A Charlesbridge editor e-mailed yesterday asking me for photos and whatnot that might aid the illustrator for The Day-Glo Brothers. So, last night I sorted through all my research materials and came up with an inch-thick bundle of goodies that I’ll be putting in the mail today.

In addition to the Switzer family snapshots, a Saturday Evening Post article, a 1947 patent, a photo of the H.J. Heinz plant in Berkeley (trust me: there’s a connection), etc., I’m including Bob Switzer’s detailed descriptions of some of the more spectacular uses of the brothers’ early (pre-Day-Glo) fluorescent materials.

Those descriptions delight me. From the earliest days of this project, it was those scenes — at a department store, the Warfield Theater, a nightclub, and around a spiritualist’s table — that told me that the Switzers’ tale begged to be illustrated.

In the initial drafts of the manuscript, I included a lot from those descriptions, and I was a little surprised last night to reread the final version and see just how far I’d pared them back. But that was to make room for the illustrator’s take on those events. I can’t wait to see what someone with a much stronger visual sense than mine can make out of them.