No More Gnomes: An Interview with Author and Illustrator Beth Mills

In Beth Mills’ hilarious new picture book, No More Gnomes, Herbert’s legendary manners are pushed to the brink when Ms. Goat (yes, a goat) starts filling the yard—and Herbert’s life—with an ever-growing army of rude, gnome-sized nightmares. It’s a story of politeness under pressure, lawn ornament invasion, and one boy’s noble quest to say no nicely.

Today author-illustrator Beth Mills joins us to talk about the inspiration behind the book, how she named the garden gnomes, and what illustrations she loves the most. Let’s dig in.

Where on earth did you come up with the idea for a book about an excessively polite bulldog being tormented by garden gnomes?

Is it weird that I’m not entirely sure? At best, I can identify a few of the ingredients that eventually resulted in No More Gnomes. 

• I wrote an entirely different story where a very particular gardener was struggling to eradicate an errant weed from his otherwise perfect garden. It wasn’t a very good story.
• I lived near a house that doubled as a hairdressing studio and the owner of that house chose to advertise their business by setting up wigged mannequin heads on their porch railing. The owner added new heads occasionally but didn’t take any away.  So, picture walking your dog in the lovely suburban twilight, only to come 10-15 mannequin heads in various states of disrepair, flaky painted eyes staring you down. It left an impression.
• My grandmother was a stickler for manners and would award a prize to the grandkid who had the best table manners whenever we were all at her house. Competition was fierce.
• This same grandmother would sometimes give you clothing that you needed to be more polite than honest about.
• I find garden gnomes inherently funny/creepy.

So combine these things and who knows what other stuff floating around in my brain, add some excellent advice from my agents and editors, and voila!

What scene in the book was the most fun to draw? And which one was the hardest?

I had a lot of fun drawing the entire book! But if I must pick favorites, it’s a toss-up between the scene where Herbert is playing with his cars in the garden with Mr. Tiddlywinks looming ominously in the background and the ending scene with all the portraits.  The hardest scene to illustrate was the gnome school. It was a challenge to cram in Ms. Goat, Herbert, all twelve of the gnomes, and as many “learning stations” as possible and have the illustration look nice (plus leave enough room for text).

Was there anything you wanted to include in the book that you ultimately weren’t able to fit in?

By the time I had finalized the manuscript and co-opted all the available space in the book for illustrations, I felt like I’d included everything I wanted. But, an early draft of the book had Herbert actually smashing the gnomes—it was 100% the right call to take that out, but a small part of me still wishes I could have drawn an absolutely feral Herbert in the middle of ceramic destruction.

How did you come up with all of those hilarious gnome names? 

I had a lot of fun naming the gnomes! A couple of the gnomes’ names come from words or terms I enjoy the sound of, some are loosely based on the names of family or friends, a couple were “placeholder” names that just sort of stuck (I bet you can guess those two), one’s a call back to my first book, Ella McKeen, Kickball Queen, and one is from Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.”

Which of the gnomes do you most relate to?

I feel a strange kinship with Blinks.

Praise for No More Gnomes

“A clever twist reveals a humorous solution for Herbert’s problem and helps him resolve his struggle between politeness and honesty. Digital illustrations cleverly demonstrate Herbert’s growing anxiety while keeping the tone light enough for young readers.”—Booklist

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