Planting seeds for picture books with agricultural roots

 by Sue Heavenrich

 

  I love gardening. There’s something about the smell of fresh soil, dropping seeds into thumbprint holes, and the constant humming of bees and flies. Not only does my garden provide food for the table, but it serves as my science lab and recently inspired a book about pumpkins.  

 

 

 

Turns out a bunch of writing friends have their own garden-related books featuring cabbages, compost, nut trees and farm life – some of them award-winning titles! So I invited them over to the GROG today to relax in the shade, sip icy lemonade and chat about our books that celebrate agricultural connections. Since Chelsea's sitting right next to me, I'll start with her.

 

What inspired your story, and how did you decide to write it the way that you did?

Chelsea

Chelsea Tornetto (Seasons on the Farm): I grew up in rural southern Illinois with farm families on both sides, so the topic itself was very familiar to me.  At first, I thought it might be an overdone topic...seasons are a common theme in children's books, as are farms!  But I realized that the combination of the two allowed me to highlight how farmers see the seasons through a much more purposeful lens than "regular" people.  For them, being tuned in to even the most subtle signs of the changing seasons is essential to their success and their livelihood.  So, I decided to focus on that and help show kids who may not be familiar with rural life how the changing seasons are about more than just snow days and spring flowers.  

Peggy Thomas (The Soil in Jackie’s Garden): I had wanted to write about soil for a long time because I’m fascinated by all the magical things that happen underground. I struggled to find the right story structure until one day while I was teaching a writing class. I reminded my students that rather than reinvent the wheel they could try using one of the many traditional story structures like “The House That Jack Built.”  The moment I said it I knew it would be perfect for showing how everything begins and ends with soil. It’s the first time I took my own advice.  

Roxanne Troup  (My Grandpa, My Tree, and Me): While researching, I ran across a YouTube video of a farmer harvesting pecans and was thunderstruck by their methods. I grew up in a farming community and had some experience with agriculture and pecans, but no one I knew harvested pecans by tractor. And I had never considered how all those pecans would sound or look like falling from the tree like rain! It was dusty and noisy and not at all the way my family gathered pecans. This dichotomy provided the structure for the informational element of my book—comparing commercial pecan harvesting with at-home production—but I needed a story mechanism that could making interesting information meaningful. I needed heart. While brainstorming, the phrase, “But not my tree,” popped into my head and I immediately knew an intergenerational family would provide the necessary story wrappings (a.k.a. “heart”) for this tale.

Karen Greenwald (The Cabbage Seed’s Colossal Secret): The stories that grab my attention often involve an unlikely hero/es. When I found out about the nine-year-old girl who chose to give a local soup kitchen a 40-pound cabbage she grew, then started a charity to encourage children nationwide to do the same, it was an instant click—exactly the kind of story that I like to put a spotlight on. I often think good stories tell you who they are and how they want to be written. To me, taking a circular approach felt powerful. I wanted it to reflect the growing cycle, the giving cycle, and the sharing cycle this child initiated.

Sue, with Jarrahdale pumpkin

Me: The Pie that Molly Grew started as a response to a challenge from Susanna Leonard Hill. Write about pies, she said. I listed all the kinds of pies I’d ever heard of and circled pumpkin, which is my favorite. And I jotted down a line: this is the pie that Molly made. That line stuck in my head like an earworm, pestering me until I planted my pumpkin seeds and realized that it might be a book about how a seed no bigger than a penny can grow into a long, tangly vine that produces an abundance of pumpkins. 

So, do we all garden? Or tend to plants in some fashion?

Peggy: I love gardening, but I love wildlife even more, so I’m slowly replacing non-native flowers and shrubs with ones that grew in my area before Europeans arrived. These native plants like coneflower, milkweed and spicebush are the plants that insects, birds and other animals rely on, but they are disappearing due to habitat loss, climate change, pesticide use, etc. I can’t do much about the bigger picture, but I can make a difference at home by turning my yard into a little nature sanctuary.

Roxanne: I live in a high-altitude, semi-arid, suburban area; so what I can grow is limited. To make the most of our resources and provide pollinators with what they need, I focus on native flower gardens/landscape plants, herb gardening, and container gardens for my veggies. (I also have a variety of house plants—including an avocado tree, currently in need of a larger pot, that my son grew as a science experiment in middle school.)

Roxanne

Karen: I wish I could garden in my yard but as I look out the window most days (when I probably should be focused on my computer screen), the number of deer grazing in my yard is striking. Every time we've planted flowers, they were snipped at the bud. So, I am more of a viewer of nature!

Chelsea: I have a bit of a black thumb, but my husband is a huge gardener, and most of our backyard is covered in garden beds.  (see pic).  While I don't do the work, I certainly enjoy the fruits of his labor!  We have strawberries, cantaloupe, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, onions, figs, peas, and much, much more.  He also keeps my flowers alive for me!  :)  As shown in my first picture book, GARDENS ARE FOR GROWING, our kids have grown up in the garden, and I love watching them pick produce, help water, and just generally enjoy the outdoors with their Dad.  

Me: Every time I plant pumpkin seeds, I marvel how this humble fruit has fed families for thousands of years.  I cannot remember a Thanksgiving without a pumpkin pie. So I knew I had to include that connection of giving thanks for the earth and the sun, the rain and the seed, the flowers and the bees, and the gardeners and farmers who grow the food we eat.

What sort of connections did you want to emphasize in your book?  

Karen

Karen: I love a story where a community is formed, and where that community finds an unlikely or unimagined way to solve a problem. In this case, children all over the country have joined together, without even knowing each other, to make a dent in the food crisis. It’s a type of community that can grow exponentially, impacting an untold number of people’s lives. To me, that’s an incredible outcome. I also love that it teaches children to plant themselves somewhere or in something and nurture what they’re growing in both the Earth and within themselves—and as they increase their garden, hopefully their compassion, talents, and interest in protecting our environment will expand as well.

Chelsea: As I mentioned earlier, both sides of my family are farmers, and one thing I've realized over the years is how unique farming is as a job.  Other kids I knew growing up had parents who worked specific hours, had to schedule their "vacation" days, complained about their bosses, etc.  But a farm, as a family business, is more like a big, never-ending family project, and daily life is woven more naturally into the "job." The whole family has to work together and rely on each other to succeed...and it forces you to depend on each other more...which can build really close relationships.  There's also a special sense of pride in a family farm that's often been passed down from generation to generation.  A family farm more than just a source of income.  It's a part of your history.  I really love that.  

Peggy: It was important that my book be more than just planting a seed and harvesting a watermelon. That agricultural part of the story exists within and because of the larger web of organisms working to aerate the soil, release nutrients, pollinate flowers, and decompose dead things. Severing those connections weakens the entire system.

Roxanne: Like gardens, families come in all shapes and sizes. And family—whether the one we’re born into or the one we choose for ourselves—gives us roots. It provides us with support and fuels our growth. Even as families change (as gardens do throughout the seasons) the love we share doesn’t run out. It may look different in different seasons of life, but it is still there nurturing and supporting us.

Me: One of the things I hope readers take away from reading The Pie That Molly Grew is how a single plant can be part of a web that connects sun and soil, flowers and bees, and the food we eat. I hope it inspires kids to plant a seed, whether it’s pumpkin or carrots or spinach for their salads.

What do you hope readers take away from your book?

Peggy

Peggy: I hope that, after reading The Soil in Jackie’s Garden, young readers will want to be part of the soil cycle. It is so easy to do. By creating a compost pile, they become just as impactful as all the other animals working in the garden. Plus, it is so much fun to poke around in the compost and watch food scraps disappear.

Chelsea: I hope kids who aren't familiar with farm life will gain a new understanding of and respect for the lifestyle I show in Seasons on the Farm. I also hope that farm kids who read my books will see themselves and their lives reflected on the pages.  

Roxanne: When they reach the last page of My Grandpa, My Tree, and Me, I hope kids have learned more about where our food comes from – and the incredible about of work required to produce their favorite snacks. I also hope that they pick up on the subtle message that familial love, like the pecan tree, grows with time and care.

Karen: I hope readers, young and older, take away a sense of empowerment from The Cabbage Seed’s Colossal Secret, and a realization that, while there are great problems for us to solve, they can help be a part of positive change. Every tiny seed planted is another opportunity to make a difference!

Me: Thanks everyone. My glass is empty, so that means it’s time to head back to weeding – or writing.

You can find out more about our roundtable guests - and their books - by visiting their websites:

Chelsea minds the farm at chelseatornetto.com
Peggy turns compost at www.peggythomaswrites.com    

Roxanne sits in the shade of pecan trees at www.roxannetroup.com
Karen turns small seeds into giant stories at www.karengreenwald.com
Sue dreams about pie at www.sueheavenrich.com

Lindsay H. Metcalf Uses Verse to Write about STEM

by Sue Heavenrich

Today I’m chatting with award-winning author. Lindsay H. Metcalf. I was introduced to her writing through her nonfiction picture books about Beatrix Potter and indoor farming. This spring her newest book, Footeprint: Eunice Newton Foote at the Dawn of Climate Science and Women’s Rights, was released from Charlesbridge. Footeprint is written for teens and, unlike her previous books, is a novel-in-verse! I loved reading it so much that I knew we had to sit down and talk about her book, climate science, and women’s history.

Welcome to the GROG, Lindsay. The first thing I want to know is why you decided to write this book as a novel rather than nonfiction? 

Lindsay: I started writing FOOTEPRINT as nonfiction but ran into roadblocks with few sections I didn’t have answers for. When I began researching Eunice Newton Foote’s life, there were no traditionally published books about her. Here was a woman who had discovered something groundbreaking—that excess carbon dioxide warms the atmosphere—and she had been largely forgotten after her 1856 experiment was published. I became determined to piece together a birth-to-death story of her life, just to get it all on the record. 

The vast majority of the book is factual and documented in the book’s extensive bibliography. In a few places, I hedged to access the emotional core of the moment. Take, for example, the poem where Eunice learns about the upcoming 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in her town of Seneca Falls, NY. The poem says she learned of the convention by reading an article in the Seneca County Courier. It’s true that Eunice attended the convention and got involved, and it’s true that the newspaper ran an announcement. I can’t prove that she read it. There are a few other examples of this kind of “light fiction” throughout the book. Generally, I stuck as closely to the facts as I could. 

Me: That makes sense. Can you tell us how you decided to use verse as the means of telling Eunice's story?

Lindsay: Verse was an extension of my desire to stick closely to the facts while also pulling emotion into the story. With verse, I could use the conventions of poetry (metaphor, simile, white space, etc.) to invite the reader to bring their own emotion to the story, rather than me assigning feelings to Eunice:

Eunice isn’t sure what to expect, 

but she is drawn to this women’s convention

like a magnet, 

or like gravity. 

Another advantage with verse was the nature of the poems themselves. Each one captures a moment, and the breaks between them represent the passage of time. During my research I created a timeline of Eunice’s life, but there were gaps of months or years where I had no idea what Eunice was doing. Instead of making anything up, I could transition with a poem about what was happening around her or a more thematic poem to set tone. These helped place her firmly in the period of industrialization and contextualize why her experiments and women’s rights activism were important.

photo: Lindsay,  standing next to statues of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY where she presented a program about FOOTEPRINT on April 18.

Me: That’s a brilliant reason to use poetry to tell a story! The combination of poetry and Eunice’s story engaged me more than I expected. The story is from the 1800s, but the battles Eunice faced – to be taken seriously as a woman in science and to be acknowledged for her contributions – continue. In one poem, Eunice wonders: how can any group advance while holding back any other? I get the feeling that this book is informed and inspired by our current time.

Lindsay: I was absolutely inspired by current politics. We are living through a time of extreme contradiction. Scientists have proven that climate change is real, and yet so many world powers are failing to heed their calls to action. And not just failing through negligence, but in the case of the United States, actively erasing documentation of human-caused climate change, first by scrubbing federal websites (1) and documents of climate-change references and data, and last winter, by taking steps to shutter the National Center for Atmospheric Research.(2)

Eunice’s story fascinated me because she and her family’s storyline intertwined with many consequential events of the mid-nineteenth century. She and her husband, Elisha, were inventors, and he went on to be the US patent commissioner in the late 1860s during the height of industrialization. His department approved patents for many of the first machines to use fossil fuels—the cradle of human-caused climate change itself.

Me: Can you talk about word choice? I especially like how you describe Eunice’s birth as being born “kicking the glass ceiling" and, later, describing the women’s convention as “the convention to defy convention”. Do you think verse opens up to this sort of word play more than straight nonfiction?

Lindsay: For me it does! I love to play with language—the way it sounds, feels on the tongue, and looks on the page. This applies when I write picture books, but verse especially opens up the latter, with line breaks emphasizing certain words visually. I wrote most of FOOTEPRINT in free verse, but I often toyed with tabs and white space to echo a poem’s theme, sometimes veering into concrete poetry. All of that brings a distant story more into the visceral present.

photo: Lindsay points to a tiny portrait of a woman who she believes is Eunice Newton Foote. The painting is "Dudley Observatory Dedication, August 28, 1856,” by Tompkins Harrison Matteson, 1857. It’s held at the Albany Institute of History & Art, where Lindsay talked about FOOTEPRINT and her suspected presence in the painting on April 19.

Me: What are some of the challenges you faced writing about climate science, and the experiments Eunice undertook? Did the complexity of the science sway you toward YA?

Lindsay: The science was one of the easiest parts for me to write, because it was fully documented. Eunice’s experiment, “Circumstances affecting the Heat of the Sun’s Rays,” was published, so I could write in detail about how she conducted her experiment by placing test tubes filled with different gases in the sun and measuring their temperatures over time. I could quote Eunice’s words and conclusions. The understandings of the scientific community of the mid-1800s were also well documented, so I could readily understand that she sought to understand why the world was warmer when dinosaurs lived.

I wrote and the story poured out without me giving much thought to where it would appear on the shelf. I had a half-formed belief that the book might be middle-grade, but I wasn’t sure. It didn’t feature a child protagonist because I didn’t know much about Eunice’s childhood. My editor at Charlesbridge wisely read what I had written, considered the language level, and placed it in the YA category. 

Me: Before writing for children, you worked as a journalist. How did that experience inform your approach to writing for kids and the topics you choose?

Lindsay: I started out covering education in a suburban bureau of The Kansas City Star newspaper, so I was always in the space of thinking about what kids learn, and how decisions made by adults affect that learning. My favorite assignments were both investigative and narrative, layered with emotion. Those stories departed from the daily churn I had to produce after attending school board or municipal meetings. 

With writing for children, I get to cherry-pick my favorite parts of journalism—the heavy, archival research and the reveal of the universal human experience through empowering narratives. There was a learning curve to go from writing for a daily newspaper to working on a project alone, on spec, for months or years at a time. But I am still having fun as I attempt to reveal stories that help people think about the world in a new way. 

Me: What do you hope readers take away from your book?

Lindsay: On a personal level, I hope readers see Eunice’s resilience and feel inspired to chase their dreams, no matter what obstacles they face. Eunice lived during a time when women could not vote or own property, intellectual or real. She wanted to practice science and share her inventions with the world. To achieve that, she had to join a movement to fight for her right to do so. 

Zooming out, I hope readers think about the what-ifs of today. When I talk to young people about Eunice, I ask them to consider the butterfly effect. How would our present time have been different if the world had listened to Eunice? What about the future and the paths before us? What if we don’t listen to the scientists of today? 

Thank you, Lindsay! You can find out more about Lindsay at her website, lindsayhmetcalf.com.

Read more about Eunice Foote, the scientist that history forgot at 

https://www.charlesbridge.com/blogs/news/the-brilliant-climate-scientist-history-forgot

The Sixth Annual GROG Arthropod Roundtable

hosted by Sue Heavenrich

Welcome to the Sixth Annual Arthropod Roundtable! Grab your cuppa, pull up a chair, and please help me welcome our guests. 

Laura Gehl is a former science teacher and scientist who is now a full-time children’s book author. So it almost makes sense that most of her books center around science and nature themes. Her newest board book is Odd Bugs , the third in a series that includes Odd Beasts and Odd Birds. 

“When I was doing research for Odd Beasts, I came across a lot of fascinating bugs and couldn’t wait to give them their own book,” says Laura.

Melissa Stewart is a science writer, children’s book author, and avid nature lover. Her new picture book is Monarch and Mourning Cloak: A Butterfly Journal. While visiting schools to take about her earlier butterfly book, A Place for Butterflies (published in 2006) she noticed that many students raise monarchs. She also noticed that they thought all butterfly species have similar lives and habitats. 

“Butterflies are an incredibly diverse group of insects,” Melissa points out. “So, in 2008 I began writing a book called Two Butterflies, Two Lives to help kids understand the variety of foods butterflies eat, the different habitats they call home, and the many ways they survive winter weather.” Over the years, that book evolved into Monarch and Mourning Cloak!

Karen Jameson is a retired elementary school teacher and author of lyrical, rhyming picture books. Insects have found their way into several of her books (including the beetles and dragonflies in It's Time to Shine). There’s even more bugs in her newest book, Who Nests Here?

“Insects have such unique ways of nesting,” says Karen. “I spotlight gall wasps, mole crabs, scorpions, and devil crayfish in my new book. And who wouldn’t thrill to see a termitarium – a giant termite nest?!

Katherine Hocker is a science illustrator, naturalist, and educator with an inordinate fondness for aquatic insects. Her new book, When You See Us, takes us on a field trip into the mysterious and fascinating world of aquatic insects. 

"They are some of the most watchable wildlife I know,” says Katherine. “They live pretty much everywhere on Earth, and are easy to find and observe. When you consider that they live double lives as some of our most familiar winged insects, such as dragonflies and mosquitoes, everyone should know about them!”

Jenni Walsh writes novels for kids and adults. She confesses that she didn’t know how cool bugs were until she was researching their defense mechanisms for her middle-grade tale of mystery and thievery, The Bug Bandits. 

“My book is inspired by a real heist that occurred at the Philadelphia Insectarium," says Jenni. "Over $40,000 worth of rare insects were stolen – and I found this utterly fascinating. In the book, we call it a buglery.”

I’m joining in this year because 13 Ways to Eat a Fly is celebrating its fifth birthday! Before writing books for kids, I taught science and also worked as a newspaper reporter. One afternoon I was covering the opening of a nature preserve. People were standing because there were “small bees” perching on the sun-warmed metal chairs. Those “bees” were actually flower flies – awesome little pollinators! That’s when I realized that too many folks have no idea about the diversity of flies buzzing around them. 

Initially I wrote 13 Ways to Eat a Fly as a backyard field guide. Bo-oring! It took a few years (and many revisions) before I came to the idea of making it a backwards counting book. You know: starting with a bunch of flies that disappear one by one as each hungry critter (or plant) grabs a snack. I added a brain-eating fungus, because who can resist zombies! I got to wondering... 

... why did other folks chose the format they did?

Melissa Stewart

Melissa: Because butterflies are so beautiful and graceful, I thought free-verse poetry would be the best way to share information. Initially, I wrote a series of poems in two voices, but the first-person point of view wasn’t working. Over the years, I continued to revise, writing draft after draft and receiving rejection after rejection. The book’s design pays homage to this process by showing each poem atop a stack of papers. Finally, in 2023, I decided that perhaps the book needed an additional conceptual layer that tied into the art and design. So I sent the manuscript to my friend, illustrator, and past collaborator Sarah S. Brannen. I let her know what I was thinking and invited her to go on a hike to brainstorm. A few hours later, we had a vision for what the book could be—a nature journal bursting with art, poems, and informational notes.

Jenni: I wrote The Bug Bandits for my 10-year-old so middle grade was the perfect age group for him. He’s a reluctant reader but I’m pleased to say he couldn’t resist a heist book that is Night at the Museum meets Home Alone.

Laura Gehl

Laura: I love writing board books because they can serve as a child’s first introduction to a topic—in this case, really weird and amazing bugs!

Karen: Lyrical, rhyming picture books are my jam. It feels natural to write this way in the main text - a style which is brief and accessible to younger readers. Science concepts in the back matter are written in prose for those who wish to explore the topic in more depth.

Katherine: I wanted the story to be told in the voices of the insects themselves—a kind of song they sing to reveal their secrets. That called for a more lyrical approach.

Me: As a kid, I was fascinated by ants. They lived in sidewalk cracks and in our garden, often working together to carry bits of dead beetles to their homes. Plus they have queens! Being a fairy tale-reading second-grader, how could I resist? I wondered ...

... what was the gateway arthropod for other authors?

Katherine Hocker

Katherine: Caddisflies! I remember discovering them as a child—these tiny crawling underwater beasties that built themselves homes out of grains of sand or tiny twigs. We used to call them “stick bugs.” It was many years before I learned that they have a winged adult form.

Laura: I read about a poop-shooting caterpillar when I was in grad school, and one of my first-ever published pieces of writing was about that caterpillar. I’ve been hooked on bugs ever since!

Karen: I am obsessed with dragonflies! Not only are they beautiful, but they’re symbolic of joy, good omens, and transformation.

Melissa: I’ve been a lover of all creatures big and small since childhood. I was fortunate that my parents owned 10 acres of woods, and we had a national forest across the street from our house. My brother and I spent most of our time outdoors—immersed in the natural world. Some of my long-time favorite insects include walking sticks, lightning bugs, and of course, butterflies.

Jenni Walsh

Jenni: I’ve always loved butterflies. When we visited the insectarium the book is based on, my family and I loved walking through the butterfly pavilion. We also hatched them at home and had a release party. It inspired my main character, Liberty, to have a butterfly releasing business in The Bug Bandits!

Me: Today is Earth Day. What can we – and the kids we write for – do to help make our backyards and neighborhoods better places for bugs?

Jenni: There are certain native plants that encourage bug-life, such as butterflies. I encourage everyone to find out what plants/flowers are bug friendly for your area!

Karen Jameson

Karen: I include a Nesting Site Conservation section in the back matter of Who Nests Here? Here’s a few tips: 1) Pick up trash and keep waterways clean. 2) Leave rocks, shells, pine cones and other natural elements where they are, as they may be someone’s home. 3) Don’t poke sticks into nests or move them to another site.

Laura: This is pretty easy for me, because my husband and I don’t have the time or energy to keep our back yard neat or tidy! Having a messy yard with leaf litter, brush/wood piles, clover and dandelions, and sections of longer grass is great for bugs!

Katherine: Aquatic insects need water to survive. Many, such as caddisflies, stoneflies, and mayflies, need water that’s very clean and cold. We can help them thrive by protecting our ponds, lakes, streams, and rivers.

Melissa: Grow native plants is the most obvious answer. But Earth, our precious planet, is one big interconnected system. Anything we can do to lessen pollution and climate change, and to preserve natural areas is going to help every living thing—including us.

your host, Sue Heavenrich
looking for spiders

Me: To these great suggestions I’ll add that using natural mulches, such as dried leaves, grass, and straw creates the perfect habitat for spiders. Also, my lazy gardening provides other benefits. All those dried, hollow flower stems that I never remove turn out to be great homes for native bees. 

We could talk bugs all day long… but I’m out of coffee. Check out our author websites, drop by our blogs, and remember to head outside and watch some bugs!

Laura Gehl at https://lauragehl.com/

Sue Heavenrich at https://www.sueheavenrich.com/

Katherine Hocker at  https://katherinehocker.art/

Karen Jameson at https://karenljameson.com/

Melissa Stewart at   https://melissa-stewart.com/

Jenni Walsh at https://www.jennilwalsh.com/

Christy Mihaly writes about the power of Music and Silence

by Sue Heavenrich

Today I’m talking with GROG’s own Christy Mihaly about her book, Music and Silence: The Passion and Protest of Pablo Casals, illustrated by Mariona Cabassa. It will be released next month by‎ Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. Christy and I have been critique partners for nearly as long as she’s been working on this book, and it’s been a wonderful journey to watch it grow up and, now, hit the shelves. 

When Christy began working on her story that would become Music and Silence, she was at the beginning of her writing journey. She had just returned from a year of living in Spain (her husband was on sabbatical). 

Christy: When our family moved to Seville, I left my job as a lawyer in Vermont and resolved to spend the year evaluating whether I could start a new career as a writer for children. 

in Cordoba

During that year, I encountered fresh inspiration on every corner. Everything I did and saw felt new and unfamiliar. Everywhere I went I thought, “This would make a fun story for kids.” So, I wrote and sold an article to AppleSeeds magazine about the Pinzon brothers, Spanish sailors and navigators that all Spanish schoolchildren know about and without whom Columbus wouldn’t have succeeded. 

I also continued with my cello lessons, and I decided to learn more about Pablo Casals. So we visited Barcelona and went to his birthplace and museum. The more I learned about him and his life, the more I admired and appreciated him, his ideals, his activism, his pacificism, his principles, and his passion. I started thinking I’d like to write a book for kids about Casals. I realized lots of people in the U.S. didn’t know his story, but I thought maybe they should!

 dressed for la feria

Sue: With all that inspiration, you wanted to write something for children. Can you share your navigation from story idea to writing a book?

Christy: When I returned from Spain, I attended a workshop at the Highlights Foundation about writing nonfiction for kids. I learned a huge amount and started seriously on the path to becoming a nonfiction children’s author. 

Sue: We met at that workshop!

Christy: And that was the beginning of our years-long collaborative friendship. In 2014 I took an online writing class and wrote an initial draft of the Casals book. I was still researching the life of Pablo Casals, viewing videotapes and movies about him, listening to recordings, and studying the co-written memoirs he left as well as biographies and press articles. I studied mentor texts. I explored possible themes and put together musical word lists. I shared drafts with critique partners and revised. I also started, prematurely, sending the manuscript out to editors. Editors under a certain age didn’t know who Casals was, so they didn’t understand why people would want to know read about him. Clearly, I had more work to do.

Sue: One of the things we’re told as writers is to come to our story from different angles. 

Christy: Yes. I changed the focus and tried different approaches. Some of my drafts included direct quotations from Casals, in boxes. I loved this; the editors, not so much. I laid out the page turns and tried to squeeze Casals’s whole life into 12 spreads - thankfully, the final book is much longer than the typical 32 pages! I cut down the words about his childhood and then put them back in. I cut pages from his later years. One time, I received a thoughtful critique from an editor and, at her invitation, edited and re-submitted. But that revision was rejected.

I must have revised my story more than twenty times that year, and I continued working on it into the next year, 2015 when I sold my first picture book, Hey, Hey, Hay! – a rhyming picture book about making hay. That was a thrill, and an educational process. 

signing the contract with Erzsi

And then, in 2016, I submitted the Pablo Casals story to literary agent Erzsi Deak, who loved it enough to offer to represent me. Yay! At last! Erzsi had a couple suggestions, so I tweaked the manuscript and then she started submitting the story. But nobody bit. 

Meanwhile, the political winds in the U.S. were shifting, and Erzsi and I discussed bringing more emphasis to the anti-fascism theme in Casals’s story. I made more revisions while also trying new approaches to the story. In one draft Pablo’s cello narrates, and another draft is told in verse. I didn’t end up with any of those versions, but each one informed how I eventually wrote the story of Casals’s life. 

In 2018 we started a new round of submissions. The story felt more timely than ever. After about a half dozen rejections, we received an offer from Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. Over the next seven years the story wended its way through the publishing process, getting delayed for a bit by Covid. In 2022, when the search for an illustrator started, I knew I wanted an illustrator from Catalonia, Casals’s homeland. I pushed for Mariona Cabassa, whose work I knew because she had beautifully illustrated my 2021 book, Barefoot Books WATER: A Deep Dive of Discovery. It took a while, but it was worth the wait. I am so glad she brought her gorgeous art – and love of Casals – to this project.

Sue: Fourteen years is a long time to keep believing in a book. What words of wisdom might you offer to kidlit writers who are having a hard time getting an editor to love their stories? 

Christy: Write the story that is in your heart. Because that’s what writing is about. Don’t get distracted when people tell you what the market wants, or how to sell to a certain editor – unless those are stories your heart also wants to tell. Editors and agents love to read work in which they can sense the author’s passion and commitment, stories that are animated by the author’s love of the topic, the characters. If you don’t love what you’re writing, write about something you do love writing about.

Sue: You started playing the cello as an adult. What advice might you offer to folks who want to learn how to play a cello – or any instrument – later in life?

Christy on the cello

Christy: First, accept that you’ll never be a brilliant player. Or, you won’t develop the level of competence you would have if you’d started young. So let go of that expectation. Do it for the joy of making music, for the pleasure of learning a new skill – that’s what keeps us young.

Second, you must practice. A lot. But don’t overdo it, because you do not want to injure yourself. (I speak from experience.) Take breaks. 

And third, find others to play with. My cello teacher organized a group of students to play together. I love making music in a group, together with other (older) musicians. I also loved playing duets with my daughter, who was taking violin lessons and who is  a better player than I’ll ever be. What a joy! You might look for a local community orchestra or band to play with. Or draft your family members and friends.

Sue: I should probably have asked you this first. What is it about Pablo Casals’s music that absolutely gobsmacks you?

Christy: I love the emotion that permeates his playing. I love that he isn’t afraid to show us his passion through his musicianship. His technique, obviously, is lovely, and he produces a gorgeous, mellow tone. But what I love most is that when he makes his cello sing, you can hear the music of his heart.

Thank you, Christy, for sharing your book love and your lessons on how to courageously dive into new things! 

Christy Mihaly has written books on topics from civics to sunlight, and math to moose, including a picture book about making hay when the sun shines! You can find out more about Christy’s books and writing life at her website, www.christymihaly.com. 

And if you'd like to preorder Music and Silence here, (OR Christy's book coming out in May, America's Founding Myths ... And What Really Happened here), her local indie, Bear Pond Books, is taking orders online. Christy will sign your book before it goes out. You can specify how you want it personalized .... or call the bookstore and let them know. Thank you!

Borrow From Nonfiction to Enhance your Fiction

 by Sue Heavenrich

If you’re a nonfiction writer, then you’ve read plenty of articles suggesting that you use fiction techniques to spiff up your writing. But have you ever heard anyone suggest that fiction writers borrow from nonfiction to enrich their novels?

Picture book authors do this frequently, especially when their story includes elements that connect with curriculum topics like nature, gardening, science, space exploration. But for novels – excepting historical fiction – I haven’t heard many folks saying, "hey, try this approach used in nonfiction."

There are a few cases where I have seen novelists and picture book writers use nonfiction techniques to great effect. Most of them include…

Notes

Sure, lots of novels have author’s notes, but the ones I fall in love with tend to read like back matter in children’s nonfiction books. Take The Inquisitor’s Tale, by Adam Gidwitz. He begins, “My interest in the Middle Ages is entirely my wife’s fault…” and then goes on for 14 pages dissecting what is true in his novel and how much is made up. He also talks about the Bayeux Tapestry which, he says, isn’t a tapestry at all but rather, an embroidery of a 230-foot long graphic novel (or the Middle Ages equivalent thereof).

In his author’s notes for Heroes, Alan Gratz tells more about Pearl Harbor, where he got his inspiration, and explains a few things in the book that are outside of the historical timeline. He also talks about Asian Americans in comics and the legacy of Pearl Harbor.

In her notes to Boy Bites Bug, Rebecca Petruck provides a guide to eating bugs and includes a couple recipes. Author notes and recipes aren’t so unusual, so I really love it when fiction authors …

Map Out the World

Fantasy and fiction authors put a great deal of energy and imagination into world building. So I love it when they include a map on the end pages or first pages of their books. Whether it’s Avalon or Redwall, or the map drawn by The Last Mapmaker, seeing their world on paper makes it more real. Visual maps allow us to orient in space: which direction are the mountains? Where be there dragons?

Historical fiction feels richer when accompanied by a map. Alan Gratz includes a map of Pearl Harbor in Heroes, and Laurie Halse Anderson includes a great map of Boston in her novel, Rebellion 1776. Maps are a lot like illustrations, so they feel like a natural part of any story. That’s why I appreciate it when they include a…

Bibliography

This is where we find the gold – the truth behind the fiction. Gidwitz includes nine pages of annotated bibliography. Laurie Halse Anderson includes detailed “Notes on Sources” at the end of her book and Carol Baldwin – who I interviewed back in August – includes both endnotes and resources (a selected bibliography) in her historical fiction, Half-Truths. While I love end notes and chapter notes, I fall head over heels when I see a piece of fiction incorporating…

Footnotes, Appendices, and More

There is something about a footnote that just imbues a piece of writing with authority.  Even if – no, especially if – it is a work of fantasy. Take Jonathan Stroud’s first book in the Bartimaeus Trilogy, The Amulet of Samarkand. 

This is a tale of magical espionage, murder, and rebellion. Stroud wastes no time, introducing footnotes as a feature beginning on the second page of the story. Most of them are asides – comments by the narrator such as when talking about architecture and noting that those folks in Pisa clearly hadn’t paid attention to his engineering expertise when they built that tower.

My favorite use of footnotes is in Cindy Derby’s picture book, How to Walk an Ant. On one page she warns not to stab an ant, and in the footnote refers the reader to “How to Conduct a Funeral” in appendix 1. Swoon! Not only does she have footnotes, but she includes an appendix and a glossary! 

Baldwin doesn’t have any footnotes, but she does include photos and a family tree at the end of her book. Other authors, both fantasy and historical fiction, have included pronunciation guides and timelines. 

Next time you create a story, what will you borrow from the nonfiction writing toolbox?

Nancy Castaldo stretches Beyond Books for Kids

by Sue Heavenrich

Nancy Castaldo is an award-winning author who writes about the connections between science, people, and our planet. Her latest picture book, Whales in the City is a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection. She’s written about moose, wolves, and sniffer dogs for middle grade readers, and her books for young adults address environmental topics with global implications.

Her latest book is Squirrel: How a Backyard Forager Shapes Our World, a detailed dive into a common critter most of us see every day. And… it’s not written for kids. 

Like most folks, we’ve got squirrels a-plenty in our backyard: gray squirrels, red squirrels, chipmunks. This time of year they’re busy raiding the bird feeder! I wanted to learn more about them (squirrels) and Nancy’s book, so I reached out to her a few weeks ago.

Sue: Hi Nancy. I’ve got to know… why squirrels?

Nancy: Why not squirrels? That’s really what drew me to them. They’re everywhere, yet most of us only notice them when they’re entertaining us—or frustrating us. I wanted to take a closer look at these familiar creatures and invite readers to see them differently. After all, we already have two endangered squirrel species in the United States. Time is essential. My hope is that after reading Squirrel, people will pause and really consider them as vital members of our ecosystems. 

Sue: Why a book for adults rather than a picture book or middle grade book?

Nancy: Each book I write tells me what it wants to be. To explore squirrels as fully as I hoped to—with all their ecological, cultural, and historical significance—a book for adult readers felt like the right fit.

Nancy presenting one of her library programs

Sue: I love the structure of the book—the table of contents has a very "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" feel. Can you talk about how you came to this structure?

Nancy: Organizing Squirrel around the many roles squirrels play in our world felt natural. Each chapter highlights one of those identities—cultural icon, keystone species, dinner entree, endangered species, and so on. In a way, it’s similar to how I structured my middle grade book, Beastly Brains. Ask anyone about squirrels, and they’ll likely jump right into one of these roles—so I followed that instinctive pattern.

Sue: How is writing for adults different than writing for kids? Are there ways in which it’s similar?

Nancy: In both cases, it starts with research—lots of it. But the kinds of questions I ask scientists and the way I frame the answers differ. Writing for adults allows for more complexity and context, while writing for kids means choosing words and examples that meet them where they are. Still, my goals remain the same: to inform, inspire, and empower readers, no matter their age.

Sue: Do you have any advice for kidlit authors who want to try writing a book for adults?

Nancy: Read widely in the genre you want to write. It’s the same advice I give to writers working in kidlit: know what’s already out there, and be able to articulate how your book adds something new. Understanding where your work fits on the shelf is key, whether that shelf is for children’s books or adult nonfiction.

Sue: Will we be seeing a children’s book about squirrels in the future?

Nancy: There are already quite a few wonderful picture books about squirrels—so we’ll see! I’m currently working on something that takes a slightly different approach from what’s already on the shelves.

Sue:  Today is National Squirrel Appreciation Day. What’s the coolest thing you learned about squirrels while working on this project? And what can we do to appreciate them?

Nancy: One of the coolest things I discovered is that some squirrel mothers actually gift parts of their territory to their daughters. That kind of generosity in the animal world really caught my attention—it’s a fascinating glimpse into how squirrels maintain social and ecological balance within their populations.

As for appreciating squirrels, start by getting to know the squirrel species that live near you—you might be surprised by how many there are. Each species has its own story and challenges, from habitat loss to climate shifts. The more we learn about them, the more we can appreciate how deeply intertwined they are with our world.

Thank you, Nancy, for joining us today! Folks can find out more about Nancy and her books at her website, nancycastaldo.com. Follow her on BlueSky, X, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Writing Board Books part II ~ an editor's POV

 by Sue Heavenrich

Welcome to the GROG’s second discussion about Board Books. Today I’m sharing the table with two board book editors, Kate Riggs and Gabriela Baron. So grab your cup of … whatever … and let’s get to chatting!

Kate Riggs edits board books at The Creative Company. She began working as an editor in 2006, and served as managing editor from 2013 through 2021. She left the company in July 2021 but remains a freelancer for Creative Editions and continues to have a hand in producing the picture and board books. 

Gabriela Baron has been working as an editorial assistant at Charlesbridge for about three years. With a background in creative writing and poetry, she finds herself drawn to musical stories told in verse. She started acquiring her own frontlist titles over a year ago, mostly picture books and board books so far, but is interested in expanding into middle grade and YA.

Me: Kate, can you tell us about the process of creating a board book? How do you decide number of pages, size, etc? Laura Purdee Salas was a guest at our roundtable last week, so maybe you can talk about her books? 

Kate: When we dipped our toes into the board book market, we wanted to do it in our own way. So we intentionally made them nonfiction in content/concept, but illustrated with the same beautiful care as any of our picture books. From the beginning, we knew the page count and size we would be targeting, so for the majority of the board books, I wrote the texts within those parameters – basically, seven sentences. The only time we ever adapted one of our original picture books as a board book was with the special title What to Do with a Box, by Jane Yolen and Chris Sheban, which our art director figured out how to construct into an actual box. That was a feat! Things can get changed (not necessarily for the better) when they go from larger-format picture books to shrunken-down board books, and it annoys me when details in the art just get cut out ... as though they were insignificant and not part of a greater plan.

I loved working with Laura Purdie Salas on her most recent books for Editions (as well as Puddle Song, from 2023) because she's a poet who knows how to capture the essence of a thought so beautifully and succinctly, and she can do it in such a way that appeals to both reader and listener. She had submitted Puddle Song to us in 2021, and we signed it as a board book because we thought it would fit perfectly with some of our other board books that were poems rather than nonfiction. So when we were developing the concepts that eventually became When a Butterfly Goes to School and A Home Like This, I approached her about writing the manuscripts. I try not to be too intrusive with the fiction and poetry editing, but we did have to do a little dancing back and forth to get just the right words to encapsulate the concepts in those two books.

Me: I’m going to toss the same question over to Gabriela, but with a twist. Can you also address how you adapt an existing picture book to board book format? Darrin Lunde was one of our roundtable guests last week, and I noticed that his board books have fewer spreads and are sometimes in a different order than the original picture book.

Gabriela: Charlesbridge publishes both original board books and board adaptations, but we tend to do far more adaptations because the margins are much better when you are reusing an existing title. Original board books are a tough category because the print costs are proportionately higher to the price you can charge the consumer, and the number of units you need to sell to be profitable is thus higher as well. So most publishers are quite selective about original board editions.

The ideas for the backlist reuse board book projects can arrive through various channels, but they often come from our in-house creative working groups. And when it comes to books like Hot Pot Night! and Whose Egg Is That? I actually wasn’t the original hardcover editor of those titles. So my goal as board editor is always to preserve the tone and heart of the original picture book but cater it to a younger audience. 

The first step in the process is knowing that we’ll have to cut down our typical 32 to 40-paged picture books to fit our standard 20 to 22-paged board book. Vincent Chen’s Hot Pot Night! has super catchy “Hot pot, hot pot” refrains throughout, so when I was trimming the text/spreads, I knew I wanted to keep these sing-song phrases at the beginning, middle, and end to round out the story. 

As part of my process, I’ll also talk with the original editor and creators of the book to hear more about their key considerations when they first created the story and what might change given the new audience. When I was turning Whose Egg Is That? into a board book, Darrin Lunde and I discussed which animals we thought would be the most unique and appealing to babies and toddlers. We cut the killdeer from the board edition because having the word “kill,” even as part of a bird name, didn’t seem as fitting. Another animal that doesn’t make an appearance in the board book is the platypus. We felt that the rarity and surprise of a mammal laying an egg wouldn’t make the same impact among our littlest readers, so we opted to cut it (sorry, platypus!). 

Trim size and shape are often determined by the illustrations. Kelsey Oseid’s beautiful illustrations travel across the page in Whose Egg Is That?, so we chose a trim size proportional to the hardcover to maintain the horizontal orientation. The playful energy of Hot Pot Night! just called for a shaped book, so the decision to round the edges to mimic a hot pot was a no-brainer.

Me: What do you find is the biggest challenge in creating a book for an adult to read to a very young (0-2 years) child?

Gabriela: I’d say the biggest challenge would be just that! The concept of the book will need to initially catch the attention of the adult buyer and reader, but the story should ultimately cater to the little one who will want to reach for it again and again. It’s the classic conundrum: You are trying to make a book useful and memorable for two groups that differ widely in ages!

Kate: I've always maintained the philosophy that good writing is good writing, no matter the age or audience. When crafting books for the youngest learners, we strive to make them appealing to the ear, engaging for the eye, and palatable for the reader! (Because if it's a good book, you know you'll be reading it over and over.) One of the most satisfying experiences I've had is when children repeat a phrase or remember some detail from one of my board books – then I know [that book] has helped that child form a connection, learn something new, or provided a delight. So much happens as babies develop into toddlers, and we need to give them credit that they can be challenged, that they can connect the dots between their own life experiences and whatever they see or hear in books. It's an incredible privilege to create content for them. (I say this as an editor, writer, and mother!)

Me: What words of advice do you have for picture book authors who might want to try their hand at writing a board book? Or who want to write a picture book with the idea that it might be revised as a board book in the future?

Kate: Keep it simple but not simplistic. The best thing you can do is teach without condescension. Read aloud whatever you write to make sure it will work for the ear as well as the eye. Children are musical; they appreciate rhythm and cadence.

Gabriela: A simple story does not mean uninteresting. Every single word counts. Why might you opt for “stinky” instead of “smelly”? “Why might you say “slimy” over “slippery”? A slight change can make a big difference.

On another note, I often was told in my graduate studies that the easiest way to make a poem boring is writing a technically perfect one. If you are going to follow a rhythm in your story, always break it at least once. And if you’re stuck trying to force an exact rhyme, try out a slant rhyme instead. Or maybe lose it entirely. And remember – some of the most impactful stories are told in the fewest words.

Me: We’ll end with a question I know writers are wondering about: Do you accept manuscript submissions for board books?

Gabriela: Yes, we do! We accept electronic manuscripts (including text-only and illustrated) of all formats ranging from board books through young adult every year during our open submissions period from January to June. For more information on our submission guidelines and materials, you can visit our website at www.charlesbridge.com/pages/submissions

Kate: No, we don’t. We tend to generate concepts/prompts for board books ourselves, and seek out writers to pair with them. So, unfortunately, it's a pretty closed loop at the moment.

Me: Thank you so much, Kate and Gabriela for joining us today and sharing your accumulated wisdom!