“Eddy’s voice came easily, and I grew quite fond of the boy. Plot was harder.”
“Good fiction and nonfiction have a lot in common—clarity, logical flow, economy of words. Every passage, every word must have a purpose, whether the characters and situations are real or made up.”
–Jacqueline Houtman
The loose theme this week (besides introducing three terrific new releases and the stories behind them) has been to take a look at how authors use fact and fiction to inform as well as entertain.
So before I introduce our last author interview, I have to add another fantastic title to this week’s FACT and FICTION books—it hasn’t been released yet but the ARCS are out, so this is a mini-Tollbooth celebration. It’s for our own Tami Lewis Brown’s Soar Elinor, coming from Farrar Straus and Giroux this October.
“Leda’s story has elegant simplicity and a true and tender heart. I loved it from the moment I read it. What a fine writer she is.” --Phyllis Root (award winning author of Big Momma Makes the World)
“The collaboration of text and illustration is seamless and presents a complex operation in a manner completely accessible and understandable to young readers. Lovely.” –Kirkus Review
“‘What are you doing?’ the little girl asked. ‘Feeding the sheep,’ her mother said. Snowy day, corn and hay. ‘What are you doing?’ the little girl asked. ‘Shearing the wool,’ her mother said. Soft and deep, sheepy heap.” From Feeding the Sheep by Leda Schubert
In January at Vermont College of Fine Arts, I helped facilitate a discussion on non-fiction books including Charles and Emma and Claudette Colvin, which got me thinking about stories that entertain as well as inform. As a novelist who’s also written her share of non-fiction, I’ve long been interested in the relationship between fact and fiction for writers.
How do you best tell a story that opens up new worlds of science or industry to young readers? This week three authors with new releases join us for in depth conversations about their own relationship between fiction and non-fiction, and the literary process.
Vicki Wittenstein, author of the non-fiction book on astronomy, Planet Hunter, Jacqueline Houtman, science writer and author of the new novel The Reinvention of Edison Thomas, and author and writing teacher Leda Schubert, whose picture book about making wool Feeding the Sheep is being released by Farrar Straus Giroux.
First, congratulations Leda!
Leda Schubert is author of several books for children including Ballet of the Elephants (Roaring Brook, 2006) and Here Comes Darrell (Houghton, 2005) and teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts where she lends a warm and wise presence, and can always be counted on to liven things up with a little humor.
She’s been a librarian, teacher and school library consultant for the Vermont Department of Education and has served on the Caldecott Committee, the Arbuthnot Committee, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Committee, among others. Mor
