually, he says, there will be 10 books in the new series. Four have already been published including “Preacher Creature Strikes on Sunday, “ “Easter Egg Haunt,” “Church Summer Cramp,” and “Mission Trip Impossible.”

“The next one out is ‘Walking the Plank to the Baptism Tank’ and it’s about a kid who has never been baptized and is apprehensive,” Lee says.

“His imagination runs wild — how large and how deep is the tank, what if there are sharks and octopuses there? But in the end he feels like a new person.”

When campers get lost in “Church Summer Cramp,” God turns out to have “the best G.P.S. there is — God’s Protecting Son.”

Though Thaler lives in Portland, Lee says they talk three or four times a week and see one another at least once a year.

“A publisher in New York paired us up 30 years ago for a book called ‘The Hippopotamus Ate the Teacher’ and it sold one million copies,” Lee says. “We’ve been working together ever since.”

The two are currently working on “Vacation Bible Snooze,” a story about a child who wonders why anyone would want to go to a vacation Bible school in the summer.

“He thinks the worst but ends up going and having a great time,” Lee says.

He’s been a Christian for years and says the concepts are all familiar. It also helps, he adds, that he’s a child at heart.

“You almost have to be.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2440 or MMoss@Dayton DailyNews.com.

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