May 21, 2024 • 41 mins
Jennifer chats with author Erin Bow who shares a bit about her journey as a reader and writer, from her childhood love of books to her success as an author. She emphasizes the importance of reading widely and falling in love with reading as a child. Erin also shares her passion for trashy page-turning storytelling and the influence it has on her writing. But most of their conversation focuses on the role of children's literature in helping us to understand and navigate trauma. Erin discusses the inspiration behind Simon Sort of Says and why it was important to her that Simon's story be funny.
Show notes and other information related to this episode (including a discount code from Bookelicious) can be found here.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Reader's Heart
04:21 Childhood Reading and Influences
06:06 Trashy Page-Turning Storytelling
10:05 Expanding Genre and Writing Goals
11:57 Pseudonyms and Success
13:54 The Journey to Success
20:55 The Variety of Erin Bow's Books
26:09 Discussion of Simon Sort of Says
36:00 Upcoming Work and the Importance of Stories
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
There's a lot of anger and desperation and you know,
therefore,
a lot of need for story and some of that story I think should be funny cause funny lets us have conversations.
It's just so hard to have to talk about this with our kids.
(00:20):
But funny opens up a door.
Hi everyone and welcome to the Reader's heart,
a podcast of conversations with authors and illustrators about children's literature as a vehicle for empathy and joy in a dark world.
(00:45):
The reader's heart is rooted in the belief that our world needs the magic of children's literature now more than ever.
So let's get started this week.
My guest is Erin Bow,
who many of you probably know because of her incredible 2023 middle grade novel Simon sort of says,
which appeared on the National Book Award Long List and received a Newberry Honor that same year.
(01:07):
However,
Aaron is also the author of Stand On The Sky.
Which one?
Canada's Governor General's Literary Awards say that three times fast in 2019,
as well as other middle grade novels including Plain Kate and Sorrows Knot.
She also created a fantastic y a science fiction du technology called The Prisoners of Peace,
(01:28):
which I highly recommend.
One quick note before we start,
this is a dog friendly podcast y'all.
So when you hear one or two dogs barking during this episode,
just smile and give your own furry friends a pat on the head that said as always,
be sure to stay tuned until the end of the episode.
For more information,
including a discount code from our friends at Book Alicious.
(01:52):
Hi,
Erin.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
I'm delighted to chat with you.
Hello Jennifer.
Thank you for having me on.
Oh my gosh.
When I started this podcast,
and I dreamed of people who might chat with me about children's literature.
You were at the top of my list.
So I'm fangirling just a little bit right now and I've seen some of the other people you've talked to so,
(02:18):
you know,
I can fangirl at them so well,
I feel like we're all just a community that love one another and admire what we do.
Um And so it's been such a joy to have these conversations.
I can't wait to talk to you about your books and about children's literature more generally.
So let's go ahead and dive in.
I love to start these conversations by thinking a little bit about the idea of the reader's heart.
(02:44):
I titled this podcast that because I'm kind of fascinated by the way that children's literature can help to shape and move our hearts and help us think about who we want to be as we walk through the world.
So I wondered if you might just start by telling us a little bit about your reader's heart,
who you are as a reader.
And that might include who you were as a reader as a kid.
(03:06):
But it could also just include who you are as a reader.
Now,
however you want to tackle that.
Oh,
I think it's interesting to talk about who you are as a reader as a kid,
especially for children's literature authors.
I don't know how it is that people fall in love with reading and with books if they don't do it when they're Children,
(03:27):
I,
I'm sure it's possible.
I'm sure that there are people who pick up a book for the first time in their thirties and go,
where have these been all my life?
They,
and they made me read things in high school and I hated all of that.
But look,
here's one for me.
Um,
I'm sure it is possible but it wasn't my experience and it wasn't the experience of anyone.
(03:48):
I know.
I grew up just,
I was the kid with my nose in a book.
I was the kid where my parents who are,
we're pleased that I had my nose in a book because you could have your nose in many things as a child.
Um,
we're like Aaron Time to go outside.
Aaron put on your socks,
put that down and put on your socks.
Um,
(04:08):
which I have heard myself say to my Children out.
But,
yeah,
I grew up a reader.
Um,
not a sophisticated reader necessarily,
but just a voracious reader.
I read everything I could get my hands on some of which was completely inappropriate.
Um,
my father had,
(04:28):
was always giving me books and some of them were just odd choices for your average 12 year old.
Um,
we lived in a little town,
uh,
it's a suburb now but it was more town ish when I lived there called Urbandale Iowa,
which had a public library and I read absolutely every book on the children's side of the public library.
(04:50):
And then the librarian was like,
hey,
you,
there's another side,
you don't have to be a grown up.
You can come this way and she hooked me up,
I think first was Sherlock Holmes and then with other things that,
you know,
sort of stereotypically appeal to young,
(05:12):
lightly neuro diverse,
slightly outsider kids.
I think a lot of us imprinted on homes and,
uh,
mysteries and genre fiction in high school.
My dad brought me home,
uh,
one Star Trek novel every Friday.
So I've read about 200 of them because that's how many weeks there are in high school.
Uh,
he worked downtown near a science fiction bookstore called The Merchant of Venus.
(05:35):
Just science fiction,
not the other thing.
And I just,
I was in love with Star Trek.
I was in love with poetry.
I was in love with like the physics books of Richard Feynman.
I was in love with the big trashy uh historical fictions that my mom liked.
(05:55):
Um Leon Ri,
that kind of stuff.
Um,
yeah,
I,
I think reading widely and falling in love with reading as a child as much as anything else.
I did as a child made me who I am today.
I love that.
I have so much to say about what you just shared.
(06:17):
First of all,
I think being a,
like sophisticated reader as a kid is way overrated.
So I,
I love that second.
I love the fact that you were,
I'm putting in air quotes,
reading books that maybe weren't appropriate for younger kids.
And also because I did that too,
(06:39):
uh,
I,
I've talked very widely about the fact that a book I was in love with in middle school was the,
um,
Flowers In The Attic series.
We all read those,
like a whole generation of Children read these weird incest child abuse novels.
Oh,
I don't know if we all turned out ok.
(07:01):
Or if it's just kind of like,
it became statistically normal.
It's like,
oh,
sure,
all adults read these formative age.
That's why later generations maybe appear so messed up because our baseline was way off or something.
I don't know.
I have no idea.
But I mean,
I feel like all reading is good reading if you,
(07:23):
it's,
you know,
empowered by your choice and it turns you into a reader.
You know,
I just love that idea.
Of course,
I feel I'm probably about 100 and 12 years older than you are.
But I,
I,
when growing up for me,
there weren't a lot of books yet written for that sort of middle grade reader you went from,
(07:45):
you know,
clear to you on your own kid.
That's right to Stephen King.
That's exactly how it was,
you know.
So I love this idea of this librarian coming over to you and saying,
hey,
let me tell you these other ones,
let me hook you up with these other books.
I love that.
So,
so much.
(08:06):
I have to believe all of that influences who you've become as a writer too.
Not just as a human.
I would think so.
Yeah,
I am.
First of all,
I think trashy page turning storytelling is to die for one of the reasons I like reading,
um,
children's books and writing children's books is that young readers are a great quality control system,
(08:31):
right?
Um Because I do read widely,
I read a lot of literary fiction.
I read poetry,
I read essays.
Um,
but every once in a while I pick up a book of literary fiction and I read it and it's beautiful and,
or I'm connecting with the prose or the poetry or the characters or,
you know,
the arc of it and then you get to the end and you're like,
there wasn't actually a story that's profoundly dissatisfying.
(08:57):
You're like,
yeah.
Uh And that never happens in books for young readers because young readers won't put up with that,
right?
Someone made them read The Mill on the floss when they were 14 years old.
Now they are done,
you know,
so I,
I love,
I love stories um so much that I think,
(09:23):
you know,
it,
that draws me towards children's literature.
I love a big hearted story and that I think is the major characteristic of kid lit.
And when you're,
when you read widely as you do,
I think you set up a,
at least for me anyway,
sort of a gold standard,
you know,
of what the best stories are.
(09:45):
So that gives you something to shoot for all the time.
You know,
we learn different things from different kinds of books,
right?
I mean,
you,
you have that idea of a story but then you're,
you're like,
oh,
I would love to be able to do that with the atmosphere.
I would love to be able to do that with.
That's,
that's an amazing piece of,
(10:05):
of character development or world building or,
you know,
just these places where you're like,
oh,
just,
and sometimes they're small things but they're so good.
Um I just read a memory called Empire,
which is a major science fiction book in the last few years.
And they get the World Building so sophisticated that there's this joke that only works in the context of the world building.
(10:30):
You know,
it's,
it has to do with the naming system and all these people who,
you know what the,
the different parts of their names mean.
And there's this immigrant to the empire who names themselves 37 all terrain tundra vehicle,
which is funny on its face.
But if you,
if you're that deep in the book,
you're like,
oh my God,
that's hilarious.
I can't believe they did that.
(10:51):
You know what a plebe,
what I knew what a stupid mistake that obviously they've misunderstood everything.
You know.
I'm like,
oh,
that's a mark of good world building.
If there's a job that only works in the context of the world building or I just read um Legends and lattes,
which I think we all also read,
(11:12):
which is high fantasy,
low stakes.
It's,
you know,
it's a um D and D kind of world and there's this ex mercenary orc and the whole plot,
the entire stakes of the book is,
can she successfully set up a coffee shop?
Yeah.
And one of the wonderful things in that book is the use of body parts as verbs such as like arm,
(11:38):
the sweat off your forehead.
I'm like,
oh,
I love that.
That's in my next book.
We're doing that,
you know,
I love that so much.
Yeah.
So those are two things that like I read in the last month or so that I'm like,
oh,
I need to be able to do that and need to be able to do that.
That leads me to a great question.
(12:00):
Then in my mind anyway,
it's a great question is that I think a lot of people know you from your realistic fiction for middle grade readers.
I mean,
I think a lot of people listening to this will know you from Simon sort of says,
which we'll talk about in just a second.
But of course you've written a,
a sci fi trilogy that,
or du sorry that I loved.
(12:21):
So,
when is your,
uh,
high fantasy,
low stakes book coming out or high fantasy,
low stakes,
when is your fantasy,
you know,
like thriller or trilogy or whatever coming out?
I don't know.
I have written one.
so it may be the next thing that I attempt to sell.
Uh,
I understand,
(12:41):
um,
we took it out last year and it didn't sell.
Uh,
but I understand that there's feedback on it that I might be ready to incorporate now for a while.
I was like,
oh,
agent Jane,
don't tell me.
It's too depressing.
Just don't tell me what's wrong with it.
But I might be able,
I might be ready to do that.
Now.
That's the one with dragons in it.
So that'll be a good time.
Oh,
(13:01):
wow,
that's exciting.
Well,
I won't press you any further because I know,
some things are top secret,
like at this point.
So I won't press you.
I asked that question as sort of a joke,
but now I'm really excited that that might really happen.
I'm getting now too,
you know,
that people are real keen to purchase books with the name Aaron Bo on them.
(13:22):
You know,
that happened,
that could change this last year,
last year I took it out under a pseudonym.
Um,
And I might be going back to my actual name.
Wow.
I feel like I'm getting all sorts of insider tea here.
Like I'm really excited to learn that you have a pseudonym.
Like,
you know,
how many books have I read that?
(13:42):
Really?
By you?
And I didn't even know it.
Zero.
It was,
it was an experiment.
So,
yeah,
I love that so much.
Well,
last year really was a big year for you.
I mean,
you uh the National book Award Newberry Honors.
I mean,
my goodness,
(14:03):
it was like the air.
We were all in our Aaron B era.
Tell me how that feels.
How does it feel for Erin B to be in her Erin Bow era?
It's different.
It's very different.
My books,
Simon sort of says the book that,
that kind of went biggish.
Um is my sixth novel.
(14:24):
Number six,
sixth is hard to say.
Um And my previous five books have always been in the United States because I live in Canada and they do all right in Canada,
but Canada is a small market in the United States.
Um They're well reviewed and then that's kind of the end of their story,
(14:46):
like librarians like them and they find a few readers and the readers like them.
Um And then,
you know,
they drift out onto the ocean of publishing,
like beautiful little paper boats and sink because that's what happens to books.
That's what happens to most books is you launch them tenderly like these beautiful lanterns out into the waves and um they,
(15:11):
you want them to last forever.
Uh But in generally,
they,
they last about a publishing season about six months.
Um You know,
so it's your own sales track record becomes a professional drag on you.
You're like,
oh,
but they were beautiful and people liked them.
So it's been a different couple of months having uh you know,
(15:34):
become an overnight success at your uh let's see,
15,
it's so important for you to share that stuff,
I think because even though this podcast is aimed for towards adults,
most of the people who listen to this are going to be educators,
you know,
teachers,
librarians,
those folks,
I think this is an important thing for those people to share,
(15:57):
especially with kiddos that,
you know,
an overnight success overnight usually is many,
many years that overnight has taken years and years of work that any book you hold in your hand has taken that person,
years and years to not just write but to sell and then to add it and to get to the point where you get to hold it.
(16:19):
And of course,
so many writers never even get to that point.
They spend all the years writing and never get a book,
you know,
out into the world.
So,
yeah,
this idea that writers just,
you know,
sit down at the computer one day jot off,
you know,
whatever.
And then a few days later it's on a bookshelf that really is not how it works.
(16:40):
People figure you can type 100 words a minute.
And a big chunky book is 100,000 words.
So,
in 1000 minutes really done.
Yeah.
Time for a latte,
you know.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And of course,
when you sit down to type any words,
like when that's your purpose,
there are no words that come,
(17:01):
you got thousands of words in your head till you actually have to type them and write them out.
So you actually have to find the right ones.
That's the thing.
Right.
That's the hard part.
Yeah,
when I talked to because as a,
as an author for Children,
uh,
I'm particularly in the middle grade space.
I do a lot of school visits and my best school visit and the one that gets requested most often is the one I call,
(17:21):
how to fail,
which is about,
like,
you know,
how they,
they take you aside as like a,
a sixth grader or something.
They don't even take you aside.
They tell it to everybody.
It's like you need to pursue your passions.
You're like,
am I supposed to have one of those?
I had no idea what it was.
(17:41):
Uh,
I did some interesting things but none of them were career making and then I found a passion to pursue but it was science,
not writing at all.
And then I decided I was wrong about that and I dropped out of my phd program and spent my twenties doing very,
very stupid things.
Um You,
this will date me but I was a Kelly girl.
(18:04):
So back when they were still called Kelly Girls,
I don't know what that is.
Tell me what a Kelly girl is.
It's a temple.
It's like I need someone to come in and um and answer the phones at my company for the next month because,
you know,
(18:25):
we're going undergoing this expansion and the phones are ringing but we don't want to hire or,
you know,
we need to move offices and someone has to file all these books,
you know,
just the,
the very stupid,
um sort of administratively skilled but not specific.
So how do you make that jump then from,
(18:45):
you know,
PhD program crash a Kelly Girl and then to author for kids,
like,
what was that trajectory?
Um Yeah,
it's,
it's kind of a,
a complex trajectory that involved wandering around and not doing anything very useful in my twenties,
(19:09):
which I think is the mark of,
uh,
of many interesting,
more senior grown ups that I know.
I'm 50 ish.
And,
um,
and the people I know who are about my age are,
like,
oh,
yeah.
Yeah,
I did things and then that didn't work and then,
you know,
all the really interesting people are like,
yeah.
So I tried it and it turned out to be a terrible mistake or just like I,
(19:34):
I didn't even try it.
I just,
I had no idea what I was doing.
It takes a while to grow into oneself.
Um,
I'm hoping it doesn't take more than another 50 or so years for Erin Bow to find her Erin Bow maximal self.
I don't have any idea.
Um,
so professionally I found a way to make a living because I discovered that if you can both write a sentence and describe a quirk,
(19:58):
there's this tiny little niche you can make a living as,
as a science writer.
So I became one of those.
Um,
and up until,
well,
up until next month,
uh,
that is primarily how I make my living.
I have a book deal.
I'm gonna quit my job.
Yay.
Um,
don't put this out too soon.
(20:19):
Jennifer.
No,
I've already,
I've already told my job.
Um,
yeah.
So that's kind of how I keep the bills paid.
I wrote poetry.
I became very serious about writing poetry,
um,
late in my twenties.
Um,
I went to a workshop um,
here in Canada called Sage Hill,
(20:40):
a residential workshop where you,
like,
spend two weeks with the same people end up,
uh teaching poet.
And my first book of poetry,
I went there to write something else,
but my first book of poetry sort of came to life there.
Um,
like,
won a big prize with that.
And then I started writing these,
I was reading all these fairy tales.
(21:02):
So I one day magically,
I think just sort of by the process of osmosis,
I'd,
I'd just a lot of fairy tales and some of them needed to come back out into the world to restore the fairy tale balance.
Um So I started writing this fairy tale ish book and because I had a major literary prize in a completely unrelated field,
(21:25):
um My fumbling attempts to find an agent paid off and then I discovered that my fairy tale ish book was more or less middle grade and moved on from there.
So you find your agent and then from there,
you're just able to follow your nose in terms of what stories felt good.
(21:50):
Right.
So,
my career has been marked as a writer by,
I mean,
I guess a variety is a nice way to put it.
I suppose that's what happens when one reads widely and just has a lot of different ideas.
Or,
you know,
maybe I just have the attention span of a goldfish.
I have no idea.
(22:10):
But,
yeah,
all of my books are quite different from the others.
I wrote,
um,
two high fantasies,
one sort of a fairy tale.
Um,
I mean,
it's a Russian fairy tale so it's a dark fairy tale and kind of at the upper edge of middle grade literature,
but it has a talking cat in it.
Um And then I wrote a solidly y a horror ish fic with sort of spiritual zombies in it.
(22:37):
You know,
The Restless Dead who can contaminate you with their touch.
Um Yeah,
so that one that,
that's my redheaded stepchild of a book that one sank beneath the waves without a trace.
And then I wrote a science fiction Du Technology that's way at the upper edge of Y a um strong crossover with adult literature.
(22:58):
It's uh climate fiction,
but they marketed it as dystopian because it was in the dystopian era.
I loved those books by the way,
I love them.
Yeah,
I it's,
you know,
it's kind of an interesting sort of all my books tend to be like,
(23:20):
it's like my about how do I put this?
They're about big unsolvable questions.
Like what do we do with our dead?
What do we do with the idea of death?
But then I tend to make them literal.
So it's like,
what do we do with the idea of death if also ghosts and zombies?
Um So the science fiction books,
(23:41):
The Scorpion Rules and The Swan writers are like,
what does it mean to have power and be powerless?
What does it mean to be human with robots who rule the world?
Um And then I wrote a,
I feel like there needs to be a reissue of those books or something like a new addition with the painted,
(24:05):
you know what I mean?
Like,
what is the term when they paint the edges of the paper or?
You know what I mean?
Like,
yeah,
these languages because I feel like the iron is hot right now for those books because there's a big A I component and everyone right now is so fearful of A,
I,
like,
let's like,
(24:25):
reissue this book and I'm making it happen.
I'm like,
um,
I'm putting it out into the world,
I'm actualizing it right now here and as we talk about it,
like,
I feel like this is the moment for these two books to get a reissue and because I think they'd be hot right now,
I think people would be all over them.
(24:47):
So I'm just sort of,
I'm going to put that out in the universe.
I want to make it happen,
manifesting a lease of the Scorpion rules and the Swan Riders and when you cut you in,
I think.
Right.
Yes.
Yes.
At least in the,
in the dedication,
like,
I just need to have a thank you Jen on,
(25:11):
I'm joking,
I'm joking,
but,
you know,
I think those books would have like,
I think they have so many potential readers just generally.
But right now if teachers and librarians got those books in the hands of their white readers,
they would devour them.
Yeah,
those books were,
um,
(25:31):
so the,
there's like a queer love story in the first book and um once upon a time in Y A so these were published in 2015,
but I started to try to sell them in like 2013.
Um That was a really tough sell,
that was really an uphill sell.
Um You know,
and their climate fiction and they have like transhuman intelligences,
(25:53):
they mess around with gender,
um They mess around with um A I and identity and,
you know,
the idea of uploading your brain and,
you know,
climate change and the climate change,
climate change,
driving um political conflict.
Yeah,
I think those maybe came out about 5,
(26:15):
10 years too early.
They were kind of ahead of their time.
Aaron,
I mean,
really and truly,
which is sort of a meta thing to say about sci fi,
but they really were like right now,
so much of what you were exploring those books,
like,
I feel like right now is at the top of mind for a lot of people.
Um Well,
I was very glad to have written them and it's sort of always been my ambition not to write a best seller,
(26:43):
which is good because you remember Little Sinking Lanterns,
but to write a book that's that book for somebody,
you know,
the perfect book at the perfect time for the right person.
And I think those books found at least a few people and they were,
well,
they were well timed for me.
(27:04):
I had things that I needed to do with them.
So,
well,
this is a great transition because,
you know,
as a librarian,
just that idea of,
of getting the right book in the right hand at the right moment is something that really speaks to me.
And I feel like we'd be remiss if we didn't spend at least some of our time talking about a book that I think ended up being the right book for it.
(27:27):
Got in the right hands at the right moment for so many kids last year.
And that is Simon sort of says for the three people listening to this who maybe haven't read it yet,
you know,
first pause,
go correct that mistake and come back.
But if those people choose to continue listening,
do you mind giving just a quick book talk of that book to let them know what it's about?
(27:50):
Because I do want to chat about that.
OK,
let's spoil it too because it is in the book.
Absolute spoilers.
So Simon sort of says is about a 12 year old boy named Simon o'keefe who moves with his family to a little town called Grin and Barrett Nebraska,
which is special for um a couple of reasons.
(28:10):
First of all the name.
But secondly,
uh at the edge of Green and Barrett Nebraska,
there's a giant radio telescope and they are searching the skies for faint radio signals,
including signs of intelligent life in outer space.
Um And because of the radio telescope,
you can't have cell phones or the internet or TV,
(28:32):
or radio.
So it's a modern town,
but it's also an American town.
It's completely offline and for most kids,
that would be just a deal breaker,
right?
I have teenagers.
And last time I was away from home,
they text,
they're like the internet is down mom.
I'm like,
I'm in Miami.
Kids.
Figure it out like,
(28:53):
oh,
we're gonna die for most Children I think for modern Children.
Um That's almost unthinkable,
but Simon is thrilled to do it.
In fact,
his whole family does it on purpose because Simon is famous for the worst thing that ever happened to him.
(29:13):
If you google his name,
there's an image that pops up and the images from the day when he was the survivor of a school shooting.
And so he lived and his classmates didn't.
And he became sort of the boy who lived this involuntary fame,
uh and this survival guilt and this trauma that he's carrying around and he just wants to ditch it,
(29:38):
put it in the past,
close the door,
go to Nebraska and tell completely different stories about it.
And so that's what he does and in the beginning of the book,
you have no idea what's happened to him and he's just telling these stories and they're mostly true.
Uh But they're also a smokescreen because he's covering up um,
the big story that everybody wants to tell about him and of course,
(30:02):
it doesn't work,
it doesn't last.
So the book works kind of as a spiral.
There is.
And about the one third mark ish,
I think,
um the readers are like,
oh,
what happened to this?
Oh,
not uh about the two thirds Mark Simon's friends,
Simon tells his,
(30:23):
he has two new friends.
He has a best friend named Agate and another friend named Kevin whose mom runs the radio telescope.
Uh So he tells them,
but it's not sort of towards the end in sort of the spiral pattern of the book that Simon himself kind of comes around to this idea that we are not defined.
(30:44):
He is not defined and none of us are by the worst thing that ever happened to him that things that have happened to us,
some of which are hard and heavy,
um are part of our stories,
but not the whole of them and that he can tell a story that includes that but also moves forward and includes more of his life and looks towards the future.
(31:09):
I just listening to you talk about Simon.
I mean,
it's been a little while since I read.
It reminds me of all the things I love about it except for one,
there's one thing that you didn't mention in your book talk that I love and that is how flipping funny.
That's funny.
Yeah.
It's a comedy.
Yeah.
About recovering from trauma.
(31:30):
That's how I feel because isn't that like,
how we get through the darkness by finding that light,
by finding the things that bring us joy?
It's definitely one way.
Right.
It's a way to cope with the dark things in life.
But also it's,
(31:51):
you know,
I find that really funny stuff,
like really hysterically funny,
laugh out loud,
shatter your heart kind of stuff comes from the same place as grief and trauma and stuff.
You just take that big energy and turn it upside down and point it in another direction.
So funny to me is like,
anger turned upside down and desperation turned inside out.
(32:12):
And,
you know,
um I started writing this book after my own Children were in a lockdown and I was upset obviously and angry and desperate and I'm not the only one and like,
I'm a white lady from a little town in Canada.
I'm not at the middle of our gun violence epidemic and I don't wanna put myself there.
(32:34):
But I think a lot of parents of my generation and the Children of my children's generation and the generation in between,
there's a lot of anger and desperation and,
you know,
therefore a lot of need for story and some of that story I think should be funny cause funny lets us have conversations.
(32:58):
It's just so hard to have to talk about this with our kids.
But funny opens up a door and you know,
funny helps us process it and this is definitely not like a spoonful of sugar,
helps the medicine go down kind of book.
It's not like,
oh Children,
it's important but don't worry,
it's also funny.
(33:19):
Yeah.
Right.
Exactly.
It just happens to be,
you know,
there's no,
like yak,
yak,
you know,
like,
let's poke fun at this issue or let's make sure there's some levity balancing,
you know,
the time stuff.
It just,
it feels so natural in the way that you've crafted characters who talk,
like real people talk and kids who act like real kids act.
(33:43):
And in that,
of course,
there's humor,
of course,
there's joy mixed in with all this other stuff because that's how life is.
But I feel like for the reader it's exactly what you say.
It gives us an entry point for conversations that are really tough to have.
I mean,
you said it's tough for us to talk about these things with our kids.
(34:05):
Shoot,
it's tough for us to talk about it with one another.
We seem to have a real hard time even having a conversation about these issues,
even though I think we all agree that there's a problem.
Do you know how many Children have survived school shootings?
Since Columbine,
do you want to take a guess?
I don't,
I go ahead and tell me,
(34:25):
I know it's gonna be horrifying.
360,000.
That's the Washington Post system.
They did account,
uh,
and they're not all kids anymore because Columbine at this point was 25 years ago.
Um,
360,000 Children have survived gun violence that happened at their school while they were there.
(34:53):
I mean,
yeah,
what the heck is the matter with us?
Why can't we fix this?
Um,
and if we can't fix it,
which,
you know,
I think is BS,
but if we can't fix it,
we at least need to talk about it.
(35:13):
We at least need stories about it.
We need this for our kids and,
you know,
I want kids,
I don't want Simon sort of says to be assigned to a kid who like recently has survived some kind of violence or,
you know,
I think we ought to take trigger warnings with the seriousness and specificity that we take peanut allergies.
(35:36):
It's like it's not that this is kind of generally an upsetting thing to talk about.
It's like this specifically for you specifically right now could be dangerous.
So Children should be able to opt out but also opt in and find,
you know,
kids who have,
want a story about what it looks like to heal from a traumatic event should be able to find that story.
(36:04):
So because trauma is actually very common in Children.
It depends on who you ask and how you count and of course it's difficult to know because a lot of trauma is tied up with the shame and secrets.
But,
um,
the PTSD folks that,
um,
it's not the CDC,
I think it might be the National Institute for Mental Health,
(36:26):
um,
estimate that like 20% of,
uh,
Children and adolescents somewhere between the ages of,
say nine and 20 will develop at least one episode of serious PTSD.
Mm.
So that's a lot.
That's one in five,
several in an,
in any given classroom.
(36:48):
Yeah.
So it's good,
I think to have stories that are not about the trauma but about the healing because Simon sort of says isn't about the trauma,
the school shootings,
like on half a page in a chapter called in which Kevin Googles Alpacas.
It,
it's not about that at all.
It's about how you move past that.
(37:09):
So I think that's all.
That's a good thing to have on the page for those kids.
And I think the other good news in this because this is a heavy topic,
but an important one is that there are more stories being written about this and other issues that we need to talk about.
I think the attention that Simon rightfully got last year,
put that book in more people's hands,
(37:29):
kids and adults,
adults who end up being the one to hand those books to kids typically.
Right.
So that's good news.
And I think it means that Aaron Bow is going to get to write a lot more books and send those lanterns out for us to catch.
So,
with that,
you know,
(37:49):
I want to be respectful of your time.
We've already gone over the time I promised you this would take,
but I feel like we could talk forever.
I just love chatting.
I wish we could do this just every week.
Let's have a standing appointment and let's just make it happen.
Um But in the meantime,
until that,
is there anything you can quickly and sort of tooly say about your upcoming work that doesn't give too much away but can give us something to look forward to.
(38:14):
Um I'm working on something for younger kids.
I'm working on something for which I the keyword in my mind is delight.
Yay.
We need some delight.
Yeah,
it's,
it's for,
it's for like the Tale of Desper Wild Robot kind of set and I have been having just a wonderful time with it.
(38:36):
Um So,
I mean,
with a little bit of tooth in it,
obviously,
I didn't write a story about nothing,
but mostly it's a story.
It's a,
it's a story that I wrote to delight myself and I've sold it now.
So sometime in the next couple of years,
it will actually be a book.
(38:57):
So,
but I don't have,
I don't like they didn't,
they haven't announced the deal or anything.
So,
ok,
then we won't talk anymore about it.
We'll just put that out there that we can be on the lookout.
And in the meantime,
I it's my personal mission to get more people to read the Swan writer,
Children of Peace series.
I mean,
I want,
I'm ready for people to,
(39:18):
to pick that one up so we can get a reissue or an option from the Netflix or something.
We're gonna work on that.
We're gonna work on it in the meantime.
Thank you so much,
my friend for doing this.
I enjoyed this conversation so much.
I just appreciate you being here today but also just appreciate the work you do for us.
(39:39):
We really need it.
So thank you.
Oh,
thank you for having me.
I just can,
I just thank you on behalf of thanking the librarian who took me to the other side of the library.
I think that could have been you if we were both time travelers.
I think there's nothing like finding that kid and putting a new book in their hand.
(39:59):
And I think that's the essential work that you do and the librarians and teacher librarians do.
And you know,
I think it's life saving.
I know it is.
I know it is and I'm so grateful we're in it together.
(40:25):
That's it for this episode of the reader's heart.
More information about this conversation,
including ways to connect with Erin.
She does school visits y'all,
as well as a discount code for purchasing her books through book.
Delicious are available at Library girl.net.
Just click the link mark the reader's heart at the top of the page.
This podcast was created written and recorded by Jennifer Lagarde.
(40:47):
All rights reserved.
Our theme music was created by Comma media and is available for free at Pix Bay's Royalty Free Music Repository.
And the beautiful illustration that serves as a logo for our show was created by author illustrator Karina Lukin.
Thank you again for listening.
We'll see you next time and until then happy reading y'all.
There's a lot of anger and desperation and you know,
therefore,
a lot of need for story and some of that story I think should be funny cause funny lets us have conversations.
It's just so hard to have to talk about this with our kids.
(00:20):
But funny opens up a door.
Hi everyone and welcome to the Reader's heart,
a podcast of conversations with authors and illustrators about children's literature as a vehicle for empathy and joy in a dark world.
(00:45):
The reader's heart is rooted in the belief that our world needs the magic of children's literature now more than ever.
So let's get started this week.
My guest is Erin Bow,
who many of you probably know because of her incredible 2023 middle grade novel Simon sort of says,
which appeared on the National Book Award Long List and received a Newberry Honor that same year.
(01:07):
However,
Aaron is also the author of Stand On The Sky.
Which one?
Canada's Governor General's Literary Awards say that three times fast in 2019,
as well as other middle grade novels including Plain Kate and Sorrows Knot.
She also created a fantastic y a science fiction du technology called The Prisoners of Peace,
(01:28):
which I highly recommend.
One quick note before we start,
this is a dog friendly podcast y'all.
So when you hear one or two dogs barking during this episode,
just smile and give your own furry friends a pat on the head that said as always,
be sure to stay tuned until the end of the episode.
For more information,
including a discount code from our friends at Book Alicious.
(01:52):
Hi,
Erin.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
I'm delighted to chat with you.
Hello Jennifer.
Thank you for having me on.
Oh my gosh.
When I started this podcast,
and I dreamed of people who might chat with me about children's literature.
You were at the top of my list.
So I'm fangirling just a little bit right now and I've seen some of the other people you've talked to so,
(02:18):
you know,
I can fangirl at them so well,
I feel like we're all just a community that love one another and admire what we do.
Um And so it's been such a joy to have these conversations.
I can't wait to talk to you about your books and about children's literature more generally.
So let's go ahead and dive in.
I love to start these conversations by thinking a little bit about the idea of the reader's heart.
(02:44):
I titled this podcast that because I'm kind of fascinated by the way that children's literature can help to shape and move our hearts and help us think about who we want to be as we walk through the world.
So I wondered if you might just start by telling us a little bit about your reader's heart,
who you are as a reader.
And that might include who you were as a reader as a kid.
(03:06):
But it could also just include who you are as a reader.
Now,
however you want to tackle that.
Oh,
I think it's interesting to talk about who you are as a reader as a kid,
especially for children's literature authors.
I don't know how it is that people fall in love with reading and with books if they don't do it when they're Children,
(03:27):
I,
I'm sure it's possible.
I'm sure that there are people who pick up a book for the first time in their thirties and go,
where have these been all my life?
They,
and they made me read things in high school and I hated all of that.
But look,
here's one for me.
Um,
I'm sure it is possible but it wasn't my experience and it wasn't the experience of anyone.
(03:48):
I know.
I grew up just,
I was the kid with my nose in a book.
I was the kid where my parents who are,
we're pleased that I had my nose in a book because you could have your nose in many things as a child.
Um,
we're like Aaron Time to go outside.
Aaron put on your socks,
put that down and put on your socks.
Um,
(04:08):
which I have heard myself say to my Children out.
But,
yeah,
I grew up a reader.
Um,
not a sophisticated reader necessarily,
but just a voracious reader.
I read everything I could get my hands on some of which was completely inappropriate.
Um,
my father had,
(04:28):
was always giving me books and some of them were just odd choices for your average 12 year old.
Um,
we lived in a little town,
uh,
it's a suburb now but it was more town ish when I lived there called Urbandale Iowa,
which had a public library and I read absolutely every book on the children's side of the public library.
(04:50):
And then the librarian was like,
hey,
you,
there's another side,
you don't have to be a grown up.
You can come this way and she hooked me up,
I think first was Sherlock Holmes and then with other things that,
you know,
sort of stereotypically appeal to young,
(05:12):
lightly neuro diverse,
slightly outsider kids.
I think a lot of us imprinted on homes and,
uh,
mysteries and genre fiction in high school.
My dad brought me home,
uh,
one Star Trek novel every Friday.
So I've read about 200 of them because that's how many weeks there are in high school.
Uh,
he worked downtown near a science fiction bookstore called The Merchant of Venus.
(05:35):
Just science fiction,
not the other thing.
And I just,
I was in love with Star Trek.
I was in love with poetry.
I was in love with like the physics books of Richard Feynman.
I was in love with the big trashy uh historical fictions that my mom liked.
(05:55):
Um Leon Ri,
that kind of stuff.
Um,
yeah,
I,
I think reading widely and falling in love with reading as a child as much as anything else.
I did as a child made me who I am today.
I love that.
I have so much to say about what you just shared.
(06:17):
First of all,
I think being a,
like sophisticated reader as a kid is way overrated.
So I,
I love that second.
I love the fact that you were,
I'm putting in air quotes,
reading books that maybe weren't appropriate for younger kids.
And also because I did that too,
(06:39):
uh,
I,
I've talked very widely about the fact that a book I was in love with in middle school was the,
um,
Flowers In The Attic series.
We all read those,
like a whole generation of Children read these weird incest child abuse novels.
Oh,
I don't know if we all turned out ok.
(07:01):
Or if it's just kind of like,
it became statistically normal.
It's like,
oh,
sure,
all adults read these formative age.
That's why later generations maybe appear so messed up because our baseline was way off or something.
I don't know.
I have no idea.
But I mean,
I feel like all reading is good reading if you,
(07:23):
it's,
you know,
empowered by your choice and it turns you into a reader.
You know,
I just love that idea.
Of course,
I feel I'm probably about 100 and 12 years older than you are.
But I,
I,
when growing up for me,
there weren't a lot of books yet written for that sort of middle grade reader you went from,
(07:45):
you know,
clear to you on your own kid.
That's right to Stephen King.
That's exactly how it was,
you know.
So I love this idea of this librarian coming over to you and saying,
hey,
let me tell you these other ones,
let me hook you up with these other books.
I love that.
So,
so much.
(08:06):
I have to believe all of that influences who you've become as a writer too.
Not just as a human.
I would think so.
Yeah,
I am.
First of all,
I think trashy page turning storytelling is to die for one of the reasons I like reading,
um,
children's books and writing children's books is that young readers are a great quality control system,
(08:31):
right?
Um Because I do read widely,
I read a lot of literary fiction.
I read poetry,
I read essays.
Um,
but every once in a while I pick up a book of literary fiction and I read it and it's beautiful and,
or I'm connecting with the prose or the poetry or the characters or,
you know,
the arc of it and then you get to the end and you're like,
there wasn't actually a story that's profoundly dissatisfying.
(08:57):
You're like,
yeah.
Uh And that never happens in books for young readers because young readers won't put up with that,
right?
Someone made them read The Mill on the floss when they were 14 years old.
Now they are done,
you know,
so I,
I love,
I love stories um so much that I think,
(09:23):
you know,
it,
that draws me towards children's literature.
I love a big hearted story and that I think is the major characteristic of kid lit.
And when you're,
when you read widely as you do,
I think you set up a,
at least for me anyway,
sort of a gold standard,
you know,
of what the best stories are.
(09:45):
So that gives you something to shoot for all the time.
You know,
we learn different things from different kinds of books,
right?
I mean,
you,
you have that idea of a story but then you're,
you're like,
oh,
I would love to be able to do that with the atmosphere.
I would love to be able to do that with.
That's,
that's an amazing piece of,
(10:05):
of character development or world building or,
you know,
just these places where you're like,
oh,
just,
and sometimes they're small things but they're so good.
Um I just read a memory called Empire,
which is a major science fiction book in the last few years.
And they get the World Building so sophisticated that there's this joke that only works in the context of the world building.
(10:30):
You know,
it's,
it has to do with the naming system and all these people who,
you know what the,
the different parts of their names mean.
And there's this immigrant to the empire who names themselves 37 all terrain tundra vehicle,
which is funny on its face.
But if you,
if you're that deep in the book,
you're like,
oh my God,
that's hilarious.
I can't believe they did that.
(10:51):
You know what a plebe,
what I knew what a stupid mistake that obviously they've misunderstood everything.
You know.
I'm like,
oh,
that's a mark of good world building.
If there's a job that only works in the context of the world building or I just read um Legends and lattes,
which I think we all also read,
(11:12):
which is high fantasy,
low stakes.
It's,
you know,
it's a um D and D kind of world and there's this ex mercenary orc and the whole plot,
the entire stakes of the book is,
can she successfully set up a coffee shop?
Yeah.
And one of the wonderful things in that book is the use of body parts as verbs such as like arm,
(11:38):
the sweat off your forehead.
I'm like,
oh,
I love that.
That's in my next book.
We're doing that,
you know,
I love that so much.
Yeah.
So those are two things that like I read in the last month or so that I'm like,
oh,
I need to be able to do that and need to be able to do that.
That leads me to a great question.
(12:00):
Then in my mind anyway,
it's a great question is that I think a lot of people know you from your realistic fiction for middle grade readers.
I mean,
I think a lot of people listening to this will know you from Simon sort of says,
which we'll talk about in just a second.
But of course you've written a,
a sci fi trilogy that,
or du sorry that I loved.
(12:21):
So,
when is your,
uh,
high fantasy,
low stakes book coming out or high fantasy,
low stakes,
when is your fantasy,
you know,
like thriller or trilogy or whatever coming out?
I don't know.
I have written one.
so it may be the next thing that I attempt to sell.
Uh,
I understand,
(12:41):
um,
we took it out last year and it didn't sell.
Uh,
but I understand that there's feedback on it that I might be ready to incorporate now for a while.
I was like,
oh,
agent Jane,
don't tell me.
It's too depressing.
Just don't tell me what's wrong with it.
But I might be able,
I might be ready to do that.
Now.
That's the one with dragons in it.
So that'll be a good time.
Oh,
(13:01):
wow,
that's exciting.
Well,
I won't press you any further because I know,
some things are top secret,
like at this point.
So I won't press you.
I asked that question as sort of a joke,
but now I'm really excited that that might really happen.
I'm getting now too,
you know,
that people are real keen to purchase books with the name Aaron Bo on them.
(13:22):
You know,
that happened,
that could change this last year,
last year I took it out under a pseudonym.
Um,
And I might be going back to my actual name.
Wow.
I feel like I'm getting all sorts of insider tea here.
Like I'm really excited to learn that you have a pseudonym.
Like,
you know,
how many books have I read that?
(13:42):
Really?
By you?
And I didn't even know it.
Zero.
It was,
it was an experiment.
So,
yeah,
I love that so much.
Well,
last year really was a big year for you.
I mean,
you uh the National book Award Newberry Honors.
I mean,
my goodness,
(14:03):
it was like the air.
We were all in our Aaron B era.
Tell me how that feels.
How does it feel for Erin B to be in her Erin Bow era?
It's different.
It's very different.
My books,
Simon sort of says the book that,
that kind of went biggish.
Um is my sixth novel.
(14:24):
Number six,
sixth is hard to say.
Um And my previous five books have always been in the United States because I live in Canada and they do all right in Canada,
but Canada is a small market in the United States.
Um They're well reviewed and then that's kind of the end of their story,
(14:46):
like librarians like them and they find a few readers and the readers like them.
Um And then,
you know,
they drift out onto the ocean of publishing,
like beautiful little paper boats and sink because that's what happens to books.
That's what happens to most books is you launch them tenderly like these beautiful lanterns out into the waves and um they,
(15:11):
you want them to last forever.
Uh But in generally,
they,
they last about a publishing season about six months.
Um You know,
so it's your own sales track record becomes a professional drag on you.
You're like,
oh,
but they were beautiful and people liked them.
So it's been a different couple of months having uh you know,
(15:34):
become an overnight success at your uh let's see,
15,
it's so important for you to share that stuff,
I think because even though this podcast is aimed for towards adults,
most of the people who listen to this are going to be educators,
you know,
teachers,
librarians,
those folks,
I think this is an important thing for those people to share,
(15:57):
especially with kiddos that,
you know,
an overnight success overnight usually is many,
many years that overnight has taken years and years of work that any book you hold in your hand has taken that person,
years and years to not just write but to sell and then to add it and to get to the point where you get to hold it.
(16:19):
And of course,
so many writers never even get to that point.
They spend all the years writing and never get a book,
you know,
out into the world.
So,
yeah,
this idea that writers just,
you know,
sit down at the computer one day jot off,
you know,
whatever.
And then a few days later it's on a bookshelf that really is not how it works.
(16:40):
People figure you can type 100 words a minute.
And a big chunky book is 100,000 words.
So,
in 1000 minutes really done.
Yeah.
Time for a latte,
you know.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And of course,
when you sit down to type any words,
like when that's your purpose,
there are no words that come,
(17:01):
you got thousands of words in your head till you actually have to type them and write them out.
So you actually have to find the right ones.
That's the thing.
Right.
That's the hard part.
Yeah,
when I talked to because as a,
as an author for Children,
uh,
I'm particularly in the middle grade space.
I do a lot of school visits and my best school visit and the one that gets requested most often is the one I call,
(17:21):
how to fail,
which is about,
like,
you know,
how they,
they take you aside as like a,
a sixth grader or something.
They don't even take you aside.
They tell it to everybody.
It's like you need to pursue your passions.
You're like,
am I supposed to have one of those?
I had no idea what it was.
(17:41):
Uh,
I did some interesting things but none of them were career making and then I found a passion to pursue but it was science,
not writing at all.
And then I decided I was wrong about that and I dropped out of my phd program and spent my twenties doing very,
very stupid things.
Um You,
this will date me but I was a Kelly girl.
(18:04):
So back when they were still called Kelly Girls,
I don't know what that is.
Tell me what a Kelly girl is.
It's a temple.
It's like I need someone to come in and um and answer the phones at my company for the next month because,
you know,
(18:25):
we're going undergoing this expansion and the phones are ringing but we don't want to hire or,
you know,
we need to move offices and someone has to file all these books,
you know,
just the,
the very stupid,
um sort of administratively skilled but not specific.
So how do you make that jump then from,
(18:45):
you know,
PhD program crash a Kelly Girl and then to author for kids,
like,
what was that trajectory?
Um Yeah,
it's,
it's kind of a,
a complex trajectory that involved wandering around and not doing anything very useful in my twenties,
(19:09):
which I think is the mark of,
uh,
of many interesting,
more senior grown ups that I know.
I'm 50 ish.
And,
um,
and the people I know who are about my age are,
like,
oh,
yeah.
Yeah,
I did things and then that didn't work and then,
you know,
all the really interesting people are like,
yeah.
So I tried it and it turned out to be a terrible mistake or just like I,
(19:34):
I didn't even try it.
I just,
I had no idea what I was doing.
It takes a while to grow into oneself.
Um,
I'm hoping it doesn't take more than another 50 or so years for Erin Bow to find her Erin Bow maximal self.
I don't have any idea.
Um,
so professionally I found a way to make a living because I discovered that if you can both write a sentence and describe a quirk,
(19:58):
there's this tiny little niche you can make a living as,
as a science writer.
So I became one of those.
Um,
and up until,
well,
up until next month,
uh,
that is primarily how I make my living.
I have a book deal.
I'm gonna quit my job.
Yay.
Um,
don't put this out too soon.
(20:19):
Jennifer.
No,
I've already,
I've already told my job.
Um,
yeah.
So that's kind of how I keep the bills paid.
I wrote poetry.
I became very serious about writing poetry,
um,
late in my twenties.
Um,
I went to a workshop um,
here in Canada called Sage Hill,
(20:40):
a residential workshop where you,
like,
spend two weeks with the same people end up,
uh teaching poet.
And my first book of poetry,
I went there to write something else,
but my first book of poetry sort of came to life there.
Um,
like,
won a big prize with that.
And then I started writing these,
I was reading all these fairy tales.
(21:02):
So I one day magically,
I think just sort of by the process of osmosis,
I'd,
I'd just a lot of fairy tales and some of them needed to come back out into the world to restore the fairy tale balance.
Um So I started writing this fairy tale ish book and because I had a major literary prize in a completely unrelated field,
(21:25):
um My fumbling attempts to find an agent paid off and then I discovered that my fairy tale ish book was more or less middle grade and moved on from there.
So you find your agent and then from there,
you're just able to follow your nose in terms of what stories felt good.
(21:50):
Right.
So,
my career has been marked as a writer by,
I mean,
I guess a variety is a nice way to put it.
I suppose that's what happens when one reads widely and just has a lot of different ideas.
Or,
you know,
maybe I just have the attention span of a goldfish.
I have no idea.
(22:10):
But,
yeah,
all of my books are quite different from the others.
I wrote,
um,
two high fantasies,
one sort of a fairy tale.
Um,
I mean,
it's a Russian fairy tale so it's a dark fairy tale and kind of at the upper edge of middle grade literature,
but it has a talking cat in it.
Um And then I wrote a solidly y a horror ish fic with sort of spiritual zombies in it.
(22:37):
You know,
The Restless Dead who can contaminate you with their touch.
Um Yeah,
so that one that,
that's my redheaded stepchild of a book that one sank beneath the waves without a trace.
And then I wrote a science fiction Du Technology that's way at the upper edge of Y a um strong crossover with adult literature.
(22:58):
It's uh climate fiction,
but they marketed it as dystopian because it was in the dystopian era.
I loved those books by the way,
I love them.
Yeah,
I it's,
you know,
it's kind of an interesting sort of all my books tend to be like,
(23:20):
it's like my about how do I put this?
They're about big unsolvable questions.
Like what do we do with our dead?
What do we do with the idea of death?
But then I tend to make them literal.
So it's like,
what do we do with the idea of death if also ghosts and zombies?
Um So the science fiction books,
(23:41):
The Scorpion Rules and The Swan writers are like,
what does it mean to have power and be powerless?
What does it mean to be human with robots who rule the world?
Um And then I wrote a,
I feel like there needs to be a reissue of those books or something like a new addition with the painted,
(24:05):
you know what I mean?
Like,
what is the term when they paint the edges of the paper or?
You know what I mean?
Like,
yeah,
these languages because I feel like the iron is hot right now for those books because there's a big A I component and everyone right now is so fearful of A,
I,
like,
let's like,
(24:25):
reissue this book and I'm making it happen.
I'm like,
um,
I'm putting it out into the world,
I'm actualizing it right now here and as we talk about it,
like,
I feel like this is the moment for these two books to get a reissue and because I think they'd be hot right now,
I think people would be all over them.
(24:47):
So I'm just sort of,
I'm going to put that out in the universe.
I want to make it happen,
manifesting a lease of the Scorpion rules and the Swan Riders and when you cut you in,
I think.
Right.
Yes.
Yes.
At least in the,
in the dedication,
like,
I just need to have a thank you Jen on,
(25:11):
I'm joking,
I'm joking,
but,
you know,
I think those books would have like,
I think they have so many potential readers just generally.
But right now if teachers and librarians got those books in the hands of their white readers,
they would devour them.
Yeah,
those books were,
um,
(25:31):
so the,
there's like a queer love story in the first book and um once upon a time in Y A so these were published in 2015,
but I started to try to sell them in like 2013.
Um That was a really tough sell,
that was really an uphill sell.
Um You know,
and their climate fiction and they have like transhuman intelligences,
(25:53):
they mess around with gender,
um They mess around with um A I and identity and,
you know,
the idea of uploading your brain and,
you know,
climate change and the climate change,
climate change,
driving um political conflict.
Yeah,
I think those maybe came out about 5,
(26:15):
10 years too early.
They were kind of ahead of their time.
Aaron,
I mean,
really and truly,
which is sort of a meta thing to say about sci fi,
but they really were like right now,
so much of what you were exploring those books,
like,
I feel like right now is at the top of mind for a lot of people.
Um Well,
I was very glad to have written them and it's sort of always been my ambition not to write a best seller,
(26:43):
which is good because you remember Little Sinking Lanterns,
but to write a book that's that book for somebody,
you know,
the perfect book at the perfect time for the right person.
And I think those books found at least a few people and they were,
well,
they were well timed for me.
(27:04):
I had things that I needed to do with them.
So,
well,
this is a great transition because,
you know,
as a librarian,
just that idea of,
of getting the right book in the right hand at the right moment is something that really speaks to me.
And I feel like we'd be remiss if we didn't spend at least some of our time talking about a book that I think ended up being the right book for it.
(27:27):
Got in the right hands at the right moment for so many kids last year.
And that is Simon sort of says for the three people listening to this who maybe haven't read it yet,
you know,
first pause,
go correct that mistake and come back.
But if those people choose to continue listening,
do you mind giving just a quick book talk of that book to let them know what it's about?
(27:50):
Because I do want to chat about that.
OK,
let's spoil it too because it is in the book.
Absolute spoilers.
So Simon sort of says is about a 12 year old boy named Simon o'keefe who moves with his family to a little town called Grin and Barrett Nebraska,
which is special for um a couple of reasons.
(28:10):
First of all the name.
But secondly,
uh at the edge of Green and Barrett Nebraska,
there's a giant radio telescope and they are searching the skies for faint radio signals,
including signs of intelligent life in outer space.
Um And because of the radio telescope,
you can't have cell phones or the internet or TV,
(28:32):
or radio.
So it's a modern town,
but it's also an American town.
It's completely offline and for most kids,
that would be just a deal breaker,
right?
I have teenagers.
And last time I was away from home,
they text,
they're like the internet is down mom.
I'm like,
I'm in Miami.
Kids.
Figure it out like,
(28:53):
oh,
we're gonna die for most Children I think for modern Children.
Um That's almost unthinkable,
but Simon is thrilled to do it.
In fact,
his whole family does it on purpose because Simon is famous for the worst thing that ever happened to him.
(29:13):
If you google his name,
there's an image that pops up and the images from the day when he was the survivor of a school shooting.
And so he lived and his classmates didn't.
And he became sort of the boy who lived this involuntary fame,
uh and this survival guilt and this trauma that he's carrying around and he just wants to ditch it,
(29:38):
put it in the past,
close the door,
go to Nebraska and tell completely different stories about it.
And so that's what he does and in the beginning of the book,
you have no idea what's happened to him and he's just telling these stories and they're mostly true.
Uh But they're also a smokescreen because he's covering up um,
the big story that everybody wants to tell about him and of course,
(30:02):
it doesn't work,
it doesn't last.
So the book works kind of as a spiral.
There is.
And about the one third mark ish,
I think,
um the readers are like,
oh,
what happened to this?
Oh,
not uh about the two thirds Mark Simon's friends,
Simon tells his,
(30:23):
he has two new friends.
He has a best friend named Agate and another friend named Kevin whose mom runs the radio telescope.
Uh So he tells them,
but it's not sort of towards the end in sort of the spiral pattern of the book that Simon himself kind of comes around to this idea that we are not defined.
(30:44):
He is not defined and none of us are by the worst thing that ever happened to him that things that have happened to us,
some of which are hard and heavy,
um are part of our stories,
but not the whole of them and that he can tell a story that includes that but also moves forward and includes more of his life and looks towards the future.
(31:09):
I just listening to you talk about Simon.
I mean,
it's been a little while since I read.
It reminds me of all the things I love about it except for one,
there's one thing that you didn't mention in your book talk that I love and that is how flipping funny.
That's funny.
Yeah.
It's a comedy.
Yeah.
About recovering from trauma.
(31:30):
That's how I feel because isn't that like,
how we get through the darkness by finding that light,
by finding the things that bring us joy?
It's definitely one way.
Right.
It's a way to cope with the dark things in life.
But also it's,
(31:51):
you know,
I find that really funny stuff,
like really hysterically funny,
laugh out loud,
shatter your heart kind of stuff comes from the same place as grief and trauma and stuff.
You just take that big energy and turn it upside down and point it in another direction.
So funny to me is like,
anger turned upside down and desperation turned inside out.
(32:12):
And,
you know,
um I started writing this book after my own Children were in a lockdown and I was upset obviously and angry and desperate and I'm not the only one and like,
I'm a white lady from a little town in Canada.
I'm not at the middle of our gun violence epidemic and I don't wanna put myself there.
(32:34):
But I think a lot of parents of my generation and the Children of my children's generation and the generation in between,
there's a lot of anger and desperation and,
you know,
therefore a lot of need for story and some of that story I think should be funny cause funny lets us have conversations.
(32:58):
It's just so hard to have to talk about this with our kids.
But funny opens up a door and you know,
funny helps us process it and this is definitely not like a spoonful of sugar,
helps the medicine go down kind of book.
It's not like,
oh Children,
it's important but don't worry,
it's also funny.
(33:19):
Yeah.
Right.
Exactly.
It just happens to be,
you know,
there's no,
like yak,
yak,
you know,
like,
let's poke fun at this issue or let's make sure there's some levity balancing,
you know,
the time stuff.
It just,
it feels so natural in the way that you've crafted characters who talk,
like real people talk and kids who act like real kids act.
(33:43):
And in that,
of course,
there's humor,
of course,
there's joy mixed in with all this other stuff because that's how life is.
But I feel like for the reader it's exactly what you say.
It gives us an entry point for conversations that are really tough to have.
I mean,
you said it's tough for us to talk about these things with our kids.
(34:05):
Shoot,
it's tough for us to talk about it with one another.
We seem to have a real hard time even having a conversation about these issues,
even though I think we all agree that there's a problem.
Do you know how many Children have survived school shootings?
Since Columbine,
do you want to take a guess?
I don't,
I go ahead and tell me,
(34:25):
I know it's gonna be horrifying.
360,000.
That's the Washington Post system.
They did account,
uh,
and they're not all kids anymore because Columbine at this point was 25 years ago.
Um,
360,000 Children have survived gun violence that happened at their school while they were there.
(34:53):
I mean,
yeah,
what the heck is the matter with us?
Why can't we fix this?
Um,
and if we can't fix it,
which,
you know,
I think is BS,
but if we can't fix it,
we at least need to talk about it.
(35:13):
We at least need stories about it.
We need this for our kids and,
you know,
I want kids,
I don't want Simon sort of says to be assigned to a kid who like recently has survived some kind of violence or,
you know,
I think we ought to take trigger warnings with the seriousness and specificity that we take peanut allergies.
(35:36):
It's like it's not that this is kind of generally an upsetting thing to talk about.
It's like this specifically for you specifically right now could be dangerous.
So Children should be able to opt out but also opt in and find,
you know,
kids who have,
want a story about what it looks like to heal from a traumatic event should be able to find that story.
(36:04):
So because trauma is actually very common in Children.
It depends on who you ask and how you count and of course it's difficult to know because a lot of trauma is tied up with the shame and secrets.
But,
um,
the PTSD folks that,
um,
it's not the CDC,
I think it might be the National Institute for Mental Health,
(36:26):
um,
estimate that like 20% of,
uh,
Children and adolescents somewhere between the ages of,
say nine and 20 will develop at least one episode of serious PTSD.
Mm.
So that's a lot.
That's one in five,
several in an,
in any given classroom.
(36:48):
Yeah.
So it's good,
I think to have stories that are not about the trauma but about the healing because Simon sort of says isn't about the trauma,
the school shootings,
like on half a page in a chapter called in which Kevin Googles Alpacas.
It,
it's not about that at all.
It's about how you move past that.
(37:09):
So I think that's all.
That's a good thing to have on the page for those kids.
And I think the other good news in this because this is a heavy topic,
but an important one is that there are more stories being written about this and other issues that we need to talk about.
I think the attention that Simon rightfully got last year,
put that book in more people's hands,
(37:29):
kids and adults,
adults who end up being the one to hand those books to kids typically.
Right.
So that's good news.
And I think it means that Aaron Bow is going to get to write a lot more books and send those lanterns out for us to catch.
So,
with that,
you know,
(37:49):
I want to be respectful of your time.
We've already gone over the time I promised you this would take,
but I feel like we could talk forever.
I just love chatting.
I wish we could do this just every week.
Let's have a standing appointment and let's just make it happen.
Um But in the meantime,
until that,
is there anything you can quickly and sort of tooly say about your upcoming work that doesn't give too much away but can give us something to look forward to.
(38:14):
Um I'm working on something for younger kids.
I'm working on something for which I the keyword in my mind is delight.
Yay.
We need some delight.
Yeah,
it's,
it's for,
it's for like the Tale of Desper Wild Robot kind of set and I have been having just a wonderful time with it.
(38:36):
Um So,
I mean,
with a little bit of tooth in it,
obviously,
I didn't write a story about nothing,
but mostly it's a story.
It's a,
it's a story that I wrote to delight myself and I've sold it now.
So sometime in the next couple of years,
it will actually be a book.
(38:57):
So,
but I don't have,
I don't like they didn't,
they haven't announced the deal or anything.
So,
ok,
then we won't talk anymore about it.
We'll just put that out there that we can be on the lookout.
And in the meantime,
I it's my personal mission to get more people to read the Swan writer,
Children of Peace series.
I mean,
I want,
I'm ready for people to,
(39:18):
to pick that one up so we can get a reissue or an option from the Netflix or something.
We're gonna work on that.
We're gonna work on it in the meantime.
Thank you so much,
my friend for doing this.
I enjoyed this conversation so much.
I just appreciate you being here today but also just appreciate the work you do for us.
(39:39):
We really need it.
So thank you.
Oh,
thank you for having me.
I just can,
I just thank you on behalf of thanking the librarian who took me to the other side of the library.
I think that could have been you if we were both time travelers.
I think there's nothing like finding that kid and putting a new book in their hand.
(39:59):
And I think that's the essential work that you do and the librarians and teacher librarians do.
And you know,
I think it's life saving.
I know it is.
I know it is and I'm so grateful we're in it together.
(40:25):
That's it for this episode of the reader's heart.
More information about this conversation,
including ways to connect with Erin.
She does school visits y'all,
as well as a discount code for purchasing her books through book.
Delicious are available at Library girl.net.
Just click the link mark the reader's heart at the top of the page.
This podcast was created written and recorded by Jennifer Lagarde.
(40:47):
All rights reserved.
Our theme music was created by Comma media and is available for free at Pix Bay's Royalty Free Music Repository.
And the beautiful illustration that serves as a logo for our show was created by author illustrator Karina Lukin.
Thank you again for listening.
We'll see you next time and until then happy reading y'all.
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