Q&A with Deborah Lee Rose

 

 

 

Deborah Lee Rose is the author of the new children's picture book Penguins Ready to Go, Go, Go!. Her other books include Beauty and the Beak. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Penguins Ready to Go, Go, Go!?

 

A: This book began with a katydid landing on my car windshield. What does a hitchhiking insect have to do with penguins in Antarctica? Watching that katydid get help moving from place to place got me thinking about animals that don’t move very much—and I thought that included Emperor penguins.

 

But the more I researched, the more I discovered they are extraordinarily adapted not just to stand around or waddle a bit, but to sled, leap, swim, huddle, shuffle, march, dive deep, and more.

 

When I also learned that they are now a threatened species, because climate change is speeding up melting of the sea ice where they live and raise their young, I knew I had to write a book about them.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that particularly fascinated you?

 

A: I love photo research. As I looked at many, many, many penguin photos, I found myself saying, “WOW, I didn’t know they did that!”

 

One of the most surprising Emperor penguin secrets of survival is that they use teamwork in their huge huddles to get through even the worst blizzards. All the penguins are constantly rotating through the mass of birds, so each gets a turn in the warm middle of the huddle. 

Q: What are some of the most common perceptions and misconceptions about penguins?

 

A: We mostly see photos and videos of Emperor penguins on the sea ice, but a major part of their life cycle is spent in the ocean.

 

Tracking them and collecting data about them when they’re at sea—like where they migrate and how they survive far from the ice—is much harder for scientists. But researchers have made new discoveries about what these penguins do right under the Antarctic ice.

 

One adaption, which is captured in amazing photos from scientists who dived into the polar water, is that the penguins create underwater bubble streams to reduce drag on their bodies as they swim. This lets the birds build up enough speed to “fly” through the water and leap out back onto the ice. 

Q: What do you hope kids take away from the book?

 

A: I want kids to have fun reading and listening—that’s why I wrote the narrative portion in rhyme, with words like “whoosh” and “plop.” But I also want kids to discover the amazing WOW science facts behind these birds’ survival, and begin to understand how factors like climate change and pollution impact these much-loved birds.

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I'm working on widely sharing the science I’ve learned in doing this book, with kids and adults across the US and beyond. People around the world love Emperor penguins and scientists from many countries are studying and working to conserve this unique species.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: The book includes QR codes for scanning, linked to live action videos of Emperors waddling, tobogganing on their bellies, diving into the ocean and leaping out, feeding their chicks and more. There is also a free educational guide on my website, www.deborahleerose.com.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Deborah Lee Rose.

Q&A with Thea Lu

 

 

 

Thea Lu is the author and illustrator of the new children's picture book Here & There. She lives in Shanghai.

 

Q: What inspired you to create Here & There?

 

A: Here & There is a fictional story based on two people I met in the real world.

 

One is my dive guide who I met in Maldives. He works on boats, from place to place. He told me that on some occasions, especially when guests are off board and return to their own homes, a sense of distancing feeling may crawl around him. But he still loves his life choice, one that allows him to travel through works, to meet people in different corners of the world.

 

Another one is a sweet guy who runs a no-name cafe in a little street in Cambridge. He grew up along this street, and he said: “Most likely, I will retire in the same hospital where I was born (the hospital has been renovated into a nursery house).” He seldom traveled. People who once came for coffee sent him food and cards from their places. He chooses a settled life but is well-connected to the outside world.

 

I met these two people in different places, at different times. Their life options are much different, but I feel they are also similar in essence. I’ve kept their stories in mind for a long time until I made up my mind that I wanted to turn them into a picture book.

 

Q: Did you work on the illustrations first or the text first--or both simultaneously?

 

A: The text and images of Here & There were developed at the same time. I started with very rough imagery and wrote down some phrases alongside.

 

At the very beginning stage, I doodled two thumbnails on my sketchbook: one is a cafe man leaning against the edge of a long table, and one is a boatman standing on the tip of a boat. Almost at the same time, I got the starting text: This is Aki…. This is Dan….

 

These initial doodles set the tone for the whole book—the symmetry composition that unfolds the lives of each person, one on the left and one on the right. 

 

Q: How did you develop your artistic style?

 

A: For Here & There, I was quite sure at the beginning that the story should be revealed in a cinematic and sentimental style. So I chose oil ink as the main media to render the atmosphere, then added details with color pencils as well as a light touch of collage.

 

Having a consistent style is good for recognition among a wider public, but I just can’t keep myself loyal to one artistic way. For different book projects, I have to feel and catch the most appropriate visual expression. So when kicking off the artwork, I usually start with a mood board and visual keywords to direct myself. 

 

Q: What do you hope kids take away from the book?

 

A: I prefer to view this title as a cross-age one, rather than a book merely for children.

 

For young readers, I hope this book can create an opportunity for children and their parents to talk about ‘what kind of life you want to live in the future.’

 

We tend to ask children ‘what kind of job do you want to have when you grow up,’ but what should be cared about more is ‘what kind of lifestyle you want to have’?

 

In a sense, Dan’s and Aki’s choices are on opposite poles of a broad life-option spectrum: one that always moves, and another one that is deeply rooted. We can linger and think about our life in between.

 

I believe grown-up readers may resonate more with this story. The two protagonists’ life options differ greatly from each other but they both feel their lives are incomplete. It is the people they meet that complete their world. Readers can take it as a life-option book, a book about our relationship with the world. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on an editorial illustration project for a poem album. Meanwhile, I’m brewing two new book ideas.

 

One will be a hilarious, fun, and quirky book, dealing with the dialectical relationship between individualism and collectivism. Another idea is more fantasy. I hope it will end up as an imaginative story about an island and the world. I’d like to keep it a bit mysterious for now ;-).

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: In my newsletter, I've written an article talking about the whole idea and the "back-of-house" process of this book, with some context images. Here's the link: https://titantable.substack.com/p/0cf

 

Though it was written in Chinese, hopefully with help of the Google Translate (thanks to technology), it can be well understood.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

April 25

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
April 25, 1908: Edward R. Murrow born.

Q&A with Susan Page

 

Photo by Hannah Gaber

 

Susan Page is the author of the new biography The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters. Page's other books include Madam Speaker. She is the Washington bureau chief of USA Today, and she lives in Washington, D.C.

 

Q: What inspired you to write a biography of Barbara Walters, and how was the book’s title chosen?

 

A: My first book was a biography of Barbara Bush (The Matriarch) and my second a biography of Nancy Pelosi (Madam Speaker). I didn’t start out with a master plan to write about women; I think that notion found me.

 

For my third book, I liked the idea of exploring the life of a remarkable woman in my line of work – and in journalism, the O.G. is definitely Barbara Walters.

 

It took a while to settle on the right title. It was my editor at Simon & Schuster, Priscilla Painton, who finally said, “I think she sounds like a rulebreaker.” And we had it!

 

Q: How did you research her life, and what did you learn that surprised you most?

 

A: Barbara Walters was in failing health when I started the book, so unfortunately I couldn’t interview her – although she knew I was working on it, and she didn’t put up any obstacles in my way.

 

Fortunately, she had lived her life out loud, so I had the benefit of hundreds of interviews she had done throughout her career, and of her memoir.

 

The biggest surprise: How her father’s attempted suicide, when she was 28 years old, was a pivot in her life, and a source of her ferocious drive.

 

Q: How would you compare Walters with Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Bush, the subjects of your other biographies?

 

A: All of them were bad-ass women of the Silent Generation. As they were growing up, none of them harbored any expectations of breaking new ground, of becoming iconic figures – and yet they all did, against the odds.

 

Q: How would you describe Walters’ legacy today? What impact do you think she had on the field of journalism?

 

A: Every woman in journalism, and especially in broadcast journalism, owes her a debt. She cut a path that made it easier for those who followed, and she had the scars to prove it.

 

She also pioneered the intersection of news and celebrity – for better or worse – and created a new form of talk TV. A quarter-century after she founded it, ABC’s The View is still creating controversy, making news and even affecting politics.  

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Let me ask your question with a question: Who would you like to read a biography of now? Any ideas?

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I’m indebted to people who publish books (thank you, Simon & Schuster) and who sell books (thank you, independent bookstores) and who review books (thank you, Deborah). And especially to those who read books. Thank you, all.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Susan Page.

Q&A with Caroline Leavitt

 

 

 

Caroline Leavitt is the author of the new novel Days of Wonder. Her many other novels include With or Without You. She lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

 

Q: In a piece for BookTrib, you wrote about using your family’s names for some of the characters in Days of Wonder. Can you say something about that, and about how those names made you feel about the characters?

 

A: My mother, Helen, died a few years ago, and I've been missing her and yearning to hear her tell her stories. Like the Helen in the book, she had grown up in an orthodox Jewish home with seven siblings (her father was a rabbi) and she had loved all the comfort.

 

But when her father died young suddenly, my mom lost her faith, but still always yearned for the comfort of a community that no longer existed for her. I wanted to give her a solution in the book--a way to find her way into community!

 

I also used my father's name, Henry, because I wanted to redeem that name! My father was an abusive brute, but my character Henry is kind!

 

And I used my sister's name because she has estranged herself from all the family, in hopes that I could give her the happy life that was denied her in real life.

 

Q: How did you create your character Ella, and how would you describe the relationship between her and her mother, Helen?

 

A: Ella and Helen were a lot like my mom and me. I always have photographs up on my filing cabinet near my desk so I can see the characters and after a while, they seem to talk to me. I do a lot of early structure work, figuring out what the characters want and why it's usually not what they need!

 

I didn't want Helen to be a bad mother, just a scared-to-be-alone one, which was a lot like my mom. She would have been happy if my sister and I lived down the street all our lives, or even in the same house that she lived in!

 

I wanted to explore the whole mother-daughter bond, and how as your child grows into an adult, they need you less even as you might need them more!

 

Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I did a ton of research! First with the Poison Lady, who helps authors about poison. I talked to ER doctors who told me the signs of foxwood poisoning, and I talked to lawyers, too, and to my alarm I found that the law actually has nothing to do with justice a lot of the time. Lawyers want to win the cases!

 

The most fascinating research was with women who had been put on probation after getting out of jail. I went to attend prison activist and author Jean Trounstine's Changing Lives Through Literature classes in Massachusetts, where I was in a room with a judge, a probation officer, and 10 women on probation.

 

They very slowly started to warm to me, and in the end, I stayed in touch with them all. They told me all sorts of things about being in prison, the myths (Don't go by Orange is the New Black! It's all wrong) and how sometimes for fun, they could create their own slip 'n slide using dish liquid.

 

Q: The writer Jamie Ford said of the book, “As compassionate as it is complex, Days of Wonder is a completely absorbing story of loss, injustice, and the canyons of misconception left behind.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Well, I love Jamie Ford for saying that! Media shapes a lot of misconceptions about people, especially people in prison for notorious crimes.

 

I wrote an essay about it for the Daily Beast about how Leslie Van Houton, who had been a Manson girl when she was 17, had been a model prisoner up into her early 70s.

 

People got angry with me for saying that she had served her time, and she deserved to be freed. She had changed. She was repentant. No, you don't have to forget what she did, but you can forgive since she made amends, and since she is a very different person now.

There was dire media influence about my character Ella, who was young (a 15-year-old attempted murderer makes good press) and from a poor family--so people had a field day with her. And her boyfriend Jude, the son of a prominent New York judge, seemed to get a free pass. The law is not fair all the time. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Two different novels at the same time (I'm torn between two lovers!) but I am much too superstitious to talk about them!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I signed a film shopping agreement for Days of Wonder already! Hollywood has broken my heart countless times, but hey, you never know!

 

Madonna was going to make my early novel Into Thin Air her debut but then didn't. My first novel was signed to Paramount who dropped it during a lengthy director and writers strike. Cruel Beautiful World also has a shopping agreement--and everything else never came through! 

 

I thought about writing the script myself (I won a finalist shot in the Sundance Screenwriter Lab contest) but I'm told my scripts read like novels.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Caroline Leavitt.

Q&A with Alicia D. Williams

 

Photo by Jasiatic

 

 

Alicia D. Williams is the author of Mid-Air, a new novel for older kids. Her other books include Genesis Begins Again. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Mid-Air, and how did you create your character Isaiah?

 

A: It is most curious how inspiration begins in one area and ends in another. Initially, my inspiration was to prove to myself that I could write another novel. After the wonderful reception of my debut, Genesis Begins Again, I was stuck wondering, What did I do? And can I do it again?

 

After accepting my fear, I began writing. Then, my work was birthed out of grief from the social justice unrest. I suppose my ball of emotional angst sat with me each day as I faced the computer. I only wanted to make sense of the world. Again, my inspiration changed, or rather, the story I wanted to explore.

 

Isaiah came out of my want to question why boys are not encouraged to defy gender norms. How boys are held to a standard of toughness and, most times, toxic masculinity. And how they have to hide parts of themselves to fit in the narrowly defined “boy” category. 

 

And Isaiah was modeled after the sweet, sensitive boys I had the pleasure of teaching in my classrooms.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Isaiah and Drew?

 

A: Isaiah and Drew are opposites.

 

While Isaiah is protected in a bubble of safety and shielded from tragic news events of the world, he is also privileged in this way. He can hold on a little longer to his youthful innocence. His parents, with their professional backgrounds, have exposed him to culture, art, and travels.

And both this lifestyle and shield has nurtured his sensitive side—yet he struggles with the inner conflict, imposed by his well-concerned father, that boys and men have to be tough.

 

Drew has been exposed to inequalities and inequities. He’s the tough city dude who is also the glue holding his family together. A job that is too heavy for him. Drew supports his older brother who is diagnosed sickle cell. Helps his mother, who is thrown into single motherhood during the father’s absence.

 

And Drew keeps this all in because he subscribes to the world’s expectations that boys have to man up and be tough, take life’s challenges without whining or complaining.

 

With Isaiah, Drew gets to shelve this toughness, at least for a little while. He can do what kids do, be boys in the most innocent of ways—imagination and the world of make-believe. Escapism through movies and world records. And Isaiah’s home offers a safe haven, too, offering solitude, space, and peace to think.

 

All of which is hidden from Isaiah. And because Isaiah, even though a good friend, is blind to the reality, their friendship holds tension under the surface. And this echoes friendships. We all have to find balance to remove the façade, to feel safe to be vulnerable.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: Interesting fact, my editor named Mid-Air. For me, the meaning doesn’t have a strong significance. I believe it relates to Isaiah’s friendships, self-acceptance, and discovery, which at his tween age, a pivotal mid-point of life, is all juggling in mid-air.

 

Q: The writer Renée Watson called the book “a must-read novel for anyone grappling with the shock and heaviness of grief.” What do you think of that description, and what do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: Artistry is up for personal interpretation. I’ve learned that once I write a story, it no longer belongs to me. While in the reader’s hands, they bring their personal beliefs, history, pains, and joys to the reading experience.

 

Whatever they take from my stories are always an honor because that means they engaged with the text. That also means, what I wrote connected with guarded, open, or even vulnerable places they hold inside.

 

So yes, I am more than honored to have book blurbs from not only Renée Watson, but Derrick Barnes and Jason Reynolds, as well. Renée is an incredibly intuitive and thoughtful storyteller.

 

While developing this story during the pandemic, I had been struggling with grief like so many others, so Renée’s analysis speaks exactly to this aspect of the book. And whoa, to have her and the others blurb my work—my work—is a dream.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m currently going through all of my unfinished drafts, you know, the ones we start and for whatever reasons, toss to the side. I’m listening to which story that speaks most to me right now. I need to make a decision fast, I know.

 

However, I do have a picture book on the horizon. A folktale, that I’m really excited about, called Nani and the Lion.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

April 24

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
April 24, 1815: Anthony Trollope born.