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Behind the Book

THE BOSS BABY by Marla Frazee
Behind the Book piece

I haven’t had a lot of firsthand experience with bosses. But I’ve sure heard plenty of people complain about bosses. During one of those conversations I doodled a picture of a shouting baby and captioned it “Boss Baby.” This drawing was taped on my studio wall for years, and occasionally I’d look at it and wonder if there was something there. One evening in 2008, I started to write what eventually became The Boss Baby. In the first drafts, relatives were brought in as part-time employees, and the baby fired the family dog. The whole premise cracked me up, and when I showed it to my editor, Allyn Johnston of Beach Lane Books, it seemed to crack her up too. So great! It was a go. The trouble began when I started drawing. I did a series of sketch dummies, and with each one, the book was becoming less and less funny. A serious problem. Allyn and I were confused. I reworked the story and got rid of the supporting cast. But it still wasn’t as funny as it should’ve been. It’s very common to do revisions, but it’s not so common to see an idea that was just about there fall apart. In my experience, this usually happens early on. Not several months into it. Meanwhile, my youngest son, James, got a kitten for Christmas—a first for our family. This kitten was cute, but when he started pooping on our beds, in the fireplace, and under the Christmas tree, we were all pretty stressed out. James felt terrible about this. I assured him that yes, the cat was a little monster (I may have called the cat a worse name), but soon we would all love him. It was then that I realized that this was the exact feeling at the heart of The Boss Baby: A little creature can take over your life and make you feel as though you’re no longer in control. Around that same time I had dinner with a TV comedy writer who made the comment, when I talked about my frustration with The Boss Baby not coming together, that “comedy is commitment.” It clicked into place for me that I still believed in the premise of this book, even though Allyn might have secretly reached a point where she would’ve been happy if I bagged it. So I got back to work. I gave the story more of an edge—inspired by James and his cat—and when I finally showed the new dummy to Allyn, she was excited about it too. Babies seem to be a recurrent theme in my work, but I don’t think about the books being for babies as much as about babies. I aim my books at picture-book readers—the most discerning audience when it comes to really seeing the pictures. In the case of The Boss Baby, kids know when they are being bossed around by someone, whether that someone is older than they are, younger, or even a cat.