An Interview with Myself to Celebrate Wonderland

Author Cynthia Surrisi has hijacked my blog today and is forcing me to answer hard questions. Because she has promised me many fish tacos, penny candy, and trinkets, I am going along with this crazy scheme.

Cynthia, take it away.

Cynthia: Ah, such POWER!!! I am delighted to be commandeering Barbara’s blog for the issue leading up to the publication of her newest middle grade novel, Wonderland. 

For those of you who are her fans and followers, I promise you will adore this new book. I wondered whether this adorable author could pull off yet another super winner, and sure enough, she has. See, this is why I am doing this. Barbara is useless at tooting her own horn. 

So, let's get started.

On sale 8/28/18

Cynthia: Here's an easy one: What five words best describe Wonderland?

Barbara: Friendship, confidence, dog-love, funny, heartfelt

Cynthia: What is one question you’ve never been asked at a school visit that you would like to be asked, and what is the answer to that question?

Barbara: What do you want young readers to learn from your books?

The answer: I write books to entertain young readers, not to teach them. But, I'd like to think that readers either come away with a better understanding of a character or situation they weren't familiar with - or - relate to a character or situation and find some degree of comfort or hope. 

Cynthia: Which of your books do you most like to read aloud? What part and why?

Barbara: The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis, especially the scenes with Starletta and Elvis. Starletta is so strange and funny and who wouldn't want to hear about Elvis's Spit and Swear Club? 

Cynthia: What is your writing process? Do you write every day?

Barbara: Call me weird, but every story starts with a title. From there, I spend a lot of time thinking about and getting to know my characters. When I have a hazy idea about the story, I just jump on in. I wish I could outline. I'd love that. But I rarely know where the story is going until the act of writing, which can feel like torture sometimes. I write by hand. I love the freedom of that. I revise constantly as I go along, never leaving anything too messy behind me.

I don't write every day unless I'm on a deadline. Some days I'd rather be walking my dogs. But that gives me good thinking time, which is an important part of any writer's process. 

Cynthia: What were the best and worst moments of your publishing journey so far?

Barbara: The best moments have been the times I've won a state book award voted on by children. That's the best validation there is for a children's writer. 

Another moment was when I found myself on a panel at a conference with Sharon Creech. I had adored her books for many years and felt so honored to actually be on that panel with her. A "pinch me" moment.

As for the worst moments, I'll fill you in over a glass of wine some time.

Sharon Creech (left) and me

Cynthia: Tell us about a book you wrote a long, long time ago that was so bad that it didn't get published.

Barbara: I wrote a book called Surf's Up, Nicky Weaver. It was my first attempt at writing for children - long before I discovered my voice. So, of course, it had no voice. It was bland and blah. The only good thing any editor had to say about it came from editor Richard Jackson, who liked that the dog in the story was named Jackson.

Cynthia: Show us a picture of your dogs and tell us what each one would say about the other: something positive and something gripe-y.

Barbara: Here are Ruby and Rocket.

Ruby (left) and Rocket

Ruby would say that Rocket annoys her by wanting to play all the time but also that she loves playing with Rocket (just not all the time).

Rocket would say that Ruby gets more attention than he does and won't play with her all the time.

Cynthia: I heard that an artist made a sculpture of one of the characters in one of your books. Can you tell us about it and show us a picture?

Barbara: A fabulous artist named Karen Hawkins made this amazing sculpture of Bird from Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia. I love it.

Cynthia: What's your favorite herb and how do you use it?

Barbara: Ha! I have no sense of smell so not a very sharp sense of taste. Herbs are just useless little specks of green to me.

  

Cynthia: Well, there you have it, friends. We’ve gotten the inside scoop from Barbara O’Connor. 

I hope it encourages you to get a copy of Wonderland from your favorite bookstore. I guarantee you’ll love it. 

**************

Cynthia Surrisi is the author of a fabulous series of middle grade mysteries set in Maine: The Quinnie Boyd Mysteries (The Maypop Kidnapping, Vampires on the Run, and A Side of Sabotage) - as well as the hilarious picture book, The Best Mother, illustrated by Diane Goode.  You can learn more about her at her website.

 

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Love That Cow

Okay....could I love that cow any more?
I don't think so.
Do I adore the work of Sharon Creech?
Um, heck, YEAH!

I love this book so dang much.

"...the smells and the heat and the noise were pouring in the windows and squeezing us from all sides."

*Sigh*

"It seemed they didn't want to waste friend effort on someone who was leaving town."

*Sigh again*

"The voice full of honey but the words...not."

*Big heaving sigh*

This book VIBRATES with action and sounds.....the WORDS:

Lurched

Ambled

Lumbered

Skittered

Lunged

Careened

Clambering

Zooming

Ogling

Screaming

Vibrating

Wailing

Bellowing

And then there is this:

"Sometimes an hour is a blink

A flash

A wink, a flicker

A dashing gallop

And sometimes

An hour stretches

Thuddingly

Second by second

An endless

Eternity

of drips"

THUDDINGLY?

Who even thinks up that word?

I really, really, really loved this book.

And so will you. 

But, um, sorry.

Pub date 8/30

Patience

The Boy on the Porch by Sharon Creech

Readers: 

I loved this book so much. Here's why: It is...

• Sweet
• Kind
• Warm
• Interesting
• Heartfelt
• Unique
• Lovely
• Sad
• Happy

Writers: 

Here's what you should notice when you read it - because Creech is a master and we can all learn from a master, right?

• Third-person omniscient point of view (seamlessly done)
• Somebody made a rule that children's books shouldn't have adults as main characters. Somebody (aka Sharon Creech) proves that brilliant writers can break rules any ole dang time they want to. So there. (*fist bump, Sharon*)
• The setting is timeless. Other than a truck, there is nothing to ground us in time. Could be 1940. Could be 2013. Who cares? Nobody.
• Every word counts.
• The main characters of John and Marta are brilliantly developed. Notice their lovely dialogue.
• Ms. Creech has proven, once again, that she is the master of setting up a story QUICKLY. (Like, um, first paragraph.)
• Creech is not afraid to make a young reader worry, fret and feel sad. And, come on, who doesn't love a good bout of worrying, fretting, and feeling sad every now and then? What can we learn from this? Don't be a wimpy writer. (At least, that's what I learned.)

It was a setup (Part 1)

Today I put on my teachy-preachy hat.

There! You've been warned. You may leave now, if you so choose.

One of the most critical parts of the structure of a book for children is the setup. 

What is setup?

The setup gives the reader all of the important basic information needed in order to become grounded in the story.

The setup answers the following questions:

• Who are the main characters?
• Where does the story take place?
• When does the story take place?
• And the most important question of all: What is the story about?

The setup will also reveal the genre of the book (e.g., fantasy, historical fiction, contemporary fiction), as well as the overall tone of the book (e.g., a humorous middle grade novel, a dark, edgy YA).

The setup should come as early as possible in your story. 

Repeat after me: 

The setup should come as early as possible in your story.

If you take too long to start - and complete - your setup, you run the risk of losing your reader from the get-go. Young readers want to know the who, where, when and what of a story quickly. They want to settle in and become invested in the story. They don’t want to have to keep reading page after page not knowing all the important basic information about the story.

A great example of a masterful setup is from Walk Two Moons by

Sharon Creech:

Gramps says that I am a country girl at heart, and that is true. I have lived most of my thirteen years in Bybanks, Kentucky, which is not much more than a caboodle of houses roosting in a green spot alongside the Ohio River.
 
We are two sentences into the story (TWO sentences) and we know that the main character is a thirteen-year-old “country girl” from Kentucky.

Just over a year ago, my father plucked me up like a weed and took me and all our belongings (no, that is not true - he did not bring the chestnut tree, the willow, the maple, the hayloft, or the swimming hole, which all belonged to me) and we drove three hundred miles straight north and stopped in front of a house in Euclid, Ohio.
 
Now we know that she has just moved from Kentucky to Ohio. 

In addition to telling us that the main character is a “country girl,” Creech now shows us:  he did not bring the chestnut tree, the willow, the maple, the hayloft, or the swimming hole, which all belonged to me.
 
Obviously, those things are important to her.

The next line of the story is dialogue that drives home the point yet again:

“No trees?” I said. “This is where we’re going to live?”
 
Two paragraphs into the story (TWO paragraphs) and look how much we know!

Let’s continue:

“No,” my father said. “This is Margaret’s house.”

The front door of the house opened and a lady with wild red hair stood there. I looked up and down the street. The houses were all jammed together like a row of birdhouses. In front of each house was a tiny square of grass, and in front of that was a thin gray sidewalk running alongside a gray road.
 
Now we know two more characters: father and Margaret.


We know that the main character does not know Margaret because she refers to her as “a lady.”

We know that main character does not care much for this location. The houses are "all jammed together" and there is only a “tiny square of grass” and there is a “thin gray sidewalk running alongside a gray road.” 

Notice how the choice of the words jammed, tiny and gray reveal a lot about how she perceives the setting.

The next line, which is dialogue, reinforces, once again, her love of all things country:

“Where’s the barn?” I asked. “The river? The swimming hole?”
"Oh, Sal," my father said. "Come on. There's Margaret."
 
We know that the main character’s name is Sal.
 
A few paragraphs later, we are introduced to another character:

I didn’t know it then, but that face belonged to Phoebe Winterbottom, a girl who had a powerful imagination, who would become my friend, and who would have many peculiar things happen to her.
 
In addition to giving us vital story information, Creech is also beginning to reel us in, especially with that word peculiar.

The second chapter (only four pages into the story - FOUR pages) jumps forward in time, but continues the setup:

It was after all the adventures of Phoebe that my grandparents came up with a plan to drive from Kentucky to Ohio, where they would pick me up, and then the three of us would drive two thousand miles west to Lewiston, Idaho.
 
Now we have two more characters, Sal’s grandparents.

We know that this is a contemporary story, since they are driving.

We can also assume it is summertime, since Sal is not in school.

Two paragraphs later, we learn that Sal’s mother is not in her life:

My father started chipping away at a plaster wall in the living room of our house in Bybanks shortly after my mother left us one April morning.
 
And two more paragraphs later:

I was only thirteen, and although I did have a way with maps, it was not really because of that skill that I was going, nor was it to see the “whole ding-dong country” that Gram and Gramps were going. The real reasons were buried beneath piles and piles of unsaid things.

Some of the real reasons were:
1. Gram and Gramps wanted to see Momma, who was resting peacefully in Lewiston, Idaho.
2. Gram and Gramps knew that I wanted to see Momma, but that I was afraid to.
3. Dad wanted to be alone with the red-headed Margaret Cadaver. 

He had already seen Momma, and he had not taken me.
 
There! 

Now we know what the story is about: Thirteen-year-old Sal is traveling to Idaho with her grandparents to see her mother, which she has reservations about.

We are only on page five - PAGE 5, PEOPLE!  - and we know the who, the where, the when and the what of Walk Two Moons. 

We are grounded in the story and ready to move forward to see what is going to happen.

You have just been set up by a master. 

A round of applause for Ms. Creech!