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Happy New Year friends and fellow book lovers! I know you will enjoy my first interview of the year with the talented author/illustrator, Michelle Edwards. Michelle has written and/or illustrated several picture books. Her most recent book is a new release of an old favorite, CHICKEN MAN. I’m delighted to welcome Michelle to my blog!

Tell me a little bit about your latest book. Why you were drawn to write about a Jewish theme or character?

My newest book, Chicken Man (January 2008) is actually one of the first books I wrote and illustrated. It will have a new cover and author’s note.

I wrote Chicken Man after living and working on Kibbutz Mizra. I had a friend who worked in the lul, the chicken coop. His charming stories of the chickens and the fun he had in the lul convinced me to work there, too. It was a horrible place and I hated the chickens. That’s when I learned about the power of stories.

What type of research was involved?

I guess you could say that my research was my short, but very memorable tenure in the Kibbutz Mizra chicken coop.

How did you become a children’s writer?

During my first stay in Israel (1974) I filled sketch books with stories and pictures. I knew I wanted to be an artist. One day, I realized that children’s books told stories this way. So I started to teach myself about writing and illustrating for children. It has been a very long course. I am still learning.

What are you working on now?

A book called THE GRAVEL ROAD GANG.

What are a few fun acts about you?

My childhood nickname, Mush. Still in use.
I knit socks!
I love comic books.
I save stamps. And sometimes their envelopes.

What is your favorite holiday?

Rosh Hashanah! I love beginnings. And apples and the first signs of autumn.

Here's to a fabulous new beginning for Chicken Man! Michelle, thanks for stopping by!

To learn more about Michelle and her other wonderful books, please visit her web site at www.MichelleEdwards.com

The early reader must be the most difficult book of all to write. To create something new, something real from so few words of such limited complexity is a challenge not every writer can meet. Sure, there are masters of the genre. Cynthia Rylant comes immediately to mind. But, it is unusual to come across a new(ish) author writing for the newly reading who writes with as much honesty and emotional depth as does Michelle Edwards.

Stinky Stern Forever is the fourth volume of The Jackson Friends series--a series of short chapter books designed for school-aged children working on reading fluently on their own. Jackson Magnet is a school populated by children of many different backgrounds and family situations. Our narrator, Pa Lia Vang, decorates her snowflake with Hmong patterns, for example. A boy named Vladmir Solbokin returns from ESL to Mrs. Fennessey's classroom. Another child, Bridgett, doesn't have a mother living at home. Mrs. Fennessey's class also has a resident bully, a boy named Matthew--or Stinky--Stern.

Stinky likes to tease the other kids in the class and make a scene. On the day Stinky Stern Forever begins, Stinky Stern ruins Pa Lia's snowflake with a glob of glue. Then, after school, Stinky Stern is hit by a van when he runs into the street without looking. Pa Lia witnesses the accident and wonders, "Will Stinky be okay? He is so quiet. So still."

Stinky isn't okay. Stinky dies. When Pa Lia returns to school the next day, Mrs. Fennessey tells her class the news and asks the children to share their stories about Matthew Stern. Pa Lia, a quiet, observant child, finds she can't speak right away. She feels confused because she didn't like Stinky Stern. She listens to her classmates' stories--some good, some bad, some funny--and draws, creating pictures of what Stinky loved in life. Finally, after listening to all the children in her class, Pa Lia admits, "'I was so mad at Stinky yesterday. He tried to ruin my snowflake. I was still mad at him when I saw the accident.'" Speaking the truth out loud, Pa Lia realizes, "a heavy bird had just flown from its nesting spot on her heart." Pa Lia is finally able to say what hurts her so much: "'Stinky, get up. This is not funny, I thought. But I knew he couldn't get up. And that was sadder and hurt more than anything Stinky ever said or did to me.'"

Wow. Consider the words Edwards uses here--short words most first graders can read on their own. Despite this limitation, she manages to create a story that is interesting, important, and relevant to children. And, because Stinky Stern Forever is for children, it ends on a positive and hopeful note. The children of Mrs. Fennessey's classroom celebrate their unique, multi-faceted classmate through story and conclude by showering his desk with their beautiful snowflakes.

Stinky Stern Forever is a book you can share with any child experiencing a loss. However, I also think it will be appreciated by children who haven't experienced directly the death of a friend or classmate. We adults, more experienced in loss and death, are easily traumatized by the death of a child, even if that death is fictional. Children, on the other hand, may appreciate Edwards' message here--that everyone has value, everyone has a story and a talent, everyone is loved by someone. Even Stinky Stern.
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Stinky Stern Forever is the first of Michelle Edwards' The Jackson Friends books I've read. I'm purchasing the first three as soon as I can bear to enter a retail establishment again. (Sometime in late January, probably.) I haven't been this impressed in ages. And, I'm not alone. Check out these other blog reviews:

Wordswimmer
A Fuse #8 Production

It takes strong, skillful strokes to swim through a stormy sea without drowning or veering off-course. Writing about death--one of the stormiest of seas for readers of any age--is tricky, but it's especially challenging when you're writing a story for children between the ages of six and nine who are just learning to read on their own. Some adults might say it's dangerous--if not impossible--to