Episode #164: If you were to become a character in your own book, which would it be and why?
Welcome back! Laurie Keller and Grace Lin answer this wonderful kid question: “If you were to become a character in your own book, which would it be and why?”
Grace Lin: Hello, I'm Grace Lin, children's book author and illustrator of many books, including the middle grade novel, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and the picture book, A Big Moon Cake for Little Star. Today I'm here with Lauri Keller, the author and illustrator of many picture books, including Potato Pants and the upcoming Wake Me Up in 20 Coconuts, as well as chapter books featuring Arnie the Donut, and the Geisel-winning early reader, We Are Growing. Welcome, Lauri.
Lauri Keller: Hi, Grace. Thank you so much for having me.
Grace Lin: Thank you for coming today. Are you ready for today's question?
Lauri Keller: I am ready.
Grace Lin: Okay. Today's question is from a kid named Joe. They ask, "If you were to become a character in your own book, which would it be and why?"
Lauri Keller: Well, I think that one's pretty easy for me. I have a character called Arnie the Doughnut, and I have written a couple of picture books about him and three illustrated chapter books. So I feel like I have really gotten to know him better than any other character that I've made. And a lot of times when my friends read any of the Arnie books, they'll say, "This is so you." They think my personality is somewhat reflected in Arnie. And I think that's not unusual, for an author to ... We pour so much of ourselves into our books. And I have to agree with that. I think Arnie, well, for those who haven't read Arnie, Arnie is a chocolate covered sprinkled doughnut who does not know that doughnuts are made to be eaten. I made sure, I didn't want to scare anybody in the book away from eating donuts. So I made sure in the book that all the other doughnuts say that they think it's great that people love to eat them. They're glad that they're so delicious and they love making people so happy.
But Arnie did not agree with that line of thinking. And he goes home with a man named Mr. Bing. Mr. Bing eats a doughnut every day, and when he tries to eat Arnie, they both get a big shock, so they have to figure out something else to do with him. I won't go into a lot of that, but spoiler alert, at the very end, they decide that Arnie is going to be his doughnut dog. So I think why I would become Arnie is because he's just got a really great attitude. He's just so excited about everything in life. He loves meeting new people and meeting new doughnuts and all sorts of other inanimate objects that wander into these books. He also gets to be a doughnut dog at times. And in the chapter books, he's gone on all sorts of crazy adventures. So I think mainly just with his optimistic attitude, I think that's why I would pick him. He's just so happy about everything.
So yeah, I guess that's pretty much why.
Grace Lin: When you're telling the story about Arnie the Doughnut, I was thinking, I would want to be Mr. Bing. I could eat a donut a day and have a doughnut dog.
Lauri Keller: There you go. I should have thought of that. Mr. Bing, I could eat a doughnut every day. What was I thinking? All right, well Mr. Bing is a close second then.
Grace Lin: Then you get to still have Arnie in your life.
Lauri Keller: That's right. That's right. So yeah, he could have the ... Well, that's one thing though, that kids ask me a lot. Now that Mr. Bing has Arnie as a pet and he has agreed not to eat Arnie, does he still eat a doughnut every day? So I've never really determined that. I haven't had a reason yet that I've had to decide. So the jury's still out on that one.
Grace Lin: That is a tough one because like your doughnut dog, you wouldn't eat your pet.
Lauri Keller: I know.
Grace Lin: Eat another dog, but these doughnuts are so happy. The other donuts feel like that's their life's purpose.
Lauri Keller: Right, that's their calling. So I'm thinking maybe he does. I don't know if maybe he-
Grace Lin: Maybe he just doesn't eat anymore pink frosted sprinkled doughnuts.
Lauri Keller: Oh, there you go, or he doesn't eat them in front of Arnie.
Grace Lin: Yeah, I can only eat Boston Cream.
Lauri Keller: Yeah. So anyway.
Grace Lin: I get asked this question as well, and the funny thing is when they ask me this question, I'm like, "Well, actually, honestly, most of the characters in my book are me." There's my book, The Year of the Dog, The Year of the Rat, and there's my book, The Ugly Vegetables and they really, really are very much based on my own life. So, it's weird to say would I want to be my own character? I'm like, I already am my own character. But I guess of the ones that are not me would be probably from my novel, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, the main character, Min Lee in that, is not me, but she is like the girl I always wanted to be, because she's really brave and she's very quick-witted and she's very adventurous. And I think those are all the things that I really wanted to be, but I was always too timid when I was younger. So wrote her as a wish fulfillment of how I wished I was when I was younger, full of confidence, quick-witted and good ideas.
Lauri Keller: I love that. I bet so many kids and adults can relate to those feelings for sure.
Grace Lin: Yeah, it's such an interesting thing. And my daughter, I have her as the main character in A Big Moon Cake for Little Star, and I'm always curious how that feels to her when she's grown up. Right now she loves it because she's the main character. In fact, even though now she's going to be in fifth grade, I know last year you're supposed to, what's your favorite book and why? Even though she's fourth grade and other people are writing things like Smile by Raina Telgemeier. She wrote A Big Moon Cake for Little Star, even though it's a picture book that's meant for preschool. Then you have to write a line like why. And she's like, "Because I'm Little Star." And I was like, "I wonder what the teacher thinks." Hopefully they're like, "Well that's true."
Lauri Keller: I'm sure she thinks it's wonderful. Who wouldn't? That's so great. I think that's good for kids to hear too, that it's okay for them at that age, just really a couple years older than what most picture book readers, the age is. And I think that's just so good for them to hear that, oh yeah, it's still cool to read picture books, because you can tell they still love them. When I do school visits, sometimes when they'll ask me to speak, if it's a school that happens to go up to eighth grade, they'll say, "Would you mind speaking to the sixth to eighth graders as well?" And I always get a little bit nervous because I don't have any books for that age, but I treat it more of as a career day sort of thing. But you can tell that they still are enjoying hearing about the stories, but they just try to act like, oh, I'm not really enjoying it, but you can tell they are. So I think that's really good that she did that.
Grace Lin: Yeah. Well it's like that quote by CS Lewis where he said, "When I was young, I didn't want to read Fairy Tales because I was embarrassed, and when I grew up, I grew out of that."
Lauri Keller: Oh, that's great. Oh, I love that.
Grace Lin: Meaning, that was the thing I left behind, was this embarrassment in real life.
Lauri Keller: Yes. Oh, that's beautiful. I've not heard that before. I love that.
Grace Lin: I paraphrased it, but you know.
Lauri Keller: No, beautiful.
Grace Lin: All right. Well thank you so much, Lauri, for coming on today's Kids Ask Authors podcast and thank you, Joe, for asking such a great question.
Lauri Keller: Yeah, Joe. Thank you Joe, and thank you Grace.
Grace Lin: Bye.
Lauri Keller: Bye.
Today’s KID BOOK REVIEW comes from Ione! Ione is reviewing, Wake Me Up in 20 Coconuts! by Laurie Keller.
I like the book, Wake Me Up in 20 Coconuts! by Laurie Keller because it's really funny, and it has characters that express their emotions in many different ways. And it's a very colorful book with lots of different fun shapes and a very funny chicken.
Thank you Ione!
More about today’s authors:
Laurie Keller is the bestselling author-illustrator of many books for kids, including Do Unto Otters; Potato Pants!; The Scrambled States of America; the Geisel Award-winning We Are Growing!; and Arnie the Doughnut, as well as three books in the Adventures of Arnie the Doughnut chapter book series. Growing up in Michigan, Laurie always loved to draw, paint and write stories. She earned a B.F.A. at Kendall College of Art and Design, then worked at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City as a greeting card illustrator for seven years. One night, the idea for a children's book popped into her head and after showing the story to several publishers in New York City, she quit her job and moved there. The following year, that story idea was a published book--The Scrambled States of America. Laurie loved living in NYC, but she returned to her home state, where she lives in the woods along the shores of Lake Michigan.
Grace Lin, a NY Times bestselling author/ illustrator, won the Newbery Honor for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and her picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star, was awarded the Caldecott Honor. Grace is an occasional commentator for New England Public Radio , a video essayist for PBS NewsHour (here & here), and the speaker of the popular TEDx talk, The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf. She is the co-host of the podcast Book Friends Forever, a kidlit podcast about friendship and publishing (geared for adults). Find her facebook, instagram , twitter ( @pacylin) or sign up for her author newsletter HERE.
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