Anna Dewdney: Writing children's books is no easy task

on August 25, 2013 at 7:00 AM, updated August 25, 2013 at 7:01 AM

Anna Dewdney.JPGAnna Dewdney, who grew up in Englewood, has written best-selling children's books. 

If you’re a parent, have a computer and colored pencils, you have probably considered writing a children’s book. It’s nowhere as easy as it seems.

Best-selling children’s writer Anna Dewdney, who grew up in Englewood, knows. It took her 20 years until she hit it big with the "llama llama" series. "Llama Llama and the Bully Goat" (Penguin Young Readers Group, 40 pp., $17.99), a story about dealing with a bully, just came out.

Dewdney chatted with New Jersey Authors about books, llamas and literacy. What follows is a condensed version of the interview.

Q. What were some of your other jobs?

A. I worked retail, in a day care, a preschool. I was a teacher for years and years. I taught art and writing, and social studies at a junior boarding school. … My favorite job was delivering the mail.

Q. The Marx Brothers asked, "Why a duck," so, why a llama?

A. When the children were small, and I have two girls, they would sit in the back seat. I would drive around to school or wherever. And there were all these cows in the field. I would say, ‘Look there are cows.’ And I would moo and make sheep noises and chicken noises. Our vet had a field with donkeys and then she got a llama. And I would go "llama-llama-llama."

Q. What sound do llamas make?

A. They hum and … they spit.

slonline825B.jpgThe llama llama books feature a young llama, his mama and friends. The latest one deals with bullying. 

Q. How did a family joke lead to the books?

A. I wrote the first "llama llama" book when my children were very small. I put it away because I was writing all kinds of books. Then, I sent it out when they were teenagers. I had the crazy experience, after trying to get published for 20 years, I had two offers on the same book — "Lama Llama Red Pajama" — on the same day.

Q. No one goes around saying, ‘I can do hand surgery,’ if they haven’t gone to medical school. Why do people think they can publish children’s books?

A. And the irony is it would be easier to be a hand surgeon than to be a published children’s book author. It is less competitive. People have memories of children’s books. They do look deceptively simple. Of course, everybody has stories that resonate with them. It is so tempting to think all you have to do is write down the short story and there you are. They are very complicated books. You are working with a very tight format and they become like haiku. Until people have tried and tried to get published, they just don’t understand. One of my editor friends says for every 15,000 manuscripts on an editor’s desk, one will get published.

Q. And you do the art?

A. Until recently, I was a complete dinosaur. I would draw in pencil in sketch books, then go through the very complicated process for composition. I just got myself, this past month, a very fancy touch screen. Then I transfer everything and print it out from the computer, and trace each drawing onto the canvas. I feel like I have the best of both worlds now. The actual painting I will always do on canvas. I love oil painting.

Q. What is the trick to a great children’s book?

A. A good children’s book can be read by an adult to a child, and experienced genuinely by both. A good children’s book is like a performance. I don’t feel my world really exists until an adult has read it to a child.

Q. What are your favorite children’s books and writers?

A. I love books like "Ferdinand the Bull." Early Maurice Sendak, I love Barbara Cooney. One of my favorite children’s books as a child was "The Poky Little Puppy." And Beatrix Potter, of course. The "Frances" books by Russell Hoban.

Q. Do you start with an idea or the drawing?

A. I start with a feeling, so it really is the books come from some sort of intense emotional place, like a sense of loss or anxiety.

Q. Where did you get your first library card?

A. Englewood, New Jersey, and I remember the library perfectly. That library was the best.

Q. Why are children’s books important?

A. One is literacy. Children need to learn how to read; that is the obvious one. The one that I think that is very unappreciated is that children’s books help children learn what it means to be human. Children develop empathy by reading picture books and learn what it means to be them, and they learn what it means to be other people.

Jacqueline Cutler: