Skinny Dip with April Halprin Wayland

Today we wel­come author and edu­ca­tor April Hal­prin Way­land to Bookol­o­gy. Her most recent pic­ture book, More Than Enough, is a sto­ry about Passover. April was one of nine Instruc­tors of the Year hon­ored by the UCLA Exten­sion Writ­ers’ Pro­gram, Cre­ative Writing.

Which celebrity, living or not, do you wish would invite you to a coffee shop?

I would LOVE to have coffee (one-shot latte with extra soy, extra foam) with Crockett Johnson, author/illustrator of Harold and the Purple Crayon but most notably for me, author/illustrator of Barnaby, a comic strip that ran during WWII (actually 1942-1952). I think of it as the predecessor of Calvin and Hobbes. Barnaby stars five-year-old Barnaby Baxter and his fairy godfather Jackeen J. O'Malley. Mr. O'Malley continually gets Barney into trouble. It's brilliant.

Which book do you find yourself recommending passionately?

You're joking, right—one book? I'll tell you right this very minute what books (plural) I recommend. But ask me in half an hour and my list will be completely different.

• Col­lec­tions of Barn­a­by comics by Crock­ett Johnson
• Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• Call­ing the Doves — El Can­to de Las Palo­mas by Juan Felipe Her­rera, illus­trat­ed by Elly Sim­mons (a non­fic­tion pic­ture book told in poems about grow­ing up in a migrant farm work­er fam­i­ly, in both Span­ish and Eng­lish. Lush illus­tra­tions in bril­liant colors.)
• I’m a big audio book fan (I live on the free­ways some days), so here are three dyna­mite mid­dle grade audio books: Marce­lo in the Real World by Fran­cis­co X. Stork, read by Lin­coln Hoppe, Lizzie Bright and the Buck­min­ster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt, read by Sam Freed, Okay For Now by Gary D. Schmidt, read by Lin­coln Hoppe.

Favorite city to visit?

NYC! And Poipu, Kauai! And let's not forget London, for heaven's sake. And anywhere my husband, my son, or my best two friends are.

Most cherished childhood memory?

One August when I was nine or ten, I found a raft by the Feather River, which ran by our farm. I repaired it (I don't remember if an adult helped me or not), then climbed aboard and lay back. The next month, at the beginning of the school year, my teacher asked us to choose a word and define it by writing about something that happened that summer. I wrote about that hot summer day on the river. My word? Bliss.

What's your dream vacation?

Like my favorite books, this will change in the next half hour. For right this minute it would involve my husband, our lanky, knuckle-brained dog, Eli, our son and his girlfriend, hiking, biking, meadows, forests, and arriving at a different bed-and-breakfast each evening with farm-fresh, just-harvested food for dinner, a down quilt each night, and a one-shot latte with extra soy, extra foam each morning. 🙂

Best tip for living a contented life?

I ask myself a central, touchstone question: Will this action or thought help me to like myself?

So, for exam­ple, each day I might ask myself: Should I say yes to this invi­ta­tion to speak? Should I eat this whole bag of (fill in the blank)? Should I spend an extra half-hour with this per­son, even though I have a pile of work at home? Should I go to this polit­i­cal gath­er­ing? Should I vol­un­teer to help put on an event? Should I skip med­i­ta­tion (or exer­cise or walk­ing the dog) today? Should I pick up that piece of trash I just passed? Do I real­ly need to eat the whole jar? Should I floss my teeth? Should I work on this poem or this book? Should I go to a meet­ing tonight? Should I turn off the com­put­er and spend time with my hus­band, who just got home from work? 

If I ask myself that ques­tion, the answer is always clear. I may not choose to act on the obvi­ous answer, but if I do, I feel more content.

Your hope for the world?

That we will be kind to each other.