When our son Will was ten years old, he wanted a new bike—not just any bike, but a chopper-style Schwinn Stingray that cost $169.00. It sounded like a reasonable request except for the fact that he already had a good bike, so we told him he had to come up with a way to earn the money. He came up with the idea of starting a poop-scooping business in our neighborhood. This industrious kid bought a scooper, printed hilarious flyers, and went to all the neighbors. Then he began, literally, cleaning up. In six weeks, he earned every penny for his new bike. He also became thoroughly burned out on scooping poop and as soon as the bike was in his possession, he promptly went out of business. (As a now 16-year-old, neighbors still inquire about using his services. He has a good laugh about that one.)

I knew I wanted to weave the poop-scooping business into a story, but I also knew it wasn't enough to anchor a story or drive a plot. Enter the main characters, Russell and Shawn. For six years, my husband and I coached soccer teams at an under-resourced elementary school in our community. There we met two boys, who were both best friends and cousins, and were as scrappy, hilarious, enterprising and adventurous as they come. Through coaching them, taking them camping, and having them over to our house over several years, we grew to know and love them. I observed the tight bond those two boys had and was so inspired to write a story where they played the leading roles. So now I had main characters and a business venture. Still not enough, but close. What did Russell and Shawn want? What would stand in their way?

As a dog lover, it has distressed me greatly to see how dogs can be viewed as simply useful for protection, or as an extension of identity. Around the time when I was thinking about this story, I witnessed a man beating a pit bull tied up to his bumper. I saw kids who had grown terrified of dogs because their only experiences were negative and scary. I read everything I could about dog-fighting. With Russell and Shawn being bullied and feeling powerless, I felt that acquiring a ferocious dog to protect them and give them a sense of identity could be their driving force. Uncovering a dog-fighting ring in the process could require even more of the two main characters, as they come to realize that the dog they had wanted for protection, needed protecting, too.

I had my story—and started writing.

Many teachers make use of Dear Mr. Henshaw when they're teaching letter-writing units, but it provides wonderful reading when read for pleasure, too.

For a great story behind the story, head over to Anita Silvey's Children's Book-a-Day Almanac, where she has written eloquently about this beloved author's books.

I couldn’t get Willy out of my head. I began to wonder what happened to him. Maybe someone had stolen him. But why would someone steal a dog?

That seed began to grow. Then, the first sentence of the story came to me: “The day I decided to steal a dog was the same day my best friend, Luanne Godfrey, found out I lived in a car.”

I have no idea why the main character presented herself to me as being homeless. But it was a writing challenge I was ready to take on. I had to crawl inside the head of that little girl and imagine what her day-to-day life was like. Where would she wash her hair? How would she do her science project? How did it feel when she couldn’t go to ballet lessons with her friends like she used to?

The character of Mookie was inspired by an elderly gentleman I met while visiting my mom in South Carolina. When you meet someone named Mookie, well, you just have to put him in your book. (But I made up the part about him only having three fingers on one hand. That’s the fun part about writing fiction.)

The story and the characters are as funny as Mark Twain and the setting is as distinctive as Lake Woebegone ... this is warm-hearted comedy at its best. You won't want the book to end.

Ideal for anyone from ages 10 to 100. This book has been enjoyed as a book club discussion book by all ages. Need a laugh? Read it today.

Jane discovers a charm which grants wishes, half of a wish to be precise. So if one wishes to be invisible, one is only half-invisible. If one wants to be rescued, one is rescued half-way. As you can imagine, the outcome for Jane and her siblings Mark, Katherine, and Martha delight kids. As a fantasy, it is gentle and warm and satisfies in all the right places.

A friend told me she was having trouble finding a good “soul book” for her son, Liam. I’ve cultivated a little cadre of “moles,” moms who tell me about their kids, to give me story material. This mom was the best portrait photographer I know, sensitive to the details a writer finds delicious. Sarah’s my favorite mole. Knowing Sarah so well, I knew what she meant by soul book: A story that recognizes our animal nature, celebrates it, then elevates the reader to compassion. “What books does Liam like now?” I asked.

“He likes books with bears. Sometimes Liam thinks he’s a bear.”

I discovered Liam became most bear-like when his dad was away. He’d stock his back-yard fort with sticks and stones and roar boisterously to protect his big sister and mom. I should say, right away, that Sarah is not a trembling flower. She’s muscled and bigger than life. Still. With Dad away, Liam was clearly in charge of Homeland Security.

I thought of my own son, naked without a stick. And my brother, in another time, naked without his cap gun. There’s a wild energy in boys—I call it Big Hairy Loudness—that threatens to spin out of control. If I don’t speak for all women, I think I speak for many: this makes me nervous.

A boy’s world is dominated by women, including moms, teachers and authors!, who are often well-meaning, but viscerally afraid of the hairy, scary loudness of boys. Is this why so few children’s books celebrate their nature? Is it why we admonish, “Use your inside voice.” “Be careful!” “No sticks in here!” Yet, fierceness is valuable. It’s fierceness that allows us to do battle against injustice and protect the people we love.

Here’s how the story goes: With Papa away, Liam is the man in the house. When Mama opens windows wide, she demonstrates her hopeless naivete. To protect sleeping Mama, he traps the bear . . . but then becomes compassionate, because fierceness without compassion is dangerous. Liam recognizes Bear’s hunger and cleverly gathers food. When Liam feeds Bear, he feeds his own big hairy loudness at the same time. Fed, the bear is no longer a threat to sleeping mama, so Liam offers him a way to “climb out, to be a bear.”

There are two bears in ROAWR!, although both of them are Liam. There’s the boy-Liam, who does bear-like things (he “slippers on his furry feet,” growls and is fiercely protective) and there’s also the real bear, whom he traps, feeds and releases (thereby feeding his own soul, and setting it free). I borrowed some of the ideas in Iron John, by Robert Bly, and tapped into iconic metaphors like fishing in a lake (the soul). Throughout the story, you can hear the drumbeat of Liam’s own heart (thump thump) demonstrating courage and compassion for all things dear—sleeping mamas and roaring bears.

More and more, I recognize how rhythmic and colorful language can captivate a reader, teach language, reading and empathy. So ROAWR! has colorful phrases (Mama is “snore-asleep”) and musicality. Consider:

One dark and snarly night
when Papa was away,
and Liam was a-snuggled in,
he heard the forest crack and snap!
His heart thumped, Danger!

When I read this story, I ask children what they would do in Liam’s predicament. How would they stock their fort? Take on their journey? I might accompany my reading with a drum or ask children to tell me about their own forts, or draw a picture of the things they hear in the night.

As I grappled with the question of whether a person should ever act violently, and of when and if and why a nation should engage in a war, my mind flew back to a different era, a different circumstance, a different culture, and a family—my own—in which people I knew had debated the same two questions, many years ago: India, 1941. The time of Hitler and the time of Mahatma Gandhi. An era when the British fought for the freedom of the world, while denying freedom to the dark-skinned natives of its colonies; when Indians rose to protest inequality using their powerful and age-old tradition of ahimsa or nonviolence, and yet practiced the caste system within their own society; when women, even of the highest caste, were ill-treated by their men; when that cycle of cruelty was continued in so many extended family homes by women who oppressed one another.

The first character to form in mind, strangely enough, wasn't the one who ended up being the protagonist. It was the protaonist's brother, Kitta—whose struggles embody the question that fueled the story: is nonviolence always an option or is violence sometimes inevitable? Kitta’s character is inspired by those unsung heroes whose sacrifices are largely forgotten: Indian soldiers and soldiers from other British colonies, who, though they themselves belonged to conquered nations, volunteered to fight, to die for the cause of freedom during World War II.

When I started writing, however, something unexpected and magical happened. An image entered my mind—of a teenager standing at the foot of a staircase she was forbidden to climb. And I knew this girl would take the risk to climb those stairs, whatever the cost, because this girl was like my own mother—a woman who as a teenager in India in 1941, was forced, like Vidya, the protagonist to rebel against the norms of her society just to climb the stairs to the visit the library in her extended family home; a woman who encouraged me to explore the spiritual underpinnings of the Hindu faith just as Vidya does in the book; a woman who climbed the stairs for me as much as for her own self—although she didn't know it at the time.

Although the novel was partly inspired by my mother’s experience growing up in an oppressive extended family home, and by the unsung Indian heroes of WWII, it also owes much to a very different group of people: the everyday Indians who had taken part in the Gandhian nonviolence movement and whose stories were also largely neglected in adolescent literature.

So, while I was writing, I was extremely conscious of not wanting to take one side on the question of violence vs. nonviolence. In Climbing the Stairs, Vidya and Kitta are unable to agree, even at the end, although they resolve their conflict when Vidya accepts her brother’s right to a different opinion. The central debate on the violence-nonviolence issue remains open-ended on purpose, because I believe that an essential aspect of nonviolence is learning to truly respect diversity of opinion.

I also wanted to ensure that all points of view were heard and respected equally in the story with respect to other themes in the book such as colonialism and Indian culture. It was important to me to show different sides to all these complex issues, and I did it by creating characters who expressed varied opinions and showing liberal and compassionate as well as unkind people belonging to both Indian and British cultures. Appa, for instance, is liberal as a result of his Indian culture and Hindu beliefs; the extended family, however, is oppressive because of what they consider to be Indian culture and Hindu beliefs.

When you read this book, you enter another culture and another time. But I hope that when you set it down again, when you discuss the book's characters and conflicts, you will see that this book is not just about long ago and far away, Climbing the Stairs is about here and about now.

Kitta’s struggles confront many high school students every day in a different form and a different environment —the struggle over when, if ever, a person should resort to violent means; and the other question in the forefront of his mind, is one that remains unresolved in my own—the question of when a nation should go to war. Kitta’s inner debate about violence is nothing if not relevant in America today. And his choice is the choice made by every American soldier who fights for freedom across the world.

Appa’s sacrifice is no different than the sacrifice made by those who fought alongside Martin Luther King during the civil rights movement, nor is his dedication to the ideal of nonviolence different from that of Jane Addams and other Americans who were devoted to peace.

And the hope that Vidya preserves in the face of the oppression she endures is not just my mother’s hope, it is the hope for freedom that every woman and every minority must have in the face of inequality, anywhere, at any time, in our shared human history.

Ultimately, Climbing the Stairs is not just about a girl growing up in another culture. It is also about the teenagers I met at an inner city school who remain hopeful despite the violence they encounter each day; it is about the courage that people have in America and across the world to believe in themselves and their chosen way to fight for freedom; and most of all, it is about the validity of varied answers to a single question and about respecting and truly accepting our differences when we disagree—which is the basis of any democracy.

With the Crispin books, however, I had a notion of the complete sweep of the story, from the beginning, to an end.

A major problem for me, however, began with the first book: Crispin: the Cross of Lead. The problem? It won the Newbery award.

Why was that a problem? Because if the book was that good, how was I ever going to write a sequel that was its equal? Moreover, if I did write it, could I get the same voice, the same feeling for the characters, and so forth?
The truth is, I was quite reluctant to do so. There was, however, another problem. In the excitement that followed winning the award, I rashly signed a contract to do the sequel.

I had to do it.

I put it off for awhile, but then moved forward. To my delight it came with far greater ease than I thought possible. In fact, if an author’s opinion has an value, I think Crispin At the Edge of the World, is a better book than the first.

Do you agree?

As for the third book, that took time to sort out, but I enjoyed writing it. In many ways it was the biggest challenge of all, Crispin on his own. But I've grown to like him, and enjoy—so to speak—being with him.
However, there is a whole part of the book that is missing: the ending.

My editor and I agreed to cut it so the book would not be too long.

Now I have to write that ending.

All in all, it’s been a long process—but—that last book—when I write it—will fit the notion I had original thought of so long ago. Quite a saga, as they might say in Iceland.

Years after reading Anne of Green Gables for the first time, Anne Shirley, the heroine of L. M. Montgomery’s novel, seemed as real as the Canadian province where her story took place.

Throughout my childhood, the seven-book Anne series was displayed on my mother’s dresser. Growing up in a red brick house, where talking about feelings was forbidden, I often felt orphaned. The closest my mother ever came to telling me that she loved me was a moment when she called us “kindred spirits”—just like Anne and her fictional best friend, Diana.

We took that honeymoon to PEI in 1974. By the time I crafted the first sentence of Tango: The Tale of an Island Dog in 2004 (as a creative writing assignment for a graduate class in Canadian Literature), I’d returned to PEI more than 20 times. The Island has always been my spiritual home-away-from-home.

Tango began as a single image: a small dog, mistaken for a rat, washed up on a beach, tangled in a lobster trap. Once I “saw” the dog, a second image appeared: a grey-haired woman taking the nearly-dead dog out of the trap.

I started asking myself questions: Who does the little dog belong to? Where is he from? How did he get tangled in the trap? Why is the woman on the beach? What motivated her to rescue the dog? Is anyone else on the beach, and if so, why? Why is the girl with the long black hair standing alone? Why is a red fox watching her so intently?

Life experience (what I know) and my subconscious (what I know, but don’t realize) revealed the answers.

The story’s structure was unintentionally determined. Free-writing about the characters, the plot took on a shape of its own: a wagon wheel with spokes. Tango, the little dog, represents the wheel; his story rolls forward, chapter by chapter, through the eyes and ears of three animal and two human characters, steadied by an omniscient narrator.

Although Tango is an animal fantasy, details are factual. Lobster fishing season in the Gulf of St. Lawrence does begin on May 1st. Red foxes do mate for life. Rats can chew through lead pipes.

In terms of authenticity, McKenna’s character was the most difficult. I envisioned her as a descendant of the First Nations people of Canada, who was abandoned as an infant. Author, reader and character, I decided, would discover the truth about her heritage together—not as experts, but as seekers. My primary source materials—books, interviews, artifacts—were from the Mi’kmaq Cultural Center on Lennox Island.

McKenna’s character presented another challenge. Before the editor at Bloomsbury offered a contract, I had to agree to change McKenna’s age from fourteen to twelve. This request was driven by marketing concerns; books with talking animals can’t have primary characters who are fourteen. Given the developmental differences between 12-year-old and 14-year-old girls, this single change necessitated a complete revision.

I hand-carried the revised manuscript to the Bloomsbury offices in New York City. Foolishly, I told the editor, “I don’t think I can do one more revision of this book.” She laughed. Ultimately, I cut 7500 additional words. Now, when I read the book aloud, I wish I had cut more!

I’ve been surprised by all the boys who love Malachi the rat; by booksellers and librarians who’ve placed copies of Tango on “adult” and “middle grade” shelves; by critics who complain that I use too many metaphors; and by a girl who wrote to say that I’m “a great picture drawer in people’s heads.”

Mine is a simple tale. I went to Prince Edward Island because of a book, and I ended up writing a book. A book about love and home and hope—and about the kindred spirits, animal and human, who story our lives.

"On the eve of your birth ... the Earth and her creatures with the Sun and the Moon all moved in their places, each ready to greet you the very first moment of the very first day you arrived."

Filled with love, the book reminds us why each of us has a unique relationship to the Earth and to each other.

I liked the idea of a holiday, since her first book was about Groundhog Day. There aren't a lot of books about April Fools Day, and it's a fun holiday, so I thought maybe that was a good place to start.

I grew up in a family that enjoyed treasure hunts. We had them at Easter for jelly beans, which my dad hid around the living room. And we had them at birthdays. My dad devised elaborate clues with riddles, ciphers, and codes of all kinds—a challenge to solve before school!—and the clues led us to our birthday presents. So that's where the treasure hunt part came from.

The maple syrup part came from my mom who, in a very Little House in The Big Woods way, took us out to tap trees, gather sap, and boil it down to syrup on our kitchen stove, even though we grew up in the '70s and could have just gone to the supermarket. We even tried making maple candy. The house filled with steam that fogged up all the windows, but it smelled delicious!

Both treasure hunts and syrup making were delightful, memorable parts of my childhood, things I have carried on with my own children, so I wanted to share them with Phyllis and with my young readers.