Piper's Notebook
Small Life Stories · A photographic novel
Piper’s
Notebook

A girl who writes down everything she notices, so she’ll know it was there.

In progress · Coming soon

A catalog
of small things

After her father dies, Piper starts a notebook. She doesn’t know what else to do with the feeling of things disappearing, so she writes them down — the names of butterflies, the quality of afternoon light through the fence, the exact way her neighbor hangs laundry on Tuesdays.

Piper’s Notebook is a photographic novel set in a backyard at 1/4 scale. It’s a story about grief and observation, about the way paying attention to small things can be a way of holding on. The story is currently being made — follow along to read each chapter as it’s photographed and released.

Who’s in the story

Piper
Piper
Our narrator

Ten years old, beetle t-shirt, always slightly distracted by something no one else has noticed yet. She keeps a notebook. She writes everything down.

Winnie
Winnie
The neighbor

Younger than Piper, quieter than she looks, with a great deal of curly hair and a tendency to appear in doorways. She and Piper haven’t properly met yet.

Theo
Theo
Winnie’s brother

He and Piper go to the same school — different grades, so they recognize each other without quite knowing each other. He has the look of someone who is often thinking about something else.

A backyard at
1/4 scale

The backyard set

The backyard set — Piper’s world at 1/4 scale

Piper at her field guide

Piper with her field guide and butterfly jar

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