Book Giveaway and Guest Teaching Author Interview with Barbara Bottner (who shares her favorite exercise for picture book writers!)

Author/illustrator Barbara Bottner

Today I'm pleased to introduce you to your guest TeachingAuthor: Barbara Bottner.  Barbara was among my first teachers in this field--lucky me!   Barbara has written--and in some cases illustrated--over thirty-six books for children, published by all the major houses. She has contributed to every aspect of the field; from wordless picture books, picture books, story books, I Can Reads, Chapter books, middle grade and two Young Adult novels.  

Her most recent picture book,  Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I don’t), illustrated by Michael Emberley, was on the New York Times Bestseller list, an Indie Pick for Spring, the March Amazon Pick, the Bank Street pick, as well as garnering starred reviews and appearing on blogs everywhere.

What's it about?  With the help of Miss Brooks, Missy’s classmates all find books they love in the library—books about fairies and dogs and trains and cowboys. But Missy dismisses them all—“Too flowery, too furry, too clickety, too yippity.” Still, Miss Brooks remains undaunted. Book Week is here and Missy will find a book to love if they have to empty the entire library. What story will finally win over this beastly, er, discriminating child? William Steig’s Shrek!—the tale of a repulsive green ogre in search of a revolting bride—of course!Barbara Bottner and Michael Emberley pay playful homage to the diverse tastes of child readers and the valiant librarians who are determined to put just the right book in each child’s hands.

See below for information on how you can enter to win an autographed copy of Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I don't)!

Barbara's other well-known titles include Bootsie Barker Bites, illustrated by Caldecott winner Peggy Rathmann, and Wallace's Lists, co-written with her husband, Gerald Kruglik (who's a doctor in his spare time!). Bootsie and Wallace were both animated and translated into other languages. 

Scaredy Cats was selected as the One Picture Book, One Community choice for the Miami Book Fair. She has taught award-winning authors such as Lane Smith, (Stinky Cheese Man) Laura Numeroff, (If You Give a Mouse a Cookie) Bruce Degan, (The Magic School Bus) Peggy Rathmann,(Officer Buckle and Gloria), Robin Preiss Glasser,(Fancy Nancy) Antoinette Portis,(Not a Box) Denise Doyan (Once Upon a Twice) and received “The Distinguished Teaching Award” from the New School in 1990. She has taught at UCLA, Parson’s School of Design, has been on staff for the Miami Book Fair, and lectured nationwide.  Visit her website and check out her artwork!

When I heard about the wild success of Barbara's latest picture book, Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I don't), I knew I wanted to interview her for our TeachingAuthors blog.
 

Howdy, Barbara! 
How did you become a TeachingAuthor?

I had just published my first book, What Would You Do With a Giant, and around that time I was also doing a little bit of work in the advertising business.  For some strange reason, an art director told me quite out of the blue that he thought I’d make a good teacher. I’d met him only a few minutes before, but I decided to follow up on his tip.

He sent me to the New School for Social Research in the Village which owned Parsons School of Design. The Dean was available, so I sat down with him. He hired me on the spot, not because I had anything much to recommend me. I had written and illustrated a single picture book. As I went through the revolving doors, the teacher who had been scheduled to teach writing and illustrating books for children, was leaving on the same rotation. It was Kismet: I was learning how to write and was facing a huge class of opinionated New Yorkers who wanted to learn. I basically taught myself as I taught them.

(c) artwork by Barbara Bottner.  All rights reserved.

Out of the early days at Parsons, Laura Numeroff, Bruce Degan, Jacquii Hann, and many other talents passed through my doors. By day, Maurice Sendak was there and we shared a student whom we agreed was not being recognized by her teachers. She went on to publish a book she worked on with me (and Maurice? Don’t know!) Her name is Amy Aiken.

When I was to leave New York for LA, I asked to be transferred to the faculty here, when Otis Parsons was down by McArthur Park. Happy days and it's where I met you, April.

You were a fabulous and generous teacher, Barbara.  You introduced me to your editor at Scholastic who became my first editor.  And I'm still using what you taught me in both my writing and my teaching.  So let's talk about your teaching.  What's a common problem your students have and how do you address it?

I’m mostly dealing with novels now, although there are some writing picture books to very great, even national success. Novels are complex by nature. The voice, to me, is very important and can lead you deeply into the core of a story, but as we know, plot has to be dealt with. So balancing the raw juice of the narrative voice but knowing when to start thinking of plot is an issue. We don’t want contrived stories, so it’s a back and forth.  The other thing that happens is that sometimes we writers zoom past the obligatory dramatic scenes because we’re in it for the long haul. I find I often stop and say to a writer----where’s this confrontation? The tendency can be there to overlook the most dramatic of moments. I find now, that my entire class picks that up for each other right away. We all scan the work closely, so nobody gets away with weak writing or weak prose.

This makes me want to sign up for your class again!  Would you share a favorite writing exercise for our readers?

For picture books, I love this assignment: Think of something going on in the pictures that isn’t going on in the text. This is a powerful way to think pictorially and to think in juxtapositions. My early book, Myra, was a direct result of applying the exercise.  Peggy Rathmann’s two books, Officer Buckle and Gloria, and Goodnight, Gorilla both originated from this exercise, as many other picture books have, including, most recently, Not a Box, and Not a Stick, by Antoinette Portis.

I remember that exercise.  It's harder than it seems.  That's what's behind your deceptively simple book, Be Brown, too.  Okay, what's one piece of advice you have for teachers?

My best advice for teachers is to be honest. Kind, but honest. And following that, it would be to try to get to the deepest emotional core of the story the student is wanting to tell. And at times, know when to say, ‘keep going’ and know when to advise them to dig a little deeper. A superficial story is never going to be satisfying, even if well-told and, in my opinion, serves no one. I find people really want the encouragement to be a little bolder and aim for meaningful stories, even if they’re funny and entertaining. Don’t let them off with ‘good enough.’ There is no such thing a ‘good enough,’ is there? 

Can you share the story about how you sold your first book?

Well, when I wrote What Would You Do With a Giant, I was brand spanking new and had no contacts or inside information. But back in those days if you were an illustrator, you could meet art directors and even editors by making an appointment.  I remember going up to Knopf when the (to some of us) famous Fabio Cohn took a look at my book dummy.

He got very defensive all of a sudden and said, “I don’t know who you are. You just blew in the door. I can’t just publish you because you’re young and talented. I just won’t!”

That’s the moment I realized I was going to get published, but not by him. Eventually I published at Knopf and my most recent book, full circle, is a Knopf book. I always remembered Fabio affectionately, as he really told me such good news.

(c) artwork by Barbara Bottner.  All rights reserved.

Thanks so much for  sharing yourself with us today, Barbara.  Check out this fabulous video interview with Barbara about Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I don't)

Readers, to enter our drawing for an autographed copy of Barbara Bottner's Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I don’t) you must follow these Entry Rules:

1. You must post a comment to today's blog post telling us why you'd like to win a copy of Barbara's book. 
2. You must include contact information in your comment. If you are not a blogger, or your email address is not accessible from your online profile, you must provide a valid email address in your comment. Entries without contact information will be disqualified. Note: the TeachingAuthors cannot prevent spammers from accessing email addresses posted within comments, so feel free to disguise your address by spelling out portions, such as the [at] and [dot].
3. You must post your comment by 11 pm (CST) Friday, August 20, 2010. (The winner will be announced on Saturday, August 21.)
4. You must have a mailing address in the United States.
5. If you win, you automatically grant us permission to identify you as a winner on our TeachingAuthors website.  

For more information on our winner selection/notification process, see our official giveaway guidelines.

Blogosphere Buzz

Poet extraordinaire David Harrison's interviews me today, too!