This is The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors, my first published book.

Illustrated by Tony Persiani and published by the good people at Charlesbridge, The Day-Glo Brothers received a Sibert Honor, which I tell kids is sort of a nonfiction cousin to the better-known Newbery and Caldecott awards.

This book came out in 2009, has been in print ever since, and will at long last have a paperback edition about a year from now.

The Day-Glo Brothers is also the book that I’m giving away this month to subscribers to my monthly Bartography Express newsletter (folks can sign up here).

And this…

…is not.

It’s an AI-generated version of the cover that doesn’t even get the title right. Do you see that? (The image is blurry because the original was pretty tiny.) It’s “The The Day-Glo Brothers.”

I sure didn’t create it. In fact, I’ve made a point of not using generative AI, period. So where did this thing come from?

Last school year, some of the educators hosting me for an event created some promotional materials, and this was in the initial draft that they shared with me. My booking agent and I raised our concerns, and my hosts changed the materials, replacing that image with the book cover shown at the top of this post.

All was well, and the event itself was thoroughly enjoyable.

But still, for months I wondered what had happened. How did… that… happen? So, having zero experience with generative AI and not wanting to just make assumptions, I asked.

And to their great credit, my hosts explained the time-saving intention, the mistakes made, the lessons learned. The short version is that the user of the AI tool did not provide specific-enough prompts when generating those materials.

(Which sure beats the explanation that a friend received when something similar happened to them — including a way-off, AI-generated recreation of their author photo — at a school visit last year. In that case, my friend said, their host just blamed the assistant principal.)

Anyway, my booking agent and I have now added new language to our agreements with schools and libraries who host me for author visits:

Please do not use generative AI in place of the author photos (taken by a terrific human!) or book covers (designed by other terrific humans!) available for your use on Chris’ website. If you do choose to use AI in developing promotional materials, please be sure to specify to the AI tool that you want to use those existing images that Chris has provided.

But back to The Day-Glo Brothers (the actual book, and not “The The Day-Glo Brothers”).

If you’d like to be one of the winners of this book created entirely by human beings, by the end of this month either say so in the comments below or contact me directly, and you’ll be in the running. (Human subscribers with U.S. mailing addresses only.)

Good luck!

And remember that it’s fun to make stuff yourself. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Mine never is. But it’s still a satisfying use of my time.