Ryan Maloney dreamed of a high-tech canister delivering a scrap of paper with the name "Pancake, Pennsylvania" on it. He Googled the obscure town, confirmed no book had the title, and the alliterative opening line "at the peak of the Poconos, there was a peculiar place called Pancake, Pennsylvania" arrived fully formed in his head.
Chapters
This is a picture book I wrote and illustrated in 2016. Started off as an idea that somebody would climb a mile-high stack of pancakes, or maybe like a pancake eating competition. I couldn't figure out what to do with the story, so I sort of scrapped it. But then I had this dream, like a woo-woo dream. I was in outer space. I could see like the stars, could not see my body, could not see anything. And then this big tube came down out of the dark sky, like one of those bank tubes where you used to deposit checks. And this little canister popped out of the tube, and the canister was very high-tech, so I figured there'd be be something high-tech inside of it, but it was an old piece of paper, and I uncrumpled it, and I read it, and it said Pancake, Pennsylvania. I know this sounds crazy, and I thought, that's the name of the book. So I Googled it. I thought for sure there was another book called Pancake, Pennsylvania. Couldn't find one. And also, the town of Pancake, Pennsylvania was pretty obscure. Not many people were talking about it online. Then I heard this line in my head: at the peak of the Poconos, there was a peculiar place called Pancake, Pennsylvania. Just like a song popped into my head. Then I combined all the P words I could think of.