Bernie and the Day the Icebergs Melted

In a small seaside Arctic village of Tuskertown, Bernie, Bernice and their family of young walruses live in harmony with each other, their friends and the environment. That is, until a shocking series of events catapults them into learning that faraway habits are destroying their way of life! Bernie and his friends must deal with the very personal effects of a warming planet. All their efforts to communicate the peril fail until a chance encounter between animals and humans in a poor Indonesian village brings worldwide attention to the crisis.

Bernie and the Day the Icebergs Melted is author Jean Pouliot’s first published book. “Bernie” has been in the works for many years, first in verse form, and then in a more accessible prose format. Jean created his own illustrations out of necessity — he couldn’t find an illustrator willing to take on the project! Using Microsoft PowerPoint, familiar to him from his work in an insurance office, he conjured up the colorful and delightful looks of Tuskertown, Marunda Beach and Washington DC.

Bernie and the Day the Icebergs Melted will be available for Christmas 2018 in bookstores in Newburyport, Massachusetts as well as on Amazon. Buy your copy today and start on an exciting adventure!

How did the book get its start?

The idea for Bernie came several years ago when I decided to write a book. A college friend, Chris Dutch, whom I hoped would one day illustrate the book, had been fond of doodling walruses in his school days. I thought that a book about a walrus might interest him in the project. Alas, though Chris was encouraging, he wasn’t able to help out. Left with the character of a walrus, I had to fill in the rest of the story and the characters. First came a seagull (Bomber) who pooped on everything in sight. Next came a milieu (the Arctic) and the problem (global warming). I started the story in verse, which seemed a little less daunting than a straight-out prose story. Years later, when it was done, I piloted it on some cousins who had kids in what I thought was the right age range. But the parents unanimously agreed that a verse story would be beyond their kids’ abilities. And that’s how the prose version of Bernie was born.

How did you end up illustrating the book yourself?

Though I had sketched the tiniest bit in my earlier years, I never thought of myself as an illustrator. After some months trying to interest a publisher in my book, my wife Carol encouraged me to illustrate it myself. I was very reluctant, but I tried a few ideas — one being to create collages of sketches found on the internet and adding a splash of color here and there. But many internet images required a license and payment. Given the number of images I wanted to add to the book, it seemed that I would spend hundreds of dollars or more just illustrating the book! So I tried my hand at the mountains that ring Tuskertown. Mountains are just triangles, right? I was pleased with the result:

An aurora:

And a glacier:

After that, I was off and running, creating slide after slide of illustrations for the book, learning PowerPoint’s drawing features as I went.

Choosing to self-publish

Frankly, self-publishing was not my goal. I want to be published by a recognized publishing house. But after trying for some months to interest publishers in my ideas, I figured that self-publishing would a) get my work out to the public sooner and b) show a publisher a finished product, not just a set of hopeful ideas. Besides, at age 62, I didn’t want to wait years and years hoping that a publisher would like my books and my style. So I dove in and self-published via Amazon’s amazing publishing capabilities. Where this goes from here is anyone’s guess!

How can I order a copy?

The books is available on Kindle and in print using this link.