Corinna Luyken’s picture books are a wellspring of wisdom on wide-ranging topics—mistakes, loneliness, teasing, loss—but at their heart, they all stem from a shared desire: to make young readers feel a little less alone. “I think there’s this sweet spot where love and kindness overlaps with awkwardness and uncertainty and discomfort,” she tells me as we sit on a fuzzy rug on the floor of her home studio in Olympia, Washington. This overlap, she explains, is where she feels the most connected to her readers, the most honest. “There’s something about that territory that feels so rich and fertile and interesting and exciting to me. That’s the space I enjoy.”