Reddit mentions of Moleskine Art Sketchbook, Hard Cover, Large (5" x 8.25") Plain/Blank, Black, 104 Pages

Pentalic is my go-to moleskine but not sketchbook. Relatively thick paper, smooth tooth, and about $10 a pop for a 5x8.

Edit: I checked DickBlick. It's closer to a 6x8 and runs for $10. The smaller, pocket sized sketchbooks are 3x4 and run $5. They have 80 sheets at 120gsm, and have a soft cover.

For Moleskines, people either usually go for the Art Plus or Cahier line. The former has a hard cover and 52 sheets of 165gsm paper, while the latter comes in a pack of 3 soft-cover books with 180 sheets of 70gsm paper total. A 5x8.25 Art Plus runs for around $16 on Amazon while the Cahier pack of 3 is 7.5x10 and runs for about $20 on Amazon.

To expand on it, GSM is the weight of the paper measured in grams per square meter, although sometimes it is measured in pounds per 500 full sheets, which can be unreliable as the size of a full sheet, while usually around 22x30 can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. In a practical sense, weight determines the thickness of your pages. This page has some good info about GSM, with some points of reference that people generally interact with daily. A piece of printer paper, for example, is often around 80gsm, and thicker than the Cahier paper, but thinner than the other two sketchbooks I listed. A piece of watercolor paper, on the opposite end of the spectrum, will usually be 300gsm on the lighter end and 600gsm or more on the heavy end.

I have 3 players who take meticulous notes. They just used the simple notebooks...oh one does use a cool Moleskine notebook just like his GM!

And we all share the same sorta note taking techniques...which is...there is no order other than Left to Right, page after page. But here's something that's common and useful across all our hand written notes.

Use ALL CAPS for your titles and headers - it's just easier to see when you are flipping. Put a title on your page right at the center top. And Draw pictures! Something that I've realized with handwritten notes rather than digital notes (I also use OneNote for game prep) is that when I or my players flip through our notebooks, we KNOW where things are. Your brain makes connections to your handwritten notes. The words, the doodles, the scratchwork, even the tactile feel of the pages all work together to keep you organized with your notebook.

So go get yourself a nice notebook. My favorite are these Moleskines. Very heavy lineless paper. My friend uses an Insight notebook and it's pretty sweet too. And don't neglect your pens! The sweetest notebook cries loudest when paired with a cheap bic. New favorite lineup of pens is uniball vision elite. Used to be the pilot precise, but I've had bad luck my last two batches. Tried out these uniballs and I like how they feel a bit more.

Short version: Best organization for a notebook is left to right, all caps titles, and lots of drawings. Don't skimp out on the pens.

Do you have a sketchbook or do you just plan to sketch on paper? Something that might help is getting a dedicated sketchbook (see link below), this one for example has nice and thick paper. Looks cool. Draws really well. It's nice to have something like that to keep around, and encourages me to sketch. I have filled out 8 of them now in my career.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/8883701151/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Just take some notes, draw a couple horrible sketches. Done in 2 minutes. It's like public speaking, it's never as bad as it seems. Even a bad sketch of something you are passionate about will come off well with your co-workers. You are probably better at sketching than everyone there anyways, and most ID people suck at sketching too. You are probably comparing yourself to the amazing sketches you see online, and there are few people that are that good consistently. Most of those amazing sketches are years of experience and hours of time. Most ID people leave 95% of their work offline or hidden anyways. Keep that in mind.

You will be fine. Most people won't even pay attention to you drawing, and if they do it's because they are interested. And people talking about your work is a good way to get feedback and also some confidence. Good luck.

You could practice by posting something online and asking for feedback. It will be a horrible process because internet people can be mean, but good practice.

I think we need to tell the publisher!

Given both like art, would a low-end drawing tablet be in the cards?

For Rylee, maybe an art kit composed of the following: Tachikawa nibs and holders and ink, or a finetipped pen set Deleter manga paper, and a grown up sketchbook a la trendy Moleskine or Pentalic or classic art student hardcovers like so. As she develops as an artist she'll learn more whether she likes different sizes, thicker or thinner paper, or toned paper. Maybe throw in a few making of books from her favorite series (like IDK this one for Avatar the Last Airbender or this one for Spirited Away.) Getting a good making of book for a movie or animated film can be life changing. For me, even though I read it years after Brother Bear came out, this was an enlightening read about the movie making process and has some seriously gorgeous art. I haven't read the one for Moana yet so I have no idea whether it leans more toward text (like the making of Hunchback of Notre Dame did...so very little art in that book) or pictures, but it's more recent than Brother Bear. And yes, most of us artists have these books on our shelves, albeit with different movies/series depending on taste. Some of the Marvel movies have excellent making of books too. ;)

I'd recommend some drawing books, but the ones I know all have nudity in them and I don't know how you'd feel about that. I'd caution against 'how to draw manga' books as a general rule, but I owned a few and some art very, very good at teaching how to direct the eye for storytelling.

For your younger, I'd suggest many of the same things, except maybe not the nibs and ink because sharp and messy. If you get either of them colored art supplies, I'd either make sure they get the exact same set of markers or colored pencils, or get one markers, the other colored pencils. It can be rough sharing an interest with a sibling. And maybe some Sideways Math from Wayside School (I'd also suggest all three Wayside School books, they're brain bendy in a good way). Another brain tickling book (for me it was, anyway) was the Phantom Tollbooth. Maybe a how to draw horses book. A making of book or two about movies she liked - Frozen, maybe? IDK. Maybe a Goldiblox set to get her engineer brain in gear. Oh! I forgot about Spirit, the animated horse movie no one remembers.

If you are interested in investing in a good sketch book that will be a very satisfying experience, I highly recommend the Moleskine art sketchbook. The paper is like butter. I will say it doesn't handle all markers the best (I think the heavy alcohol based ones like copic soak through to the other side of the paper), but it handles ink really well. It's ~$15 on amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Moleskine-Cover-Sketchbook-Plain-Large/dp/8883701151/

I've even used acrylic paints in the book and it holds up just fine (just don't use too much water if you do).

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I've heard the RENDR sketchbooks by Crescent Creative Products are great for marker art as they don't bleed through the page, but I don't know that from experience.