BLOGS > DECEMBER 17, 2025
BY FOLLETT CONTENT
Award-winning author Amy Timberlake and illustrator Jon Klassen team up to bring you the latest in the Skunk and Badger trilogy. Rock Paper Incisors follows odd-couple roommates Skunk and Badger as they explore the complexity of friendship and the meaning of family. With cozy, full-color illustrations guiding you through a delightfully off-kilter adventure, this is a story of two unlikely friends you won’t want to miss!
AT: The joy, the play! I grin. I laugh. It’s never boring. There’s always geology (“Important Rock Work!”) to learn. In this third book, Badger is writing an article for Rock Hound Weekly on the Snowball Earth Ice Age. Writing is a hard process for him, which gave me a chance to describe the emotional journey one might go on when one tries to write well. Ha! And then, as happens when Skunk is your roommate, two new characters show up and move in! I loved writing these characters. The title, “Rock Paper Incisors” came directly from their dialogue. Yay!
JK: The first drawing I ever did for Skunk and Badger, the first book, was Badger at his desk doing “Important Rock Work.” I related a lot to Badger’s problem: that he always just wanted to get back to his desk, doing work maybe only he considered “important.” It’s a struggle of mine as well. For this book, more than a few years later, Badger was sitting at his desk again, getting to work – and it felt good to be sitting down with him again, also getting to work.
AT: Huh…the best friend part makes sense, but animal best friends? Yes, why do some of us enjoy stories about animals in sweaters? Does it have something to do with that old wish of wanting to talk to animals? Discuss amongst yourselves. In the meantime, count me as a fan!
JK: SNOW! Snow. I have always loved drawing snow, mainly because, at least the way I do it, you don’t draw snow at all. You draw things IN snow, and it makes snow appear around it.
AT: Tromp in the snow! Wear long underwear, big boots, and woolly knitwear. (Try not to snag knitwear with claws.) Once you are happily exhausted by your epic snow adventure, throw open the brownstone’s front door, dump all outerwear in a pile, and make “breakfast for dinner.” Eat in pajamas, and after, curl up in a blanket and read a good book. Skunk would call that a perfect day.
JK: I really love drawing both main characters! They go well together. Maybe I enjoy Badger a little more because he’s usually wearing a cardigan and it’s fun to draw his fur against the lines of the cardigan. But Skunk’s tail is always fun to add at the end. Just a big striped loaf back there.
AT: Uncanny – as if he’d been rummaging in my brain. Jon Klassen is an exceptional illustrator. I’m in awe.
Rock Paper Incisors (Skunk and Badger, Book 3)
Egg Marks the Spot (Skunk and Badger, Book 2)
Skunk and Badger (Skunk and Badger, Book 1)
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