What was the inspiration for Where’s Halmoni? My inspiration was mainly my children. I wanted to give them something that mirrored their experience of being part of two cultures, old and new, and both familiar and unfamiliar. In what ways does Where’s Halmoni reflect your own life? After I finished making this book, I realized that I had encapsulated my own experience of …
Interview with Stephanie Burgis
Dragons and chocolate seem like an odd combination. How did you come up with the idea? Dragons and chocolate are two of my very favorite things in the world, so I just loved the idea of mixing them together! And of course it gave me a fabulous excuse to make myself a rich, strong dark hot chocolate EVERY DAY for …
Interview with Neal Shusterman
Congrats! We’d love to know: how did you come up with the idea for Scythe? After many years teen dystopia, I wanted to do something that flipped it upside down. Rather than a tale of a dystopian world, I thought “What would be the consequences of a truly perfect world?” A world without war, poverty, crime, or disease. A world …
Interview with Ruta Sepetys
How did you find out about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, and what about it grabbed you as a subject suitable for YA historical fiction? My father’s cousin told me about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. I was shocked that I had never heard of it. When I asked her how she came upon the story she told …
Interview with Polly Faber
Where did you get the idea for Mango & Bambang: The Not-a-Pig? The stories began with a first sketch Clara sent me of a girl and a tapir. We’d become friends and over coffee and cake a week or two before, Clara had suggested I write a book for her to illustrate. I hadn’t taken her seriously at all and had made a jokey response: “Alright …
Interview with Tina Kugler
Where did you get the idea for Snail & Worm? My answer has two parts, actually: first I decided I wanted to write a funny easy reader, and then I discovered my characters. At one point in my life, I owned an independent children’s bookshop, and later I worked in the Youth Department of a public library, so children’s books are …
Interview with Caren Stelson
In the back matter, you tell us how you first learned Sachiko’s story and how you traveled to Japan multiple times to meet with her. Will you please tell us more about these meetings? Where did you meet? What was it like talking through a translator? What did you talk about? What did you do when you and Sachiko weren’t …
Interview with Melissa Sweet
What is your favorite thing you learned while researching the book? There were so many favorite things. One is that White, by his own account, was not a great reader. Not that he didn’t read, or have a library in his home, he just preferred being outside and doing a myriad of things from shearing sheep to sailing. That made …
Interview with Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann
What is your favorite thing you learned while researching the book? As we began to investigate the myths, stories and science of the giant squid we discovered that there are lots of myths and stories but that the science is hard to come by. Despite there being hundreds of thousands of giant squid in the world’s oceans, they are secretive …
Interview with Adam Gidwitz and Aaron Blank
Editor’s note: Aaron Blank is the producer for The Inquisitor’s Tale audiobook. You can listen to a sample of the book here. This audiobook is a wonderful example of using more than one narrator. When assessing books such as The Inquisitor’s Tale, how do you decide to use multiple narrator or a single performer? Aaron: Adam made identifying the characters pretty …