And we slip into them as if putting on a special outfit: the ballerina has her tutu and toe shoes, the football player has pads, and clowns a red nose.
A picture book–like a sonnet, a haiku–has certain parameters. You learn them so you can eventually change, reorder, even violate them. JY: I agree–there is something to be said for constraints in art. Without constraints, I fly off into the ether, ending up with pages of stuff that gets tossed in a drawer, never to be seen again. It’s that shaping that makes them come to life. I’m forced to rethink all the crazy ideas I have and mold them into a usable, readable shape. It sounds really complicated put that way–but in the end, it was as wonderful as a dance.ĪS: I like the fact that the form is compact and constrained. Of course, adding the fact that we were two people writing one story from the point of view of a child only made it harder. How to tell the story as if it is as tight and lyrical as a poem. But you also have to think like both a poet and a storyteller–compression and expansion. You have to understand what makes the reader want to turn the page.
You have to think in double page spreads, as scenes. JY: That is the core of writing picture books–thinking visually. But after writing three graphic novels with you, I was suddenly eager to work on Crow Not Crow. I hadn’t written in any kind of illustrative medium and hadn’t yet learned to think visually while writing. When you first mentioned doing Crow Not Crow as a picture book, I didn’t see it.
Now, she’s a full-fledged (pun intended) birder. She got really good at telling crows from not crows, and we quickly added other birds into the mix. But the more Betsy and I joked about it, the more useful it started to seem. Only much later did I start bugging you about it.ĪS: The actual teaching idea started out as a joke, splitting all of the bird kingdom into two classes: Crow and Not Crow. I thought Crow Not Crow might make a great title for a picture book, but since it wasn’t my idea, I left it alone. But you had been taught to bird as a child by your father who had grown up in the mountains of West Virginia. JY: I remember the first time you talked about teaching your wife Betsy how to bird using something you called “Crow Not Crow.” She was a Minneapolis girl and really didn’t know one bird from another. ( OPB doesn’t do many non-Monday posts, but when we do a Bonus Goody, it’s always going to be worthwhile like this. Enjoy!) As part of a whirlwind blog tour to support their new co-authored picture book, Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple share thoughts about the genesis and writing of Crow Not Crow.
0 kommentar(er)
