A Q&A with David L. Harrison about Now You See Them, Now You Don't 0

Introduction

After Ms. Hutchens’ fourth and fifth grade students in Colorado read Now You See Them, Now You Don’t by David L. Harrison, the students brainstormed questions for the author.

Here are David’s answers! What questions would you ask him? If you’ve got questions, you can find David online at www.davidlharrison.com and you can send your questions to david@davidlharrison.com. You can also download this Q&A as a discussion guide here. 

Questions from the 4th Graders

WHEN DID YOU START WRITING POETRY?

I made up my first poems when I was six years old. I decided to become a writer the same year I got married fifty-seven years ago. Well yes, I agree, fifty-seven years is a long time!

ARE YOU GOING TO WRITE ANOTHER BOOK?

Yes! I work every weekday on one book or another. I’m working on several new ones now. Six of them are already accepted to be published sometime during the next few years.

HOW DID YOU MAKE SUCH AN AMAZING TITLE?

Choosing the right title is an important job. My editor, the artist, and I all made suggestions. The final decision is the editor’s so she chose Now You See Them, Now You Don’t, but I don’t remember who thought of it. Maybe I did!

WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR ILLUSTRATIONS?

I wish I could illustrate my own books but I’m not that good an artist. I write the words and my editor finds an artist to paint the pictures. For this book the wonderful art was done by Giles Laroche who lives and works in his house in Salem, Massachusetts, and in a 230-year-old barn in southwestern New Hampshire. Wasn’t I lucky?

HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS STUFF?

I don’t! Some of it I know. When I went to college I studied science. But almost always before I start writing I must first get ready to write. Call it research. I read books and articles about my subject. I make notes to look at later. And many, many times I get fresh new ideas for my own work when I read what experts are saying. You need to do the same thing. We all do!

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO PUBLISH YOUR BOOK?

From the day I sent my idea to editor Karen Boss to the day I held my first copy of the new book took two years, nine months, and seven days. Does that seem like a long time to you? It was really pretty fast in the world of book publishing. Sometimes it takes twice that long!

WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE A WRITER?

I write because it’s my favorite kind of work. I love my work! But to be a writer also means that I must have good self discipline. No one makes me get up each morning at 6:00 a.m. to get started. I’m my own boss so I alone must decide what is important to me and then see to it that I do it! Being a writer means that I get to go  places in my mind that I’ll never really see. It means that I can work all day in my pajamas! It means that I am using my own imagination, my own words, my own effort to make up a poem or a new story or create a new nonfiction book. It means that I get to talk to important people, like I’m doing this morning as I read your letters!

HOW MANY BOOKS DO YOU HAVE?

I’ve had ninety-two books published and six more are on their way. Think I’ll make it to one hundred? Some of my books, or parts of them, have been included in more than 185 anthologies published by other people, here and in many other countries around the world.

WHERE DO YOU WORK?

I work in my office, which is eighteen steps from my bed, down the hall, first door on my right. Hard to beat that!

DO YOU ONLY WRITE POETRY?

I love poetry but I also write fiction, nonfiction, and books for teachers.

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL?

I liked school, especially math and science. When I was your age, I collected all sorts of things from nature, everything from insects and bird wings to sea shells and snake skins. Today I often write about nature so you can see that writers tend to write about what they know and like.

ARE YOU COMING OUT WITH ANY NEW BOOKS SOON?

I’ve had two new books in 2016. In 2017 I don’t think anything is scheduled but there should be a cluster of them in 2018 and 2019. I don’t get to decide on when my books will come out. That’s for the publisher to choose.

HAVE YOU EVER WRITTEN A CHAPTER BOOK?

No, but I’ve thought about writing one for ages. I did recently finish a story for middle grades that isn’t published yet, and I have three more stories in mind that I hope to write over the next few years.

WHY DOES THE FLOUNDER HAVE TWO EYES ON ONE SIDE?

So it can see its food swimming nearby. Nature has given the flounder this advantage. It’s hatched with two eyes where they should be but as it matures one of the eyes slowly moves to the other side. That way the fish can lie hidden on the sea floor and keep an eye out (well, keep two eyes out) for something yummy to swim by.

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU BEEN REJECTED?

Hundreds! I was turned down 67 times in a row before I sold my first story in 1962. I still get rejected all the time but not as much as I once did when I was learning how to write. A writer never knows what an editor might need so sometimes I get lucky and sometimes I don’t. You just have to know that being rejected is part of the business of being a writer. No use crying about it or having a pity party. You try again with a different editor. This week I sold a book to an editor who turned down the idea a year ago because her situation has changed and now she can use it.

DID YOU TRAVEL TO AFRICA?

No, sadly. I always wanted to go there but so far it hasn’t happened. But I’m young. There’s still plenty of time!

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WRITING?

I started writing stories for adults in 1959. I was twenty-two years old then. Ten years later, when I was thirty-two, I wrote my first book for kids. It’s called The Boy With a Drum. You can still find used ones on Amazon.com. It sold more than two million copies. Because of it I decided that I should try more books for boys and girls. Other than marrying my wife, it was the smartest thing I ever did.

HOW MANY BOOKS CAN YOU WRITE IN A YEAR?

I try to work twelve hours each day five days a week, so I write a lot! A new book takes me anywhere from a month to two years, depending on what it is, how long it is, and how much research I need to do before I begin to write.

HOW DID YOU COME TO LIKE POETRY SO MUCH?

Poetry is fun to write. It’s a game you play with words, trying to find just the word you need and putting into the line where it belongs. I like to write all kinds of poems from silly to serious and from short to long. It’s fun to read poems aloud too.

WHEN DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO STOP?

You sound just like my wife! My standard answer is that I’ll write as long as I can lift a pencil and remember what it’s for.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK YOU’VE WRITTEN SO FAR?

That’s a tough one. It’s usually the most recent book so I’ll pick Now You See Them, Now You Don’t.

HOW OLD ARE YOU NOW?

I’m seventy-nine. Oh my gosh! Did I say that? Please don’t tell my wife. She thinks I’m twenty-six!

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE FAMOUS?

It feels wonderful to be famous! At least that’s what I hear. I wouldn’t know. Some of my books are fairly famous though, and that’s close enough for me.

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN IN THE WORLD?

Most of the states, Canada, Mexico, Virgin Islands, Europe, Malaysia, South America . . . . One time I went to talk to kids in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I got there by flying east across the Atlantic Ocean and returned home later by coming across the Pacific Ocean and back across America. I went all the way around the world to visit with kids in school. So now you can see who is important. You are!

Questions from the 5th Graders

WERE YOU ALIVE IN 1963?

Yes, I was alive in 1963. That year I blew out twenty-six candles on my cake. My daughter Robin would have been a messy three-year-old helping me, and her bratty brother Jeff hadn’t been thought of yet. My first job was in a biology lab in Evansville, Indiana where I spent days working with mice, rats, and such. Yes, I got bitten a few times. Yes, it hurt. No, I didn’t care for that.

WHY DID YOU SWITCH CAREERS?

The reason I left science was to find a job that would give me more opportunities to work on my writing. I wasn’t a very good writer yet but I wanted to be. I guess it worked out. Now You See Them, Now You Don’t is my ninety-second published book and I have six more that I’m working on.

HOW DO YOU WRITE YOUR BOOKS?

I’ve talked to a lot of grownups in my life who didn’t ask questions as thoughtful as yours. The secret to my writing? Here it comes. I get ready to write before I write my first word.

I’ll use the book you read as an example.

One day in April, 2013, I sent a note to an editor at Charlesbridge Publishing that said, “I want to write a collection of poems about animals that use natural camouflage and have written the first three to show what I mean. I’ve listed a couple of dozen animals representing eight classes. I’ve attached the poems.” The three poems I sent were octopus, polar bear, and walking stick. And notice that I also included a list of other possible animals to include and they came from different groups: mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and so on. 

The editor liked the idea and about three years later it became a book. But long before I mailed that letter, I had been reading about animals that use camouflage. I read a lot of books, looked at pictures, made lists, and thought about how I wanted to do the writing. I decided that these poems would have a lot of science in them and that I would also add a short note about each one in the back of the book. I began making lists of what I wanted to know and keeping folders of notes about each animal that I added.

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT?

One thing I love about the time before writing begins is that I always discover such fascinating information. I’ll be looking for one thing and find something else entirely that I never dreamed existed. That really gets me excited! And it helps me make my writing more interesting for you. I also learn the right words to describe my subjects. What sounds they make. What their babies are called. The better you prepare, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you write. It just makes sense, doesn’t it? Not only that, I get to learn about animals I’ve never seen, places I’ve never been, and thoughts I’ve never thought before.

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN TO WRITE A STORY (OR A POEM)?

That usually isn’t a problem because I start out to do one or the other. But there have been times when I thought I wanted to write one and changed my mind about it after I did my homework. Another time I set out to write a nonfiction book about mountains. While getting ready for it I kept reading about the important role that glaciers play in shaping and tearing down mountains. When I finished the first book, I decided to write one about glaciers. While getting ready for that one, I kept reading about how some of those big glaciers had been a problem when the first people to arrive here 15,000 years ago couldn’t get around them to move farther south where it was warmer. So when I finished the glacier book I wrote one about the first people.

HAVE YOU EVER STRUGGLED WITH WRITING A BOOK?

Sure. Writing rarely goes as smoothly, quickly, or easily as you might expect. It’s hard work getting writing right. Now You See Them, Now You Don’t took three years. Mammoth Bones and Broken Stones took five years. The Mouse Was Out at Recess took nine years. But this is an important part of the reason why I love writing. If it were too easy, there would be less pride in getting it to work! I get up every morning at 6:00 a.m. and try to write for twelve hours that day. No one makes me do this. I do it because I love it that much.

Rich Michelson on the So-Called Rules of Language and Literature 0

The following is an excerpt from the blog post that originally appeared on The Prosen People on February 20, 2017.

A riddle: Which came first, the thought or the word? “In the Beginning was the Word,” but was that word thought into being? Or did the word create the thought?

. . .

When artist/illustrator/educator/mensch Neil Waldman and I were having lunch fifteen years ago while collaborating on Too Young for Yiddish—through which I learned that the Yiddish language had evolved out of a mixture of Hebrew, Polish, and German, and that Isaac Bashevis Singer proudly claimed that Yiddish was the only language without a word for “armaments”—I asked Neil his thoughts about whether a language without specific words for weapons would inhibit thoughts of violence. I don’t recall his answer but I do remember him casually mentioning the life story of Eliezer Ben Yehuda and his quest to invent words and make Hebrew the daily language of the Jews. I was fascinated. Neil, who lived in Israel at one time, said: “I was going to write that story, but couldn’t find my way in. I now give you the idea as a gift.” It took me fifteen years to find my way in. (Thanks, Neil.)

Imagine trying to get Italians to all start speaking Latin again—and succeeding within your lifetime? Hebrew began to die out as a “living language” around the time of the Maccabees. Because it was used primarily for prayer, it hadn’t incorporated new words for anything invented since the language solidified 2000 years earlier. Ben Yehuda changed all that.

Of course, I didn’t think of the amount of work such labor entails. What fun, I thought instead, to be Adam naming the animals all over again! I wondered how Ben Yehuda made up a name for “ice cream” or “bicycle”—neither of which existed in biblical times. (You can find out if you read the book!)

The Language of Angels is a book about history, and it is a book about friendship and it is a book about family, and it is a book about the current political Mideast situation, and it is a book about the “reinvention” of Hebrew. And now I am at the end of this post and I’ve figured out what I wanted to say: my book is mostly about my love of words in and of themselves, and how much fun it is to play with language. That is something I hope to share with all children and those of you who once were children yourselves.

Richard Michelson is the proprietor of R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, Massachusetts. He has written many acclaimed books for adults and children, including The Language of Angels: A Story About the Reinvention of Hebrew and Fascinating: The Life of Leonard Nimoy (Knopf Books for Young Readers).

Launch Party for Hatching Chicks in Room 6: The Book has Hatched! 0

By Caroline Arnold

In May 2014, I was invited to do an author visit at Haynes Center for Enriched Studies elementary school in West Hills, California. After my presentation, Jennifer Best, a kindergarten teacher at Haynes, asked me if I had ever written a book about hatching chicks. Each spring, she told me, she brings eggs to her classroom and hatches chicks. But she said she couldn’t find any books that were written at the right level for her kindergarten students. I hadn’t written any books about chickens, although I had written a number of books about other kinds of birds and how they hatched their eggs. I liked the idea of a book about hatching chicks, and a year later I was in Mrs. Best’s classroom learning about eggs and chicks along with the children and documenting the process with photos. My new book, Hatching Chicks in Room 6 is the result of that project.

On January 19, 2017, I visited Haynes CES to present Hatching Chicks in Room 6 to the school, and to celebrate its publication with Mrs. Best, her students who are in the book, and their families.

The party was after school, but earlier in the day I gave two assemblies in the auditorium to all grades, where I presented the book and talked about the process of writing it.

Even for students who didn't have Mrs. Best for kindergarten (she is one of three kindergarten teachers in the school), there was school-wide excitement about the book. During the incubation and hatching process many students in other classes drop by Room 6 to see the eggs and chicks and check their progress. During the assembly I gave a book to Mrs. Meade, the principal, and to the librarian for the school library.

The party was held in Mrs. Best’s classroom and began with a presentation of an autographed book to each child. I also gave each child a postcard and a chick lollipop—they could choose a yellow, pink, or blue lollipop. To my surprise, the pink and blue chicks were just as popular as the yellow ones. (I ordered the lollipops online.)

After the presentation and photographs it was time to eat. I provided cupcakes decorated to look like chicks. (I bought the candy eyes and beaks at a local cake decorating shop.) We also had some healthier food—fruit, cheese, crackers and veggie sticks—and by the end of the party, all the food was completely gone. 

The children who are in the book are now in second grade. They were thrilled to get the books and so were their parents. Almost all the children who are in the book came to the party, even several who had moved to other schools. I want to thank Jennifer Best, her kindergarten students of 2014-15, their families, and everyone at Charlesbridge for helping to make this a great book!

A Q&A with David Biedrzycki, Author of Groundhog's Runaway Shadow 1

We spoke with David Biedryzcki, the author of Groundhog's Runaway Shadow, about his inspiration and process behind writing and illustrating the book, just in time for Groundhog Day! 

The idea of a runaway shadow is something that’s often played with in fiction. What drew you to this idea?

Initially, the idea for the story wasn’t at all about a groundhog. It was about a very boring person. His shadow one day decided it wanted more out of life than to just work in the quality control department of a Grass Seed Company watching grass grow.

As with most of my ideas, I started showing it in little bits during my presentations at school visits. The idea wasn’t resonating very well with students. I was thinking of shelving the idea for a while but one day after a presentation a student came up to me and suggested she’d like to see the main character as an animal. Bingo!

The story has a little more meat to it, too. It can also be read as a story about growing up, and staying friends even when you change. Why did you think this lesson was important for kids?

Good friends have much in common. But the friends I find the most interesting are the ones that are diverse and have different interests. Those are the friends I learn the most from.

Sometimes I might not totally agree with their points of view or beliefs, but deep down inside they are good people and good friends. They just have a different take on life than I do. I respect that and they respect me. I think sometimes that’s lacking in today's social media society, where a lot of people are spewing out their point of view and not taking time to listen or understand anyone else’s.

Groundhog’s Runaway Shadow works as an introduction to the tale of Groundhog Day. Did you originally think of this story with that in mind?

Well ,when that student suggested I have an animal as the main character, I immediately thought “groundhog,” with a different take on the story. Sometimes the groundhog sees his shadow and sometimes he doesn’t. So where is the shadow? Is his shadow still sleeping? Did his shadow run away? Why did it run away? Once I had that idea in place, the shadow became a character with it’s own wants and desires. I researched and found out that groundhogs by nature are very sedentary. They have a very limited palate: clover, tree bark and dandelions. Boring. But when the groundhog was little, he acted like a little kid, full of energy and fun. As he got older, though, he was expected to act a certain way. That’s when his shadow started having his own ideas.

Tell us a little about the process of writing and illustrating a book. Do the illustrations come first, or do the words? How do you work on both in harmony?

It has always been the drawing first. The drawings, for me, always plant the seed. I’ve always worked like that and probably will continue to create like that forever. I draw and then write the words. When I get stuck for words, I do more drawings. That’s my process.

Here are some drawings that inspired the beginning ideas for Groundhog’s Runaway Shadow.