Amazon.com Review
If you could ask your favorite author any question, what would it be? How do you write a book? Do you have brothers and sisters? Where do you get your ideas? What do you like to do when you're not writing? What is the best thing about being a writer?
Noted children's literature historian Leonard Marcus asks 15 popular children's book authors these questions and more in this fantastic introduction to the people who made Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery, and The Babysitters Club series possible. Complete with birth dates, childhood (and grownup) photos, manuscript pages, and other interesting memorabilia, the interviews provide a brief but in-depth look (six or seven pages per author) at the lives of kids' favorite writers, including Jon Scieszka, E.L. Konigsburg, Judy Blume, Laurence Yep, Gary Paulsen, and Johanna Hurwitz. Virtually every author claims that the way to become a writer is to read and write. A lot. All the time. So get to it! (Ages 8 to 12) --Emilie Coulter
From Publishers Weekly
Marcus here compiles brief interviews with 15 well-known children's book authors. Using a similar set of questions for each interview, he offers a sense of the diversity of approaches to the writing life and balances his queries between those pertaining to the writers' childhoods and to their current careers. The authors' responses are insightful and often humorous: Blume explains her inventive approach to sixth grade book reports, "I didn't want to report on the books I was reading, so I made up books for my reports, coming up with a title, an author, a theme, and the major characters"; James Howe offers advice to aspiring young writers ("Writing is like digging in the sand for buried treasure: You have to be willing to do a lot of digging. Most of what you unearth won't glitter"); and Ann M. Martin comments that, as a child, "I didn't see writing as a career option. For a long time, I think I thought all writers were dead!" Marcus uncovers some intriguing morsels: when E.L. Konigsburg published her first two novels in 1967, one won the Newbery Medal, the other a Newbery Honor citation, and Russell Freedman retypes each of his book manuscripts on an antique typewriter at least four times. In addition to the editor's well-crafted introductions to the writers, the volume contains contemporary photos and childhood snapshots, reproductions of edited manuscript pages and a selected bibliography of each author's oeuvre. An excellent choice for aspiring writers and avid readers. Ages 8-12. (Aug.)
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