Did you know that Patricia MacLachlan’s books are now available ebooks? Look at all of these beautiful ebooks!
To mark the occasion, Patricia stopped by to share some heartwarming thoughts about writing and reading and families. She also filmed a video interview for us, so don’t forget to check that out (below)!
From Patricia MacLachlan:
I have been a reader all my life, long before I became a writer. When I was little I read under a quilt at night, in a tree (!), and all the way home from the library, my mother’s hand on my neck, leading me safely across streets. My grandchildren are readers too, and they are becoming writers with their own voices.
What does reading mean to me? Books help me find out who I am and who I want to be. Books give me courage. Books make me smile. And laugh. And sometimes they make me cry. But always books make me think about what all the children in the world have in common even though they may live far away from each other.
Writing helps me stay close to my family; Sarah, Plain and Tall is about my step great grandmother who I always thought was brave to travel from Maine to Kansas all on her own to meet her new family. My own father’s farm is in Sarah, Plain and Tall, and his farm dogs and his horse, Jack.
Cassie Binegar is a lot about me when I was about ten years old and hid under the dining room table with the tablecloth hanging down, listening to stories people at the table told. Seven Kisses in a Row was written after listening to my young daughter Emily and my husband talk one evening. In fact all my children are in Seven Kisses in a Row, my oldest son John and his younger brother Jamie, who had a great dirt collection!
I played the cello in elementary school and so The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt is about a group of players in a string quartet.
I notice that many of my books are about old people and young people. I like the aunts in Unclaimed Treasures (“unclaimed treasures” being my mother’s name for unmarried women) Old Pepper is another character in the book, wise and kind. My children had a wonderful relationship with my father and mother. My father, who lived to be 102, had respect for children and thought that old people and young people were connected in many ways.. That has gone into many of my books. The old and young are close in all of my stories.
My books often begin because of something a child of mine said, or a grandchild’s question. In some ways writers are watchers and listeners. Spies maybe! One day my oldest son said to a school friend, “watch out what you say in this house. You may appear in a book.”
My books are personal for me.
I truly hope they become personal for you, too. And I am happy to know that children read my books in whatever form – in hard copy books or in ebooks as well.
Enjoy!
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Thanks so much, Patricia!
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