Currently reading: FAITHFUL by Janet Fox

Welcome back to my Writer Wednesday series. I’m going to open up the NY school year (I know many of you have already been back at school for a while) with a book I read in the Spring and really enjoyed: The Reinvention of Edison Thomas and its author my Class of 2k10 mate Jacqueline Houtman.

About the book:

Eddy Thomas can read a college physics book, but he can’t read the emotions on the faces of his classmates at Drayton Middle School. He can spend hours tinkering with an invention, but he can’t stand more than a few minutes in a noisy crowd, like the crowd at the science fair, which Eddy fails to win.

When the local school crossing guard is laid off, Eddy is haunted by thoughts of the potentially disastrous consequences and invents a traffic-calming device, using parts he has scavenged from discarded machines. Eddy also discovers new friends, who appreciate his abilities and respect his unique view of the world. They help Eddy realize that his “friend,” Mitch is the person behind the progressively more distressing things that happen to Eddy. By trusting his real friends and accepting their help, Eddy uses his talents to help others and rethinks his purely mechanical definition of success.

About Jacqueline:

Jacqueline spent way too many years learning to be a scientist (27, if you count kindergarten). The best part of all that school is that some people, especially her parents, now call her Dr. Houtman. In the rare moments she did not spend in the lab, she did theater to feed the rest of her brain. Then she came to her senses and started over as a freelance science writer and editor. She has written for physicians, scientists, and the guy down the street. She is equally comfortable writing for students in Medical School and Middle School, because the writing isn’t really that different. Med students just use bigger words. The writing she enjoys most is “sciency fiction” for kids, where science is integral to the theme and plot but, unlike science fiction, it’s all real. Jacqueline lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her engineer husband and two sciency kids.

On to the interview…

1. Tell us about your background and what let you to write The Reinvention of Edison Thomas.

I went to school for many years to learn to be a scientist. Then, about ten years ago, I started doing freelance science writing. About five years ago, I started writing for middle school-aged kids, mostly stuff for educational markets. I got one assignment to do short fictional pieces with a lot of science content. I loved being able to use dialogue and humor. About that time, I rediscovered middle grade novels. I also read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. That gave me the idea to write a middle grade novel from the point of view of a kid on the autism spectrum. With lots of science, of course.

2. I love the title. At what point in the process did you come up with it?

Eddy’s name has always been a part of the title. I came up with the idea for the name from my caller ID. Whenever my friend Doug Kirk calls, the caller ID says it’s Kirk Douglas. So I took the idea of name reversal and ran with it. Eddy’s dad is Jefferson Thomas. He has an Aunt Aquinas, an Uncle Paine, an Uncle Sawyer, and a Grandpa Beckett. For the longest time, the title was The Random Access Memory of Edison Thomas. It wasn’t until I was rewriting the synopsis for the submission that was ultimately acquired that