Illustrator Andrea Campos stopped by The Tonight Show to talk about the children’s book she worked on with Jimmy Fallon and Jennifer Lopez.
Campos contributed the artwork for Con Pollo: A Bilingual Playtime Adventure, which publisher Feiwel & Friends describes as an “adorable and hilarious bilingual picture book [that] serves as an engaging introduction to Spanish vocabulary with the help of a plucky chicken named Pollo.”
Fallon asked Campos about a career change she made more than two years ago.
“Back in 2020, I was in a marketing job, really questioning what was next,” she said. “I decided that I knew I wanted to be doing something more creative, and had my heart set on being a full-time photographer. So I mustered up my courage to quit my job and leave that stability behind.”
Two months after she left her job, the Covid-19 pandemic hit the U.S.
“I became unemployed overnight, was really stressed and overwhelmed,” Campos said. “I think we all kind of coped in different ways in those early pandemic days. I just drew. I drew and I drew and I drew. It brought me so much peace and comfort.”
She began posting her drawings online, and eventually publisher Macmillan asked her to illustrate a picture book. The email she received came as a shock to her.
“They very calmly were like, ‘This picture book is about a bilingual pollo,’” she recalled. “I’m like, ‘Oh, that sounds really cool.’ [They said,] ‘Oh, by the way, the book is written by Jimmy Fallon and Jennifer Lopez.”
Her reaction: an astounded “¿Qué?”
Con Pollo was published Tuesday by Feiwel & Friends.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
