How did you come up with the idea for the
Annie Mouse series?
Throughout my life, I
have had a great deal of my creative inspiration come to me in dream form. I had been working on an academic article on
imaginary friends, but in the middle of working on it I had a dream in which an
angel showed me a children’s book, complete with the title: Annie Mouse Meets
her Guardian Angel. I got up and
transcribed everything from the dream and that eventually became my first book
in the series. The ideas flowed from there.
Have your education degrees and past work
experience helped you as you write these children’s books?
Absolutely! Aside from my work as an Elementary/Early
Childhood Education Professor at Slippery Rock University, where I prepare
people to be early childhood teachers, I hold a K-8 teaching certificate, with additional
certifications in early childhood education, K-12 Reading, and K-12 gifted
education. I have literally taught at
every grade level. One thing that became
perfectly clear was how important an understanding of child development is to
being an effective teacher. Children’s
perceptions of what is happening around them are often very different from the
way adults view the same reality. Adults spend a great deal of time being
frustrated with the behavior of children and go into discipline mode, which
adds to the hurt, anger and frustration for both adult and child. Often, what is needed is to sit down and read
a good book that helps children understand the meaning and intentions of the adults
in their world. I taught remedial reading for many years and discovered that,
in many cases, reading problems went away once the social-emotional issues were
addressed. I focused on using
“bibliotherapy” in my reading classes, so it was natural that, once I began
writing my own books that they would fit into that genre. Each of my books was inspired by my
experiences working with children.
Through my position at
the university, where I teach a variety of early childhood courses, including
literacy and Social Studies methods, I have come to learn that the majority of pre-service
teachers view Social Studies as something that is “boring.” I’ve also learned that
many believe Route 66 no longer exists.
Since I travel the historic route every year, I saw another opportunity
to incorporate many instances of Annie’s confusion at what she is seeing and
hearing while teaching a slice of American history in a more exciting, engaging
manner. The result is my two latest books, the companion books: Annie Mouse’s Route
66 Adventure: A Photo Journal and Annie Mouse’s Route 66 Family Vacation, the chapter
book.
Are there more books planned for the series?
YES! I always have ideas for several others, and
have notebooks filled with “scribbles.” I’m not quite certain which one will be
next, it just depends which one “pulls” me the most. I would like to do more Photo Journal books and
have begun planning one for Pennsylvania. I have other “issue” books in mind, too, such
as Annie Mouse needing to get glasses, one of the little brothers playing with
matches, and- eventually one that deals with Daddy dying, but I’m not ready to
tackle that one yet.
What’s your writing process like for a new
book? Do the plot and circumstances come on their own, or do you see something
in life around you and think, “This would be perfect for Annie Mouse to
experience!”?
With the exception of
the first book that “came to me” in a dream, I consciously developed the rest
of my books from something in my life -memories and circumstances- that I felt
would be perfect for Annie Mouse to experience. I write from things I have personally experienced,
so that I could write from a place of my own heart and soul; experiences that
have touched me deeply. Each of my books, including the first one, has a very
personal story behind it, which I will share with the St. David’s conference
attendees.
People give me ideas
all of the time, but unless I have had an in-depth experience with the topic,
it won’t feel authentic to me. I come from a very large family and have taught
in so many different settings, that I have so many more Annie Mouse adventures
to tell!
My newly released
chapter book, Annie Mouse’s Route 66 Family Vacation, incorporates many of the
little “events” that children experience in life. Circumstances that seemed
like they would make a good plot, but wouldn’t have worked well in a
stand-alone picture book, became “episodes” in the chapters. All of them were things that happened to me,
my children, students or things I have seen or witnessed on my travels. For instance, when Annie gets car sick, and
none of her siblings are happy with the results, came from a recollection of
one of my first car trips in a relative’s new car. When the Mouse Family stops
at a “Flea Market” and the children wonder why they are selling fleas- that was
something one of my own children asked in confusion as a young child.
I do eventually want
to write the story where Daddy dies. Not only have I lost my own father, I had
to help a six-year-old through the loss of her father. I couldn’t write that
book from an authentic viewpoint if I didn’t have the personal experience of
working one-on-one with a young child and witnessing the range of emotions she
experienced. That book is sketched out
in one of my notebooks, but I’m just not ready to say good-bye to Daddy Mouse
yet.
Tell us a little about what you’ll be sharing
with us at the St. Davids conference!
Some of the things
that I’ll be sharing include:
· aspects of child development that are
important to understand in order to write for young children
· defining bibliotherapy and sharing examples
· how to find your own unique voice for writing
children’s stories
· “dos and don’ts”
· my inspiration behind each of the books: from
dreams to getting my “Kicks on 66”
· my writing process and “getting started”
No comments:
Post a Comment