In a world where children's programming is continually evolving, Eva the Owlet on Apple TV+ stands out as a heartwarming and whimsical series that has captured the imaginations of young viewers and their families alike. The show, based on the beloved Scholastic book series, Owl Diaries, authored by Rebecca Elliott, follows Eva, a curious and adventurous little owl, as she embarks on various learning experiences and discovers the joys of friendship, empathy, and problem-solving. The series premiered on March 31, 2023.
The voice cast includes Vivienne Rutherford as Eva, Jessica DiCicco as Eva’s mom, Dino Andrade as Eva’s dad, Romy Fay as Kiera, Sascha Yurchak as Humphrey, Jon Olson as Baxter, and Evie Hsu as Lucy. Eva the Owlet is executive produced by Scholastic Entertainment. Leading the creative charge behind this enchanting project is Jef Kaminsky, the Executive Producer of Eva the Owlet, whose vision and dedication have helped bring this delightful world to life.
In this interview with The Parent Watch, Kaminsky opens up about why Eva the Owlet is so important in fostering creativity for children and families. He also shares insights into imparting valuable lessons to a TV audience from an adapted story. Whether you're a parent, educator, or simply a fan of innovative storytelling, this conversation with Kaminsky offers a fascinating look at the making of one of Apple TV+’s latest renewals. So, what are you waiting for? Let's dive into our conversation with Jef!
The Parent Watch: Very excited about Eva being turned into a series! What drew you to bringing this world to life?
JK: That’s a great question. Thank you! I appreciate your excitement about Eva. I work at Scholastic, which is primarily a book company, and we’re part of the entertainment group. We read a lot of books here, and when we first started reading Eva the Owlet, we immediately fell in love with her. The world is rich and lovely, full of textures and patterns. I think it’s perfect for young girls, though really, it’s ideal for everyone. It’s just such an adorable book to spend time in.
Eva is such a little champion of excitement and trying new things, which makes it a great fit for TV. It’s nice to have characters who want to show kids how to engage with the world. Apple TV+ helped us refine the curriculum for the show, which centers around journaling—an approach inspired by Dr. John F. Evans' work. That’s something I’m really excited about because I’m always looking for ways that kids can take something meaningful away from what we create.
The show now focuses on regulating emotions, identifying feelings, and finding strategies to navigate them—using a journal, which Dr. Evans advocates for as a way to process how you’re feeling and then re-engage with the world.
I found this to be so unique and touching upon what the late Dr. Evans did. Any unique insights, specifically in his work, that you felt were really important when it comes to the emotional resilience and self-expression aspects of the show?
JK: I hadn’t really thought about it, but when Dr. Alice Wilder—an amazing human being who works at Apple TV+—first introduced this idea, and I started looking into Dr. Evans' work, I became really interested in how he helps adults, teenagers, and people who’ve been through trauma heal from past experiences using the power of journaling. I tried it out a little myself and thought, “Oh, wow, this is really cool.” Of course, we all know journaling can be powerful, but this was Dr. Evans' life’s work, and he’s really helped a lot of people.
It was exciting to think, “Okay, we can expand on this and give little kids tools they might not even know they need.” When you're a little kid and you get angry about something, you often have no idea why or what to call it. But here's something that can help. It's this show. Kids can watch it, start to understand what those feelings mean and learn how to deal with them—ultimately setting them up for success as they navigate those emotions.
I saw the design and it feels like I'm watching a moving storybook. I know you have a background in illustration. Kind of your take or observations when it came to the design of creating Eva for the TV screen?
JK: Thanks for wanting to learn more about me. I do have a checkered past. [laughs] As a former illustrator, I’d say that if someone took one of my books and wanted to adapt it for TV, I’d be absolutely thrilled if it turned out the way Eva did. There’s a clear, direct connection between the look of the book, its design, and the TV show—especially considering we transitioned from the 2D, graphic design style of Rebecca Elliott's illustrations to fully rendered CGI for today’s audience.
We couldn’t have asked for a better partner than Brown Bag Films. Based in Dublin, they are top-notch. The opportunity to work with them on this was truly a dream come true. They were incredible at helping us bridge the gap between 2D and 3D animation. Of course, we did tons of design iterations throughout the process, always pushing ourselves to stay true to the source material. It was always about saying, “Let’s go back to the book and make sure it looks like that.” Taras Ornson at Apple TV+ was adamant: “I want it to look more like the book.” That was just a really helpful direction. We can all feel pretty proud. Rebecca Elliott has got to be happy as you can really see that correlation.
Sometimes there's a challenge when you're doing adaptations, you want to keep the original, like you said, source design there. But I think it translates really well. This is the second season so congrats on getting renewed! When it came to seeing the differences between season one and season two, what did you want to see change and even progress for this next season?
JK: We just wanted to continue telling the stories we were already telling—creating a joyful, fun world that feels like a place you'd want to visit. We also wanted nighttime to feel like a special time. Little kids are usually asleep at night, but here, they get to enter this nocturnal world and spend time with these little friends. We aimed to keep doing that while also continuing to explore the emotional stories that emerge from Eva and her journey—what she wants to accomplish and figure out. So, it wasn’t a huge departure, really, but just an opportunity to spend more time in that world.
Any particular episodes that you're especially proud of or that you feel is rewarding and that the audience will really get a kick out of?
JK: Whoa, that’s a tough one. I don’t like to play favorites, but I do have a soft spot for some characters. It all happens during the process—you don’t know which characters you’ll end up connecting with, and there are different voices you respond to. From the very beginning, though, I’ve had a particular fondness for Kiera, the Snow Owl.
There’s a Season 2 episode where it’s the first day of winter, and snow falls. Eva looks out her window and says, “Oh my gosh, no.” Lucy and Kiera show up, and they want to try something called Fly Skating, which is the Tree-Toppington version of ice skating. The Bird Bath, where they swim, play, and hang out, is frozen over, so they head there to fly skate. It turns out Kiera, being a Snow Owl and living in a cold place, is really good at it—Olympic-level good. Eva might not be jealous, but she definitely wants to do what Kiera can do. Of course, it takes years of practice to get that good, and it’s only her first day. But she doesn’t give up.
She's got tons of grit. She consults her diary and keeps working at it. Her friends are really nice about it. She ends up having some success through it. For me, I think, personally, I just like the idea of that practice, practice, practice. None of us are good at anything until we tried a whole bunch and get better at it. I think I saw my daughter, sometimes she would try to do stuff and she couldn't do it. It's just like, just keep trying. That's a fun one.
As you know, in children's TV, characters tend to emulate human emotions whether they're animals or creatures. Whatever the case may be, but they always seem human. When it comes to keeping those human elements while maintaining that fantasy element. How do you balance that?
JK: You could probably ask different people different things. I can give you my two cents. If you're doing this, in my opinion, you start to really know these little characters, and maybe even you have people you know in the real world that start to become who these [animated characters] are and vice versa. It helps you get a handle on how they would say something or react to something. You really get that in a group dynamic of different cartoon characters, and you really know who would do what and respond the way they might respond. Stories come out of them as organically as possible as individual characters.
Once you get that established, you can really start to work with the writers to really break funny and honestly, we tried to make Eva pretty funny. Some of what is written is pretty silly and ridiculous, but having the characters be as authentically childlike as we could get them. That trickles over to the voice actors; Deciding to use children to voice the kids, which is something you sometimes don't want to do that. I always want to do that, but other shows don't want to do that because it adds some pressure to the production. It's just the best way to go for Eva. This is a show about little kids working together and figuring things out!
The Parent Watch has an exclusive clip ahead of the season 2 premiere! See below on Apple TV+'s exclusive YouTube channel:
You can watch all episodes of Season 2 of Eva the Owlet on Jan. 25 on Apple TV+