This is a big year for illustrator Nabi Ali. My book All the Way to the Top was his debut picture book. His second picture book, The Fighting Infantryman, comes out in June. I loved the way Nabi captured emotions in the illustrations for my book. I wanted to talk to him about his life as an illustrator of nonfiction. Here’s our interview.

How did you come to illustration? 

The story is, I actually began college wanting to be a lawyer, and I was an international studies major, but I realized I was spending more time drawing than doing my homework! So, I transferred to an art school and into an animation major, but I didn’t really quite enjoy animating per se; I was way more interested in designing characters and doing story art, and during my free time, I made a lot of personal pieces involving original characters and their lives. Eventually, I began to get a few freelance opportunities for illustration and visdev in animation.

What’s visdev?

It’s the pre-work that goes into animated content, such as drawing explorations of backgrounds, characters, props, etc.

Eventually I was noticed and recruited by The Bright Agency to work in kidlit! 

How do you choose the projects you’ll work on? Was there anything that particularly drew you to All the Way to the Top or The Fighting Infantryman? 

When I joined Bright, my agent asked me if I had any particular preferences for projects, and I mentioned that minority representation–especially in relation to my identities and of the people I grew up around–is a subject that’s very important to me.

When I was offered to work on All the Way to the Top, I immediately signed on because I saw such few books about disabled people as the protagonists of their own stories; as a disabled person myself, All the Way to the Top was something I could really resonate with.

That astounds me! We had searched very hard for an artist with disabilities without any success. We eventually went with you, happy because we loved your art but sad to miss out on the chance of own-voices visual representation. What a wonderful surprise that we did end up with an own-voices artist!

That’s a pretty amazing coincidence. I’m autistic, and I also have a congenital and degenerative joint syndrome. I will eventually need a walker and/or wheelchair, probably around my 30s. So I was glad to work on All the Way to the Top, with its wheelchair-using protagonist!

The Fighting Infantryman spoke to me because as a transgender man, I’m often told that my identity is something new–it’s almost treated like a modern invention–while the reality is that trans people have always existed. The story of Albert D.J. Cashier is evidence of that historical transgender presence. 

Illustrating nonfiction picture books has its own particular set of challenges. What do you like most about it? What is hardest or trickiest?

What I enjoy about illustrating nonfiction is that the story is already all laid out, and my work is to depict it in a new light rather than to construct how the world of the narrative will look from scratch. I think the trickiest thing about it, however, is that I sometimes struggle with getting people’s likenesses down. There’s a fine balance between stylization and recognizability that I have to mindful of whenever I draw the characters. 

What are you working on now? What is your dream project?

Right now I’m working on illustrating two books. One is by Kari Lavelle called We Move The World for Harper Collins, and it’s about the ways children play and grow and the interconnectedness of these things with how people can change the world.

The second one is for the Kokila imprint of Penguin Young Readers, and it’s called Laxmi’s Mooch, writtenby my dear friend Shelly Anand. It’s about a young Indian American girl who is embarrassed by her fuzziness–especially by her mustache–and the story follows how she comes to accept herself for who she is. 

My dream project (something I’ve juuuust started working on) is to write and illustrate my own book. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say what it’s about, other than that it revolves around a small Muslim community in the U.S. I also want to eventually be a character designer for animation.

You can see more of Nabi’s art here and here.

All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything by Annette Bay Pimentel, illustrated by Nabi Ali (Sourcebooks: 2020).

The Fighting Infantryman: The Story of Albert D. J. Cashier, Transgender Civil War Soldier by Rob Sanders, illustrated by Nabi Ali (little bee: 2020).