I knew that turning math workouts into life-or-death challenges was the way to engage young readers. Plus I had an ideal sounding board in the form of my boy-girl twins, one of whom loves math and the other who is the bookworm (I won’t say which is which).Blog tour: Sean Connolly
I knew that turning math workouts into life-or-death challenges was the way to engage young readers. Plus I had an ideal sounding board in the form of my boy-girl twins, one of whom loves math and the other who is the bookworm (I won’t say which is which).
I am deeply moved by the fact that we are nature, that we are stardust and I wanted my new book, You Are Stardust (Owlkids, 2012), to have a lyrical, celebratory, and poetic feel. Yet, finding that voice was difficult.
After completing my book The Race to Save the Lord God Bird (Farrar, 2004), I wanted to write about another animal in danger of extinction, but one for which there was more hope. My friend Charles Duncan, an ornithologist and conservationist, suggested several creatures, but none seemed the perfect choice.
Books are often inspired by moments of magic. I will never forget an encounter I had with Granny, the one-hundred-year-old matriarch of the clan of endangered orcas that lives in Pacific Northwest waters. I was on a whale-watching boat when Granny swam alongside, raised her head above water and looked directly into my eyes for several moments.
Poetry forces me to be brief. All the facts and figures won’t fit in my verses, so I choose only those details that are most meaningful to me. My hope is that the uncrowded page will invite both reluctant and passionate readers.
I’d never written anything quite like Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses. It is, after all, a collection of fairy tales. And what’s a seventy-two year old man doing fooling around with fairy tales?