Interviews

Aimée Bissonette

Aimée Bissonette 

In this inter­view with Aimée Bis­sonette, author of Miss Col­fax’s Light, our Book­storm™ this month, we asked about writ­ing and research­ing this non­fic­tion pic­ture book biog­ra­phy.  Aimée, thank you for shar­ing your expe­ri­ences and dis­cov­er­ies with our read­ers. We’re excit­ed about this book that show­cas­es an Every­day Hero, one of Amer­i­ca’s female light­house keep­ers. When you were writing

Lisa Bullard

Lisa Bullard 

In this inter­view with Lisa Bullard, author of Turn Left at the Cow, our Book­storm™ this month, we asked nine ques­tions to which she gave heart­felt answers.  Lisa, thank you for your will­ing­ness to share your writ­ing process and your thoughts about mys­ter­ies with us. Mys­ter­ies have rabid fans and you’ve writ­ten a book that’s not only smart and funny

Melissa Sweet

Melissa Sweet 

In this inter­view with Melis­sa Sweet, illus­tra­tor of A Riv­er of Words: The Sto­ry of William Car­los Williams, our Book­storm™ this month, we asked six ques­tions and Melis­sa kind­ly took time from her busy days of vis­it­ing schools and cre­at­ing art. Do you recall the first time you encoun­tered a William Car­los Williams poem? My first intro­duc­tion to William Car­los Williams

Jen Bryant

Jen Bryant 

In this inter­view with Jen Bryant, author of A Riv­er of Words: The Sto­ry of William Car­los Williams, our Book­storm™ this month. Do you recall the first time you encoun­tered a William Car­los Williams poem? I was in high school — and it was part of an anthol­o­gy read­ing that we did for Eng­lish class. I had disliked/not understood/ been unmoved

Jennifer A. Bell

Jennifer A. Bell 

In this inter­view with Jen­nifer A. Bell, illus­tra­tor of many endear­ing books, we’ve asked about the process of illus­trat­ing Lit­tle Cat’s Luck, our Book­storm™ this month, writ­ten for sec­ond, third, and fourth graders as a read-aloud or indi­vid­ual read­ing books.Jennifer was also the illus­tra­tor for Mar­i­on Dane Bauer’s ear­li­er nov­el-in-verse, Lit­tle Dog, Lost. What media and tools did you use

Marion Dane Bauer

Marion Dane Bauer 

In this inter­view with Mar­i­on Dane Bauer, we’re ask­ing about her nov­el-in-verse, Lit­tle Cat’s Luck, our Book­storm™ this month, writ­ten for sec­ond, third, and fourth graders as a read-aloud or indi­vid­ual read­ing books. It’s a good com­pan­ion to her ear­li­er nov­el-in-verse, Lit­tle Dog, Lost.  When the idea for this sto­ry came to you, was it a seed or a

Gennifer Choldenko

Gennifer Choldenko 

Bookol­o­gy is proud to fea­ture Gen­nifer Chold­enko’s Chas­ing Secrets as its Book­storm™ this month, shar­ing themes, ideas, and com­ple­men­tary book rec­om­men­da­tions for your class­room, lit­er­a­ture cir­cle, or book group dis­cus­sions. Were you a curi­ous child? How did this man­i­fest itself? I was an eccen­tric child. I was curi­ous to the extent that I could find

Stephanie Roth Sisson

Stephanie Roth Sisson 

The first Princess Posey book was pub­lished in 2010. How long before that were you asked to illus­trate the book? And were the plans to have it be a sin­gle book at that time or were there already inten­tions to pub­lish more than one book about Posey? Susan Kochan and Cecil­ia Yung at Pen­guin contacted

Stephanie Greene

Stephanie Greene 

Is the “impos­si­ble game” some­thing you ran across or is it some­thing you invent­ed? I read about it on a blog or the Inter­net, I can’t remem­ber. I try to keep abreast of what six-year-olds are doing by talk­ing to my nieces, who have lit­tle girls, or friends who do, or the chil­dren on the

Interview with Julie Downing: Illustrating The Firekeeper’s Son

inter­view by Vic­ki Palmquist and Mar­sha Qua­ley The illus­tra­tions in The Fire­keep­er’s Son are all dou­ble-page spreads. How did that design deci­sion affect your choic­es and work? I decid­ed on the for­mat because the land­scape is an impor­tant part of the sto­ry. The orig­i­nal dum­my I made had few­er pages so I split many spreads

Interview with Linda Sue Park: Writing The Firekeeper’s Son

How do you begin the research for a sto­ry set long ago? I go to the library. I live in New York state, which has a won­der­ful inter­li­brary loan sys­tem. My local library can get me books from any­where in the state. Many of my sources have come from the East Asian col­lec­tions of university

Untamed: the Wild Life of Jane Goodall

Beautiful Books: an interview with designer Marty Ittner 

For young writ­ers who aspire to write infor­ma­tion books of their own, or read­ers who will enjoy the expe­ri­ence of read­ing more, we’d like to help them under­stand how a book design­er works. Mar­ty Ittner designed Untamed: the Wild Life of Jane Goodall and gra­cious­ly agreed to answer bookol­o­gist Vic­ki Palmquist’s ques­tions. When you start the process of designing

Interview with Anita Silvey: Writing about Dr. Jane Goodall 

For young writ­ers who aspire to write infor­ma­tion books of their own, we’d like to help them under­stand how a writer works.   When do you remem­ber becom­ing aware of Dr. Jane Goodall? I worked at Houghton Mif­flin when many of her books were being pub­lished and knew her edi­tor well. The first time I heard

Interview: Candace Fleming 

Bulldozer’s Big Day is a per­fect read-aloud, with won­der­ful sound and action oppor­tu­ni­ties on most pages. Did those moments affect your deci­sion about what verbs to use? How love­ly you think it’s a per­fect read aloud. I worked hard at the story’s read­abil­i­ty. Not only did I strive for a pace and cadence, but I

Interview: Eric Rohmann 

Bull­doz­er’s Big Day writ­ten by Can­dace Flem­ing illus­trat­ed by Eric Rohmann Atheneum, 2015 inter­view by Vic­ki Palmquist What’s the illus­tra­tion tool you turn to more than any oth­er? Graphite pen­cil. Sim­ple, effi­cient, erasable, feels good in the hand, makes a love­ly line with infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties for line vari­a­tion. Did I men­tion that it’s erasable? Always

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