Kid's_Book_Panel_FINAL_LONG

The transcription discusses the Beyond the Page event in the Comox Valley, focusing on storytelling and bringing together readers and writers. Hosted by the Comox Valley Writers' Society, the event features conversations with children's authors and an illustrator. The authors discuss their recent books and favorite children's stories. They also talk about the importance of reading to children, sharing memories of being read to and the impact on emotional and social development. The authors explain how they were inspired to write children's books, highlighting the characters and stories that led them to focus on children's literature. Welcome to Beyond the Page in the Comox Valley. Beyond the Page is your gateway to the world of storytelling, where we bring together readers and writers from the Comox Valley and beyond. Hosted by the Comox Valley Writers' Society, we dive into the craft of writing, the magic of stories, and the journeys of authors. Whether you're an aspiring writer, a seasoned author, an avid reader, or a voracious listener, our mission is to foster meaningful conversations and build a vibrant community where stories thrive. Join us as we explore the power of words and the connections they forge, one page, one voice, and one interview at a time. Today's Beyond the Page episode features a conversation with three children's authors and an illustrator. Host Sharon McInnis will talk with them about writing for this most delightful but demanding of audiences. Now, let's join the conversation. So, we're here today with three children's authors and one children's illustrator from the Comox Valley, and just for everyone who's listening in, I'll set the scene a little bit. We're all sitting around a big table with a whole spread of beautiful children's books in front of us. And we're going to talk to these authors today about their writing journeys. So, to start with, we'll do some introductions. So, I'm going to ask each of you to just say your name and the title of your most recent book, and what is your favorite children's story of all time? So, just jump right in. I'm Marlette Ashley. I think Kate and I, our latest book is A Pirate's Life for Gabby. That's the last in the series of the Revelry on the Estuary series. We have five books in that series, plus a Christmas book that kind of follows along with that. I like that one because it has a lot of action and has a lot of pirate talk, and it was fun to put together. I have to say Kenneth Graham and The Wind in the Willows, although I love Richard Scarry, I love Silverstein and several others, but The Wind in the Willows, I mean, it's a very complex book, and the language in that book is so lofty, yet one of my sons, when he was in third grade, the teacher was reading this book to them, and he said it was his favorite book. And I thought, wow, I didn't think you could keep a grade three class interested in a book with such lofty language. But I think the story of the mole, the rat, Mr. Toad, it's endearing, and the language level is... That's an interesting issue, the whole thing of levels of language and ages of kids, so I want to save that for later. Kate? I'm Kate Brown. I met up with Marlette 15 years ago, and I just moved to the Valley, and I was watching all the wildlife that was out in front of me on the estuary, and that's how I learned, by drawing them, I found out what's the difference between a mallard and a sculpture. Very important information. Yes. Coming from high school, Marlette, I didn't have that information, but now I do know. Good. Tell me your favorite children's story of all time. I think I'll go back even earlier to Beatrix Potter, to Peter Rabbit, and they were lovely, soft characters, and they have all these other animals around, squirrels and stuff. Yeah, it's a bit like that still. Classic. Thank you. Hi, I'm Anna McCartney, and my most recent book is Message in a Bottle, but hopefully by the time this airs, my new book, 12 Days of Christmas on Vancouver Island, will be out. Just in time for Christmas. Just in time. Good work. Yeah, hopefully. And my favorite book, I don't really have one favorite, but I actually really agree with Marlette that The Wind in the Willows is absolutely an absolute classic, and one that just, the second you mentioned it, it brings me right back to some of my happiest memories as a child. And I was thinking also of Swallows and Amazons, and I think for me, when I think of many of my favorite books, they are often in and around water, and I think that's probably very reflective of the things I like to do. Yeah. Thank you. Hi, I'm Nancy Stewart, my most recent book is The Lost Dragon Age. I agree that I adored Beatrice Potter, I loved the art, the stories, the raffling bunny and all of that. But there is one thing that I did when I was a child that was probably a little odd. I had a book next to my bed all the time, and it was Aesop's Fable. I loved looking at that book, and I would refer to it often, because I liked how it gave me a different point of view sometimes on things, and a different way of looking at things. And I just enjoyed that so much, and it was always by my bedside. And as an adult, I couldn't find that book anymore, it disappears in all the movies and stuff. So my sweet husband went out and bought me a copy, because he knows I love it. Nice. Good. Thank you. That's some interesting research, actually, Anna, you shared this information with me about what happens when we read to children, what happens in the brains of both the adult and the child. Very interesting new research. Were you read to as a child, Anna? I'm sure I was, because my mother was a kindergarten teacher, so 100% I must have been, but I don't really remember it. And I think a part of that is I was the youngest sibling with two older brothers, who were always putting me down and telling me I wasn't very good, so I felt this kind of necessity to be independent and doing what they were doing. And so I started reading myself at a very young age. And so I don't think I really sought that out, because I felt that I should be reading on my own. But I do have a couple of memories from every summer my godparents would come over from Germany and spend the full six weeks of our summer break with us. And I do remember my godfather sitting on the bed with the five children, so myself, my two siblings, and his two children, and reading stories to us, so the summer holidays, I remember it, yeah. Do you remember that research, like the main idea of it? Yeah. What did you discover? Yeah, absolutely. I came across this because I've been reading about Frank Cottrell-Boyce, so he's the current UK children's laureate. And he's kind of teamed up with Book Trust, which is a UK organization that is, it's all about children's literacy. And each laureate, when they come in, it's just a two-year penmanship in England. And his focus has been on early, early childhood and early reading. And just discovering, I think it's long since been accepted that children who are read to from a young age tend to learn to read themselves at a younger age, write at a younger age, and then go on to do better in school and potentially have more opportunities for work. But this recent research has been looking at what's happening in the brains when children are read to kind of one-on-one or with a close family member or caregiver. And they're showing that in a baby, the baby's brain activity synchronizes with the activity of the person reading to them. So they're showing that connection at a biological level. And they've been looking at then the effect that that has on their social and emotional development. And obviously, understandably, we can see that that creates strong emotional intelligence and social skills. And they've linked that to happiness in adult life. Yeah. And it's wonderful. Being read to makes you happy later. I mean, yeah. And apparently, in the brain of the adult as well, there's something that happens, right? The brain's synchronized. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, it's really, really wonderful. Interesting stuff. Does anyone else remember being read to as a child? Any particular... I do. I remember being very, very young and my mother reading me the stories of their there and their rabbit. And I knew nothing more than that, other than she was reading them. And I was young enough that I'm not sure if I was even walking, but I have some memories of sitting on the bed, because my mom was very young when I was born. And she didn't have a whole lot of things that she could read to me. And so she read me these stories. And that's one that stuck in my head, was their there and their rabbit, and all their adventures. Yeah. Yeah. What inspired all of you, author and illustrator, to write books for children, rather than all the other millions of kinds of books there are? Well, when Kate approached me about doing the revelry on the estuary, well, the first book, which was The Interlopers on the estuary, she said, look at the swans. Look how the ducks... You know, they're very rude to the swans. They don't like the swans very much. So I started looking into swan behavior and duck behavior, and I thought, no, I don't want to do a scientific research on these. I like storytelling. I'm going to put these characters in the story. So Kate started out with the characters on her mugs. And just looking at those characters, you couldn't help but see a personality there. And so our revelry on the estuary kind of introduces most of the characters who come later. And they spoke for themselves. And it was much more enjoyable for me than to write, you know, the swans come back to the estuary. So it wasn't so much about that you wanted to write for children in general. It was that this particular story, the story of these swans in the Comox estuary, just lent itself to children's stories. Exactly. And I mean, you know, my education is in creative writing and English literature. And I wrote, you know, stories for grown-ups, you know, for people in general. And no, it never occurred to me until, you know, until being introduced to these characters. And the characters are characters, you know. Whether they're swans or princesses or step-moms here, or lost eggs, Rodney Brewster, you know. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anyone else want to talk about what inspired you or who inspired you to choose children's literature? My mother has a picture of me about three years old with a shirt on backwards and a French tan painting. Because that was always my thing. I mean, even when I was very, very little, probably why I loved Euclid's Potter so much, is I always wanted to illustrate children's books, even as a really little kid. So, I'm pretty sure that was what started it, is wanting to illustrate books. And then, somewhere along the line, I said, you know, maybe I should tell the story. Because I used to drive bus in Toronto, and it was for special needs children. And so, when we're driving around, going up Yonge Street and things like this, I'd be telling the kids stories. So, the kids on my bus would always try to be by the front seats instead of the back. Oh, how lovely. So, we had stories like Freddie the extra special school bus and all this kind of thing. So, I'm telling all these stories, and then I'm thinking, tell the stories, illustrate them. So, every time I put them together, you know, that's kind of what happened. Yeah. So, you illustrate your own work. Yes, I do. And Kate illustrates Marlette's work. And Annie, you have a different illustrator to your quote. We'll talk about the whole illustration thing a bit about later. It's interesting that you all come at it from a different angle. But when you're writing a story, do you read your stories aloud as you're writing them? Like, either to yourself or to an audience, or how does that work? You do? You want the rhythm. You want the words to be something that nobody is going to stumble over. And depending if it's really young children or older children, there's repeating phrases or sometimes a rhyming phrase. Something that drives them in, and they get a little bit of confidence when they can sort of move with the story. So, yes, I read them all out loud, and I read them over and over until it flows exactly the way I want. To me, the flow is super important. Annie, you're nodding. Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, for me, as a language teacher, it's really important that the whole point for me is the language and trying to write things that facilitate language assimilation and the ability to read and learn to read more quickly. And coming from a musical family, my books are very lyrical. That to me is the joyful part for me. And so, yeah, it's absolutely essential to read them out loud. Yeah, it's the rhythm of the language, and it doesn't matter whether it's a book for a child or a book for an adult, there's a rhythm to language that is very compelling, and it is as important as the word choice and that rhythm. And I always remember W.O. Mitchell was our writer-in-residence when I was in university. That's how old I am. And he went around asking the students for, he needed the name of a ride at a carnival. And I said, oh, Tilt-A-Whirl, Tilt-A-Whirl, Tilt-A-Whirl. That was the word that he needed because it had the right number of syllables, it had the right connotation, as well as the right sound. And so, yes, reading aloud helps. And when you were talking about reading to children and how it affects the brain, I'm reading a book called I Heard There Was a Secret Chord, and it's about music and the brain. And it's that rhythm, the rhythm of the sound of reading helps children to understand the rhythm of reading, that there's a flow, there's a smoothness to reading, and they hear you read, this is an impression, and this is something they are learning, as well as the words, as well as the story. So, Marlette, on the back of your books in the Estuary series, you write that the stories are designed for children of all ages, from preschoolers through the primary grades, and that even adults will enjoy them as they, quote-unquote, relive their childhood fantasies. And Nancy, your books, also on the back, it says recommended for ages zero to 12. I'm not sure about you, Anna, if you have an age range in mind. Zero to 120. A big range, yeah. Books are appropriate for all ages. So talk about that. How does a book appeal to a two-year-old and a ten-year-old, from both the word's point of view and the illustrator's point of view? In what way does that work? I think that every reader gets something different out of it, so if you are a baby, you're listening to the reader's voice and the rhythm. If you are the age that perhaps this was most targeted for or crafted for, then you're going to connect with the story and the content and the vocabulary. And if you are, as an adult reading to a child, or even have to admit that I just read children's books for my own enjoyment, I just find that with children's books, because you spend so much time taking what would be a novel for an adult and making that into 400 very, very carefully chosen words, it ends up with the essence of something very, very profound. And as an adult reading books, especially picture books I'm talking about here that are intended for children, I just find it very, very moving. There's something very pure about it. And I think, yeah, I mean, I think all three of us, that's what I have on the back of our books, that readers of all ages, because I just think we each, just as any book, every reader gets something different from it. I think that's the thing. I think also you have to consider for children's books, especially like picture books and stuff like that, it has to appeal to adults as well as children, because the adult's going to buy it, the adult's going to read it, and the adult's going to appreciate it on a different level than the child. This reminds me of watching TV shows with my six-year-old grandson, right? Like they're very good at appealing to me as well as to him. He doesn't get what I'm laughing at, but he's into this story, and I'm this, so it's a whole, I didn't realize that until I started watching cartoons with Colin. Did you have anything to say about that aspect of things, Marla, because your books also appeal to all ages. Well, what we have decided, what Kate and I have decided to do with our books is we have like a longer version of the story that's quite wordy and quite involved, but then we also have a very simplified version of the story, usually under the illustration, that tells the story in a very simple way in very large print for those early readers, or for parents who are tired and want to get through this very quickly. Ignore the left side and read the right side. You know, like look at the big print, and especially for wee little kids, the illustration also tells a story, and Kate can probably speak to the story inside the illustration as well, but the words say one thing, but look at the illustration. Life in the Comox Estuary runs smoothly enough, and what are they doing? The swans are swimming, the ducks are doing their duck thing, the eagle's got a fish in his talon, you know, that's running smoothly in the estuary. That tells the story too, so it's, yeah, how do you do that, Kate? Well, in that one particularly, I think illustration can, an image can say a thousand words. This is one of our first illustrations here. It's a view on a wintry day in the Comox Valley. There are swans, there's an adult swan, and then a cygnet, and there's an eagle, and he's just caught a salmon, and there's a seagull, but he's got a hat on, because he thinks he's a pirate. But there's also a couple of ducks, and ducking, so that was not really in the story. That was a peaceful day in the valley, so that's where the image is saying a lot more than the words. I have a one and a half year old grandchild, and a three year old, and I find that when I read with the younger one, one and a half year old, the images are the most important, even if it's an image of a ship, and it's only one word. But at three year old, she's beginning to look at the words, and many of the words she can actually say, so she can look through a hundred pages and say the words, but that's her starting reading, so the image is very important at the beginning. And it enhances imagination, right, like I know when I, especially when Colin was younger, when I would read to him at night, a lot of it was, you know, what's going on here, tell me about this picture, right, what are you seeing, and so his little brain is like dreaming up things, and I go, oh, I didn't see that, how did that happen, right, so he starts telling a whole different story. And it's like, where's Waldo, I know you can go on forever, so picking up some characters and this sort of thing, and having a game with an image. One little experience we had collaborating in, you know, doing our, the last one, Pirate's Life for Gabby, I wrote the story about, you know, the Gulf pirate ship bumping into another ship, a fishing boat, and I wrote, you know, I wrote, hard to port, hard to port, one of the characters is saying, and when I looked at the picture, I said, oh, Kate, you've got it going to starboard, and Kate looked at me and said, it's easier to change a word than it is to change a point, you know, port, starboard, it's okay, we also had one of, it was a frog going up some stairs, and I'd gone going up the stairs, and you had said it was going down the stairs, yeah, change that word, Marla, change that word, yeah. You are listening to Beyond the Page in the Comox Valley. Today, host Sharon McInnis is in conversation with three authors and an illustrator of children's books. Parents and grandparents are always on the lookout for good children's books at any time of the year, but new kids' book suggestions are especially valuable as we approach the holiday season. So, we recommend having a pencil and paper handy as you continue to listen to what these local children's book creators have been up to. Now, let's rejoin the conversation. When you are writing your books, do you have a particular child or a particular person in mind? Who's your target audience, as they say, I thought you said? I think it's the child in me. I love children's books, you know, I would read lots of them, no problem, whenever I get an answer on them, and when I'm writing my stories, I want it to be fun and colorful and adventurous, right? And so, I think I'm actually writing for me, for him. Well, you were telling me earlier about the story, one of your books is called There's a Stepmom in My House, and I guess you weren't writing that book for the person who inspired you, but tell that story, because that's an interesting, where that book came from. That book came from, I used to drive trucks for a living, up and down the island doing deliveries, and I would go into these different warehouses and stuff, and there's one here in the valley, it was actually for a cleaner, for Pacific Coast Cleaners, and this one lady, she was wonderful, she was always smiling, she was always laughing, she was always fun to be around, and so when I had to stop in there to load up and stuff, you talk a little bit, and one time we were talking and she said, you know, nobody ever says anything nice about stepmoms, and it sort of stuck in my head, and I thought, yeah, there's Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Snow White, you're right, nobody says nice things about stepmothers, and so it kind of rolled around in my head for a long, long time, and finally I decided just to put that one down on paper, and so that was the first actual book I did, I had written for magazines before, but I hadn't written my own book, so that book was to say, you know, there's a whole lot of stepmothers, no, stepdads, in the world, and they don't get fair press. We were saying that when you read that story to a class of children, I was in a classroom and I was reading two different stories, and I said to them, well, I've got a bunch of stories here, I said, one's about a naughty little girl, oh, yes, yes, yes, the whole class was up, they wanted that story, so I read the story about the stepmum, there's a stepmum in my house, and the kids were giggling and laughing and totally enjoying the story, because she was naughty, she was very naughty, she did not want a stepmum, one of her favorite things she said was, you know, I've heard the stories, I've read the books, I know what stepmums are, and I don't want one, and she says this several times in the book, right, and so the kids are all listening and giggling, and in the end, she ends up finding that the only naughty person in the house was her. But that's an interesting point, because I haven't ever thought of this before, but when kids are listening to a story about, or watching a show, like my grandson is with me, you know, about people being naughty, kids being naughty, or whoever, it's so appealing, because it's like they get to identify with that, you know, like they're sort of being naughty themselves, but not really, so they don't get in trouble, so you get to kind of, vicarious, that's the word, vicarious mischief, yeah, yeah, yeah, and in the end, you're told that that's not really the right thing to do, yeah, yeah, but still, you've had the thrill, yeah, you've had the thrill, yeah. So I write for adults, so I'm very aware of the whole narrative arc thing they've got to have going on. How is the structure of a children's story similar to or different from that adult, you know, you have an inciting incident, and then the rising action, and the crisis, and the climax, and everything gets sorted out in the end, is that pretty much the same structure that you follow, or is that underlying things, or do you even think about that when you're writing a kid's story? Well, you can't create a story, really, without having some kind of conflict, something to resolve in it, so there's a lot of similarities, it's just, in a children's story, you have to be a lot more succinct, right, you have to say it in fewer words, and still try to get the same emotions and feelings into it, but yeah, you have to have some sort of villain, you have to have some kind of a problem of some sort, and you have to resolve it by the end, because you don't leave children, you know, some adult ones, they leave you in the air, but with children, you don't do that, you solve the problem for them, you leave them feeling happy, and that's why some children will ask for the same book over and over and over, because it makes them feel happy to feel the story, and they feel it, children feel the story, they're not just thinking about it, they involve themselves when they listen to a story being read. The language may be a little simpler, although, as I said earlier, Wind in the Willows is not simple, I mean, there are passages in there that challenge, that might challenge some adults, but as you say, I think the storyline is simplified, and I don't mean to say it's dumbed down, I mean, it's, as you say, it's the essence of the story, you know, so you're not going to be dealing with illusion, or you're not going to be dealing with a lot of flashbacks, and that kind of thing, imagery or symbolism, although you could, but that's not the main... For the adults who are reading it. Right, exactly, that's not the main focus of it, it is the story, it is the resolution of the conflict, I agree. That's an interesting point, that, like, Wind in the Willows is fairly complex, but appeals to six-year-olds, right, seven-year-olds? Well, you know, listen to this line from Wind in the Willows, this is the Piper at the Gates of Dawn, that particular chapter, The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in one particular quarter it showed black against a silvery-climbing phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting earth, the moon lifted with slow majesty, till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of moorings, and once more they began to see surfaces, meadows, widespread and quiet gardens, and the river itself from bank to bank all softly disclosed, all washed clean of mystery and terror, all radiant again as by day, but with a difference that was tremendous. That's one sentence. Whoa. That is one very complex sentence. And yet, you know, my son in grade three, this was his favorite book, his favorite story, and kids are not dumb, you know, they might not know what phosphorescence is, but they could hear that knowing, oh, a change is coming, there's a change happening, it's going from night to day, you know, there's a change happening, they would know that, they would understand that without understanding the word. And I strongly believe a word is a word. You can introduce a baby to the word apple, or you can introduce a baby to the word phosphorescent, and in the right context with the right amount of repetition, they will learn to understand. It becomes their word. Yeah. Yeah. So I very, very strongly believe in writing things that have rich, rich, rich vocabulary, right from the day they pop out. When we first started with revelry on the estuary, I remember someone saying, well, kids are not going to understand what the word revelry means, and I said, no, maybe not, but, you know, adults do, and they won't know what interlopers mean. They will by the end of the book. They will by the end of the book, exactly. And trumpeters' tribulation, you know, okay, tribulation is a big word. They might not know it, but after reading this book, they will know. And how exciting to know what tribulation means. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. What has been the highlight of your writing journey so far? Do you want any awards? What's been meaningful, like any particular? Anna, you won something, didn't you, recently? I'm a finalist in the Wisla Independent Book Awards, and I'll find out next week. In the Wisla Book Awards? Yeah, Wisla Independent Book Awards. And that was for Message in a Bottle. That's for Message in a Bottle, but that's not the highlight of my career. What is the highlight? Not the highlight of my writing career. I really feel like I had my books that I'd written just in my notebook, and then eventually on my computer, and they sat there for a couple of years, and I hit a point where I thought, either they're just going to stay there for me, or I'm actually going to take the next step. And I decided that I did want to take that next step and try to publish them. And the moment I did that, it was like going through the wardrobe in... In a workshop? Yeah. I just discovered a whole world that had been existing, and people had been living in this world for a very long time, and I had been completely ignorant of it, and it was utterly magical and transformative. And meeting editors and illustrators and our local community of writers in the Comox Valley, I had no idea you were here. And it's just absolutely... It's such a privilege and an excitement to be part of it, and I just want to live in this world, but I want to maybe close the door on the previous one. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Anybody else have any...? One of the ones that actually... Like reading to the children in schools and stuff like that, wonderful. But one of the ones that kind of took me off guard, I guess, was one day this couple arrived at my house, and they wanted to meet Roddy Rooster. A couple came to your house? Came to my home, and they were from out of town, but what happened is they knew somebody who knew me, and so they came looking, and Roddy wasn't there anymore. He was on a new farm with a whole bunch, because he was all by himself at my place. So Roddy Rooster is one of the characters... One of the characters in one of my books, and they wanted to meet him. So they came to meet Roddy Rooster, which I thought was pretty interesting, and they wanted a picture. So I explained that just two days before I had moved Roddy to a place where there was lots of leghorns, white leghorns. So they start talking about their daughter, and apparently their daughter has one of each of my stories that she is totally thrilled with. She got probably the biggest kick out of Roddy Rooster Has a Secret. They were telling me that they actually have a tradition in their family that they take a selection of books from a certain author, and they save it. They read them all, and then they save it. They put it away, and then when that person has their children, they bring those stories up. Well, I was really honored to find out that I'm the author that they're saving stories for. They're putting the books away, so I got goosebumps again. That was quite a thrill. So the next book, the one I'm writing right now, I dedicated to their little girl. In fact, I put the hero in the story, her name. How lovely. Yeah. Wow. So she should get a good kick out of that one. That's amazing. Yeah. That totally opened the door. Hello. So cool. No idea who these people were, and it ended up being such a nice, nice afternoon talking with them and stuff. Wow. Okay. Marla? I remember when she was sitting over there. You tell the story. Well, we had a whole, we had, I think, two or three grade two classes come here, and I guess there were teachers and parents, and we were reading The Interlopers, and we finished or we got partway through, no, I think we finished reading it, and one little boy in the front row, and, you know, to me, this just meant so much. He said, Is it true? Did it really happen? And I thought, yeah. Accident on the 17th Street Bridge. When all the rubber duckies fall in the water. This is before we knew about the rubber duck race. We didn't know. I mean, we were new to the Valley. And when he said that, I thought, Oh, his imagination. You know, he was there. He had it in his mind. And that just, it still thrills me today, you know, to think that we read this story, this child took it in, this child thought about it, and thought, Did it really happen? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So, Kate, you were showing some of those illustrations. Can you just describe them a little bit? This one is of the 17th Street Bridge in Courtenay. And Les Jordan's in those days. But it's pretty well the old style of bridge. And then there was a truck that had a whole load of boxes with rubber duckies, because he was going to the fair, or to just come back from the fair. And he rear-ended a vehicle there, and the boxes fell over the 17th Street Bridge into the Courtenay River. The one just at the area where Couscous Comm is. What a lovely illustration. It's so colorful and gorgeous. That's a simplified version of the area. But we'd also captured at that time the playground at Driftwood Mall Carnival. Yeah. So it was quite local. It was. Although I had been teaching an ESL class in Vancouver, and they were adult students, and I took the students to the aquarium. And one young man had his hamburger in one hand and a cola in the other hand, very much like the book. And the seagull came down, grabbed his hamburger, and he jumped a mile and threw his cola in the river. So it ended up in the book. And I don't know where you get these stories from. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So cool. Could you, each of you, just share, whoever can start, whoever has one right off the top of their head, just to share a few lines from one of your books, a few lines that you're most kind of pleased with or proud of, or that there's a story about, or that you struggled with and then succeeded? I don't know. Something, just to give our listeners a flavor for the actual stories themselves and the way you write. Okay. Mine, this one is called The Duck Who Could Not Fly. And it was a duck whose whole family could fly, but she couldn't yet. And so there was children who played in the park. And so they played with different remote control airplanes. So... What kind of airplanes? Remote control? Oh, remote control. Okay. So I just got, one day, Davey decided he just had to touch that beautiful plane. He needed to touch that wonderful flying machine. It was as beautiful close-up as he had imagined. Then Davey thought, oh, what would it hurt if I just touched the remote control? After all, it's just sitting there. Davey picked up the remote control. It was lighter than he thought. That's a lot. Okay. Now, talk about writing that. Okay. There was a story of just, to tell you not to give up on your dreams. And that sometimes you'll get what you want, but it might come to you in the most unusual way. This particular one, this little fellow couldn't fly. His one wing hadn't quite developed yet. So it's a flying wave like the other birds did when somebody came around. He'd hide behind a bush. So that's how he got to watch all these flying machines, right? So being a duck, he wanted to fly. So it ended up that him and this one boy became very close friends. And he did get to fly, but it was in the airplane. Because it was a really big airplane. Like in a real airplane. It was a remote control, but it was a very large one. Large like my brother had when he was little. And he put the duck in it, and the duck got in it, and he controlled it, and he flew around. And so in the story, he got his dream. He got to fly. But the wonderful thing is, just as it was getting to be colder, and everybody was starting to worry that he couldn't take care of himself because he couldn't fly, his feathers finally developed and he could fly. And he did get to fly himself for his family. But the really neat thing is he got to experience airplanes, he got to make a friend, and he got to come back every year and visit with his friend and enjoy planes and all that stuff. So many wonderful things happened specifically because he had a problem that he had to deal with. And don't give up on your dreams. They might come in some way you just don't expect. So that was the idea, that one. Yeah. Lovely. Thank you, Nancy. Anne, are you ready over there? Sure. Oh, thank you. This is from my book, Message in a Bottle. And the book is about a child who has a vision about our world and how we can each be part of environmental stewardship and ensuring that this beautiful planet we live on continues to thrive. And it's a magical bottle that she sets off into the ocean. And as it travels through the ocean, it captures images of all the beautiful things it sees, but also the damage that we're doing. And then when another child finds it and uncorks it, it releases the spell. And so he gets to see everything that the bottle captured. And the part that I really struggled with was, how do I make this a call to action without being preachy or judgmental or instilling fear and worry? And how do I make it hopeful? And I think I had my whole story, and it took me about a year to work out that. And this is part of that resolution. So this is after the first child has uncorked the bottle and discovered and started to do his little piece. And then it goes on to say, So the magic bottle set sail once more, bringing tales of hope to distant shores. Each time the spell was cast anew, the people saw and the people grew. Little by little, great changes took place, and the healing spread with increasing pace. And then it goes on to finish. But that transition took me a very long time. Did it just eventually come to you? How did you eventually...? I worked through many, many versions. And then, all of a sudden, you have that one, and you're like, this is it. I know what I'm going to do. And then it just flowed. It's an interesting problem, that one of, how do you share this message without sounding preachy? I would imagine that's common for all of you, right? You're all sharing messages. Have you got a magic solution for that, for other people who want to do this? I think it comes back a little bit to reading it out loud. And then you can hear it in a way that someone else might. You can read it to other people, and they'll obviously let you know. But for me, I think you just have this full body reaction when you know that you've hit the right way to do it. Feel it in your body. Yeah. And before that, you feel this unresolved tension. This isn't right. This isn't right. This isn't right. This is right. Yeah. And it's one of the joys of writing, is that moment. Yeah. One second in a year. Yeah. Marlette? My favorite story in the whole group of them is, next to the Christmas story, I like the Christmas story a lot, is Penelope Piper's Great Adventure. And it's a little Sam Piper who's just tired of the rigidity and the difficulty of all these dance steps that the Pipers have to do. And Patricia Piper, who's sort of the leader of the dance troupe, is always shouting orders. But poor Penelope is always daydreaming. She always means to do the right thing. She always means to listen, but then she'll see like a bright, shiny seashell on the floor or a colorful umbrella or something. And she's always daydreaming about something else. And she gets yelled at. And so what she says is, Snap to it, commanded Patricia. And Penelope woke from her daydreams. The troupe of Pipers performed their ballet in a tight crowd. First to the left, as the wind gave a gentle puff. And then together as one to the right, as the wave broke on the shore. For the time being, Penelope followed orders. A brief Penelope with a step, step, step to the left. What is it? What's the matter? With a step, step, step to the right, asked Percy, Penelope's closest friend. Step, step, step back. And a step, step, step forth. Oh, Percy. Step, step, step to the left. Sometimes I think there must be more to life than these endless dances. And she began to daydream once again. Poor Penelope missed the next three steps to the right and caused the whole line of Pipers to bump into each other and splat. Down they went into the wet sand. Penelope showed to Patricia, that's it. No more. Sit on the sidelines. You've done enough damage. Patricia was enraged. The others picked themselves up and tripped to the water to wash the cleaning sand from their feathers, muttering daft and menace and clumsy as they went. And so poor Penelope decides she's going to go upstream with a little frog named Fiona. But discovers that life is difficult no matter where you are. That, you know, it's difficult to be a frog. It's difficult to, you know, go up into a strange place. I think there are difficulties. And sometimes you have to face those difficulties. She ends up coming home and realizing it's not so bad being a sandpiper after all. And she has more empathy for the other creatures around her. Of course. Of course. And we all, in all of our books, we have a subtle message about taking care of the environment. You know, cleaning it up. When you're out there, you pick it up. You tidy up. You do something. Or you help out in some way. You know, Penelope and Fiona have to cross a busy road and they're helped by a stranger who stops the traffic to let them go by so they don't get squashed. So, yeah, it's there in all our books. You are listening to Beyond the Page in the Comox Valley. Today, host Sharon McInnis is in conversation with three authors and an illustrator of children's books. So we recommend having a pencil and paper handy as you continue to listen to what these local children's book creators have been up to. Now, let's rejoin the conversation. Let's talk about illustrations for a minute. Talk about the process of illustrating. Well, this is one of her books. And it's sort of appropriate this time. It's called Must Be Christmas. And it's nearly November. And that's when the trumpeter swans return to the valley. And this is a little girl that lived on the flats on the dike area in a farm and looks out of the old farm window and saw the trumpeter swans just arriving. And, of course, the fields were covered. with snow beginning of November. And she gets very concerned that they're going to be cold. Not that they have to come from Alaska, but... And so next morning she gets out and she goes and takes food and hangs it on a tree, a Christmas tree. And so there's some nutritious food like berries and cones and nuts for them. And she hangs a scarf. Her scarf is hung on one of the bells. And that night, animals come together and are curious to see what's happening. This is her working, making the Christmas tree. And she decorates it with all the cones and things. And then the deer, and the swans, and the rabbits, and the birds all meet around. And Scallagrove, the young swan, looks up at the red scarf and it falls over her neck. And that's going to keep her warm. And the joy of it. And it must be Christmas. It must be Christmas. Kate, what's the most challenging aspect of illustrating? Making... Well, there's so many ideas that Marla writes about. And we're kind of putting it into 20 pages. So it's 20 pages. So picking out the main essence of the story. And some things are much more pictorial than the story itself. And so it's a lot of work. And some things are much more pictorial than emotion. Which is much harder to illustrate. So, yes. One sentence that Marla made right. The family climbed on the bus. You can do that. But you can't say about how they saw a rainbow when they were in the bus. That gets a lot more difficult. So what Kate did in that case was she brought the rainbow into the bus. Which was fabulous. It's another story aside from these. And she brought that rainbow in the bus because the children on that bus started seeing each of the people on the bus as different animals. And so each of the people on the bus became different animals. And it was really wonderful. Not intended by me, the writer. But perfectly done. Beautifully done. So that was something that wasn't listened about. But it was insinuated with the illustration. And it worked. It worked. So you guys worked closely together for quite a few years on these books. And I can tell now that you collaborate very well. Do you ever argue? Is it like a marriage? Oh yeah. The starboard thing. That was an interesting moment. I thought, but words are so precious. No, it's not. Not in this particular case. It wasn't. It was the action that was important. Whether it was starboard or port. It didn't matter. So I learned something. I learned not to think of my work as so precious that it can't be altered. I think we had a good time collaborating on that. I think so. I think we learned from each other quite a bit. I think later in the... First, again, I just gave you the words. And you had to decide what pictures, what you were going to illustrate. And later, I think I put in maybe a picture of such and such here. Or a picture of Penelope going up the fish ladder at Brooklyn Stream. So I gave you suggestions about what might... to make it a little easier on you. Because it's hard to read a whole bunch of words and decide what picture should I use here. So I hope that helped. Well, it ends up different than when you start. It's quite a full journey. It's a journey. Yeah, yeah. What I found interesting in what you said, because I illustrate for another person as well, and you were talking about, at first, the artist gives the illustrations, right? Just carte blanche. And then you started contributing little pictures and things. And that's exactly what the person that I illustrate had done. And there's times when the illustration doesn't really work for me. And so I'll draw her a pencil drawing of what I think might work a little better with the words, and then just send it to her and get an okay, yay or nay. But it was so interesting when you said that, how you started giving her pictures, you know, with ideas, because that's exactly what Jesus has done with me. Started giving him different pictures that maybe this will help, maybe this will help, you know? But Nancy, you normally, like for your books, you illustrate your own books, right? Yeah. So can you describe that process for me a bit? Maybe, like, do you write the words first and then go back and illustrate? Or do you have images in your mind first? Or do you do sketches? Like, how does that work? It's kind of different on different books. But I'm a very visual person. And so when I'm writing a story, I'm putting this daydream or whatever in my head. I've got the picture there, and going through it, and now she's walking down the street or whatever, you know? And I have a pretty good picture, because each step of it, I'm seeing it as if it's a dream, sort of. And I have very visual, very colorful dreams, right? So that's how I do it. Sometimes when I want to illustrate it, maybe it doesn't quite match the picture in my head, but my husband's always saying, nobody can see the picture in your head. No! So that helps sometimes. And sometimes, like, I remember one time I had a problem with one, one of Judith's ones. She had this picture, and she wanted this little boy looking angry. And so I drew it, oh, I don't know, three or four times. And he didn't look angry, he looked monstrous. You know? So I had to make changes and talk her into an image that wasn't... So instead, I had the boy slyly smiling, and in behind him, a picture, sort of daydreaming, of a very monstrous, nasty scientist, you know? But that way it worked, because I didn't think that it would be good to alienate the people from the little boy who's the star of the story, right? So instead, I had him having a questionable smile on his face while this evil scientist was doing the tilt thing. Right, right. But she agreed to it. There's not too much difficulty when I have an idea or something. But a couple of times I've had to say, no, I don't want to draw that. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Anna, you have worked with several different illustrators, Emma Latham in Giraffe in a Scarf, and Nicola North in Message in a Bottle. How do you choose the right illustrator to bring your words to life in a particular book? Well, each time it's been a very different journey. So the very first one was Giraffe in a Scarf, and I think I spent about 11 months just scouring profiles and portfolios on the Internet and, you know, found the most extraordinary artists and illustrators there, but didn't find the one that felt like a fit. And then, finally, found Emma's work, and that was just, that was it. 11 months of research? Yep, a lot. I looked at thousands of portfolios. So, yeah, it took me a very long time, and then I found Emma and had reached out to her, and about two or three days later, no longer than that, was sitting in a cafe working on Message in a Bottle whilst my son was doing something, and I thought, I'm not going to go home and come back, I'll just sit here and work on that. And in that cafe, when I looked up, Nicola North's artwork was all around the walls, and I just thought, oh my goodness, this is it. This is it for that one. So that one was fantastic. Yeah. And then the one that's coming out very soon, 12 Days of Christmas on Vancouver Island, I was at a Christmas market and was chatting to another artist about possibly collaborating, and he said, well, I only do murals, big, big work, this definitely isn't for me, but I know someone that I think would be a fit, and so that was Claire Watson, who I reached, well, first I looked at her work and thought, yeah, this is fantastic. So this is for the book you just finished? Yeah. And what's the title of that one again? 12 Days of Christmas on Vancouver Island, so it's drawing from the classic Christmas song and has a very West Coast theme, and Claire Watson's work is very West Coast, so that was a recommendation that worked out to be just great. And my other one that's coming out hopefully soon has a very different story. I was telling you about it. Please tell everyone about that. This was at another Christmas market, and on the other side of the hall there was an artist selling her prints and her cards and calendars, and her work was just absolutely enchanting and captivating, and my table was very, very quiet, so I had lots of time to keep going and visiting hers, and I kept buying more things, and this work has to be in a picture book. It just screams out picture book. So I plucked up the courage to ask her if she was interested in that, and she said, you know, in the distant future, it's a dream, but absolutely not right now. So I went away quite heartbroken, thinking the world can't wait. So eventually I found her work, and I spent the last ten months with her work, thinking if she isn't able to commit to illustrating my manuscript, I'm going to write a manuscript around her work. And so I did that, and very recently approached her, nervously and said, this is what I've been doing for the last ten months, would you like to listen to it? And we met, and she said yes, so now we have a book. She said yes? Yeah, she said yes. I'm so excited. So, so, so excited. So it's kind of like doing things in the reverse order, right? You started with the images, and then wrote with them. Yeah. And I think as well as being really, you know, fascinating, it's really good for me to see how hard it is when I approach an illustrator and say, can you create something from this? You know, it's given me, hopefully, a better understanding of how challenging that is. Yeah. But in reverse. Yeah. But it was fun. It was really fun to approach it that way. I don't think I'll do it again, but it was really fun. With the other two books, where you hired illustrators, was that process fairly easy? Was there conflict between you and the illustrator? No, because I'm just in awe of what they do. With Annalisa and the Giraffe and the Scarf, one of my pages, I can remember when I sent it across thinking, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, how on earth are you going to illustrate this? And the lines in question were something like, so the book is about our differences and embracing who we are and welcoming the difference in others. And one of the verses says, some like red and some like blue, differences can be bigger too. And I thought, how do you do that? How do you... What do you do with red and blue? How do you illustrate that? And Emma is just a genius and she sent me this sketch of a family of hedgehogs watching a soccer game and of course there are supporters for the team with the red kit and supporters in the same family supporting the team in the blue kit. And it doesn't in any way impede the love and appreciation that they have for each other. They're totally able to love what they love and that be different yet they still can appreciate it. That must have been very satisfying for Emma and you. Kate, do you have that experience? Is it satisfying for you when you know, Marla gives you some words and you can immediately come up with you know, here's the image that needs to go with it? Well I think sometimes Marla has an image in her mind and I have a different image. Since we've been set in the Comox Valley it was... We have written another book, series of books which was for adults but it's a picture book and that was our trip to Scotland and Paris and it was writing about experiences and it was interesting to see that Marla's take on things was different than my take on things. I would call it creative non-fiction, heavy on the creative. You went to Scotland and Paris together? Yes, yes, yes. We got lost in Paris, we did. We were soaked in Scotland. And I did not look under the kilt of a piper. In spite of what we might say. I did not. You were thinking that. You wanted to but you withheld. Well we're going to wind up shortly but could you let's just go around the table and can you tell our listeners where they can access your books? Maybe this... Yeah, in time for Christmas? My books are on Amazon. And mine is Nancy Stewart. Mine is Nancy Stewart. My books are on Amazon. They are in a store up on the highway called the Bloomery and they're also in Ingram Sparks and they're also in Library Bound. Oh and the store at the airport also has some of my books. Right. So if they're on Ingram Sparks that means that the schools and such can order them. And the independent bookstores can order them through Ingram Sparks. Yeah. Thank you, Nancy. Anna McFarlane. Yeah, and my books are we've got wonderful supporters with the independent bookstores in the Valley. The Laughing Oyster, Blue Heron, Books for Brains and then different types of sorts of the Children's Store up in Cumberland Small Store and Robe Media in Comox, the gift store at the airport and a couple of cafes being around the world. Being around the world. So really what I love I come from London, big, big city and I don't remember experiencing this support for local enterprises and initiatives and it's just absolutely wonderful here because everybody here is a yes person. You go in and you ask and they say yes. And you have a book about Christmas coming out? Yeah. 12 Days of Christmas. Yeah, good. On Vancouver Island. Yeah, of course. The only place to be, right? And we have been at Laughing Oyster and at Blue Heron although I don't know that they have copies now but they can always get in touch with us about them. We're also available on Amazon and we are available through the Artsphere website and we have our own little Artsphere shop where we have a full collection of the books and that's Artsphere Studios just off the highway in Royston. We're going to have an open house on October 22nd and 23rd which is called Little Gems and there will be a big November November 23rd and 23rd November 22nd and 23rd at Artsphere Studio Gallery at Hath Road in Royston. And is there a website for Artsphere? artsphere.ca Okay. Does anyone have any last comments they want to make or questions that they'd like to answer that I didn't ask them or? I would just like to say I've always been thrilled with Kate's illustrations. What I have in my head is sometimes different but what Kate draws is always exciting and always above and beyond what I can picture. It's been a great collaboration. Great. Thank you. I'd like to say that one of the other thrills that I get is when you're at a market, all the people who come up and they're like, I've always wanted to write a book or this is my story or this is the book that I have written. I know that there are lots and lots of people out there who want to do this so I'm just going to encourage you all to look up the Comox Valley Writers Society and come along maybe, I don't know how it works, come along to a meeting or I found it through the conference that happens in January. So if you're listening and you know you can relate to this, come on out. And there are, you reminded me that there's a couple of Christmas craft fairs or Christmas book fairs, right? That's right. Do you remember the dates of those? There's one in Fanny Bay and I think it might clash but they're close by, right? They're close by. I think it's on the same weekend. November 23rd, 24th? 22nd, 23rd I think. I'm pretty certain it's that one. And there's also one at Queniche, I'm not quite sure what that is but I know that Kiki from the gift shop in the airport will be at that one, I think that's the weekend of the 6th of December both days. And she has a number, not just of children's books, but published books from various writers in the Comox Valley Writers Society. That's nice. Alright. Nancy? One of the things that you reminded me of just as you were saying was how many people have come to me and told me how they'd like to write a book and the person I'm doing the illustrations for is one of them. Now she's writing books and she's doing a whole series on a little boy with autism and how it has inhibited his life and I went in to see a doctor a specialist, he found out that I was an author illustrator, so tell me what the book you wanted to write. So I got to give him information on different places and things looking for illustrators, editors and all these things. There's been 5 or 6 different people just in a year that have come and now have started writing putting it down on paper So you have inspired Yeah, which is so cool. Isn't that amazing? Thanks for being here today you guys and for sharing your journeys with us. Thank you for listening to this episode of Beyond the Page in the Comox Valley. Host Sharon McInnis was in conversation with authors Marlon Ashley, Nancy Stewart and Anna McCarthy. As well as Marlet's illustrator Kate Brown about writing and illustrating children's books that appeal to young and old alike. You can find this and many other full length Beyond the Page conversations on Spotify. Search for Beyond the Page in the Comox Valley. The books mentioned in this episode are available locally at the Laughing Oyster in Courtenay and at the Blue Heron in Comox. For more information on the Comox Valley Writers Society, go to writerssociety.ca Original music for this show is thanks to James Allen Krauss. Show production and audio editing of Beyond the Page is by Sean Sorezen. See you next time, Beyond the Page.