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Between the Lines |
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Interview with Theodore Taylor and Illustrator Margaret Chodos-Irvine |
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Hello, Arctic!
Theodore Taylor
Illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine
A marvelous picture book which shares the wonder of the Arctic from the cold, cold of winter to the twenty-four hour days of summer—Hello, birds—Hello, flowers—Hello, whales—to the shortening of days and approaching winter. Good—bye, birds—Hello, Arctic!
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Biography |
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Theodore Taylor, the author of many acclaimed books for young people, is well known for fast-paced, exciting adventure novels, including the bestseller The Cay; Timothy of the Cay; Sniper; and The Weirdo, an Edgar Allan Poe Award winner. He lives in Laguna Beach, California.
Margaret Chodos-Irvine's vivid, innovative art has appeared on many book jackets and in several children's books. Her previous picture books are Buzz and Apple Pie Fourth of July, both written by Janet S. Wong. She lives in Seattle, Washington.
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Interview with Theodore Taylor—author of Hello, Arctic! |
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Q: You are well known for your adventure stories for younger teens—including The Cay, Timothy of the Cay, and The Weirdo. Hello, Arctic! is a children's picture book—for ages 3-7. What inspired you to take your talent and focus it on a younger target market?
A: I've always wanted to create a picture book and so I submitted some ideas to my editor at Harcourt. In all I submitted ten ideas—and she rejected all of them. As you can imagine this did not make me happy—it's rare for one of my stories to be turned down, much less ten of them. I love words and I love to use them to create stories—but essentially I was told, "too many words for a picture book." This made me determined to create a viable picture book story—so I threw together as few words as possible—about twenty-two—and sent it to my editor as a joke really, because I couldn't believe a story so short could be publishable. And then she called me and said she wanted it, which I thought was shocking.
Q: Where did you get your inspiration for writing about the Arctic?
A: About thirty, actually it was thirty-one years ago, I had an idea for a film which I proposed to Walt Disney's brother as a documentary. It was to track the migratory path of the grey whale from the Chukchi Sea [Alaska] down to the breeding grounds in Baja, CA. The plan was to take a boat out and photograph a whale in Alaskan waters and follow it as it went South. They didn't end up making the documentary once they realized the cost of tracking and filming whales on such a long trek. But, as part of the research, I wanted to travel up to northern Alaska and they agreed to send me. I took along my son, who was about nine at the time, and we spent almost three weeks exploring the area. The northern lights are really something to see, and the entire feel of the place made a lasting impression on me and on my son. But what impressed me the most was this: we went to bed one night after looking at the wildflowers and landscape all day—it was about seventeen to twenty degrees Fahrenheit at the time. By the next morning, the temperature had dropped to thirty degrees below zero and had erased all evidence of the wildflowers and all the growing things that arose in July and August and September. It was startling to walk out of a four room hotel and see all the life of the day before —gone. I couldn't believe it.
Q: Although the documentary was cancelled, you did eventually get to Baja—your book Sweet Friday Island is set in the Sea of Cortez. Many of your other
books are also set in other places. Do you travel often?
A: I've been a number of places. We traveled with our children, too, when they were young and I believe it helped them to be more open—to not fear—new things and new places. My daughter took a management job in Bahrain when she was only twenty-three years old—that's the type of self-confidence that traveling can bring to a person. My wife and I were going up to Northern Canada to see the polar bears this November, but I developed a case of bronchitis and my cardiologist made me cancel it because the medical facilities are limited up there. We'll have to go another time.
Q: Many your middle grade and teen books are written from an historical perspective—are you a history buff?
A: I write about historical events because I'm not very imaginative. It's easier to write about an event that's already happened—I put the story together from research and let the characters develop—although I sometimes do have to change the story a little to appeal to my younger readers. The current book I'm writing, Ice Drift, is written from a true story from 1870 where an iceberg struck a flow attached to shore and pushed it out into the Greenland strait. There were nineteen people trapped aboard and they drifted for eighteen hundred miles, surviving polar bears and the elements, before they were rescued. Although the story is quite interesting and exciting, I didn't think it could hold the interest of my readers, so I changed the inhabitants of the ice flow to be just two boys—brothers—and a huge sled dog—facing the same dangers in the Arctic winter.
Q: You just said that you are not very imaginative. What about The Boy Who Could Fly Without a Motor?
A: (With a chuckle) That's just fantasy. I used to write about my experiences while out on ship in the Navy—when nuclear testing was going on in the islands. I have my first eight manuscripts in the cabinet over there—all of which were rejected. The ninth one was published—a nonfiction book. And I thought, "if I can publish one, I can publish another." I really enjoy the play between words and good sympathetic characters. And it's easier to write about an event that's already happened. Except for The Boy Who Could Fly Without a Motor, I draw all of these people from real life—which is why I say I don't have a good imagination—they are all people I know, and people I've researched.
Q: You dedicated Hello, Arctic! to Eamon Johnston, who will explore the world . . . who is Eamon Johnston?
A: Eamon is the son of my editor at Harcourt. And he is well on his way to gaining that fearless perspective of the world because his parents take him on international trips—including a trip to the Arctic areas of Norway. As I mentioned, I did the same with my children and they are the better for it.
Q: Do you plan to create more picture books now that you have broken into the genre?
A: No. I like words too much and I like to use more of them in my books than is possible in a picture book. However, I do have a story I wrote (and had rejected) several years ago which I still think would make a great picture book. Maybe I'll pull it out and see how my editor likes it now—although I think she's already rejected it three times.
I also realized as I watched the videos that there is a lot of color up there. People think usually of snow and ice—for instance the polar bears weren't just these snowy white animals—they were colored in yellows as well. And the snow had all of these marvelous colors including blues and purples. So, thanks are in order for National Geographic and others for their video footage.
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Interview with Margaret Chodos-Irvine—illustrator of Hello, Arctic! |
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Q: Have you ever been in the Arctic? And if not, how were you inspired to create the illustrations in Hello, Arctic!?
A: No I haven't been there and so I needed to do a lot of research. One way was to look at a lot of books—many, many of them. I also rented every video I could find so I could get a feel for what the landscape looked like, and to try to understand how to approach illustrating a place that I'd never visited.
Q: And yet, there is a very strong feeling of the "North" in your illustrations—the coldness, the expansiveness, the beauty and solitude. What bit of research do you think was most helpful in achieving that result?
A: The videos were most helpful to me, especially in some of the underwater images of the white Beluga whales and the seals. When I looked at the still pictures, I could draw them but they didn't have the same fluidity. When I watched the videos I could see how important and beautiful the movements of the animals are, and I wanted to portray that in the illustrations—the videos were crucial for that. I redid the sketch of the Belugas so many times—because I wanted to get the look of the creatures moving in slow motion. I kept watching the video and I even did sketches while watching the video—drawing as fast as I could to get that feel of undulation under water.
Q: What artistic technique did you use to create the illustrations in Hello, Arctic!?
A: All of the children's books I've done for Harcourt are illustrated with a technique called Collagraph—where you print from mixed media. I developed into this process from what I already knew about relief printing from years and years of linoleum block printing. For instance, in Hello, Arctic! I used naugahyde for the texture when printing the walrus.
What I do involves printing layers of color with two small etching presses that I own. From a board, I cut out each shape representing a color. So, for example, in the picture of the walrus, the light blue in the background, around the tusks, and a little about the eye, was the first color to go down and it was put over the entire background. Then I printed the brown and the dark blue, and then I printed layers of texture for the wrinkly skin of the walrus (the naugahyde) and the splashes in the water which are other layers of textured material. Some of the smaller details are stenciled—for instance, around the eye. And for the whiskers, I cut a little piece of rubber eraser and printed each little whisker individually.
Q: Using this process, how long did it take to create the final walrus?
A: It took several days—I have to let each layer of ink dry, and I usually go through a series of proofs before I'm happy with the result—first I do what I think will work. Often some part of it doesn't or I change my mind and add something or change something. It usually takes several days before I get a final proof I like and then that is the finished image. I try to avoid print rejections. I've worked for about twenty years in commercial illustrations before starting children's illustrations and one thing I learned was to it pays to do sketches ahead of time, get them approved, and then go to print. I do a dummy print and once that's approved I do tighter sketches which I also get approved. I also suggest where the type should go so that doesn't become a problem either.
Q: The illustrations are a very important part of a picture book, but the words, the foundation of the book, are also very important. When you created the art for Hello, Arctic!, how did you decide to enhance the script with your illustrations? Did you read each line and then decide on the picture, or use some other process?
A: I think of the manuscript as the recipe of a book—it's includes the basic ingredients but you have to figure out the instructions. So for me, I look at the manuscript as the basis of the book and I have to figure out exactly what the manuscript needs me to do [as far as illustrations are concerned].
When I began the illustrations, I had to concentrate on what would truly reflect the story. In addition to the animals, I knew that the landscape was going to be crucial, and I wanted to capture a feeling of movement while still keeping the cold, isolated feel of the Arctic. Essentially, I wanted the book to flow from the cold arctic landscape into life—movement—and then flow back again into the landscape—just as the text does. If you look at the book from endpaper to endpaper you see that it does just this—illustration and text move from stillness to activity to stillness again.
Q: Along that same line, if we look at Ella Sarah Gets Dressed—your new book coming out in Spring—we see that you both wrote and illustrated it. How does the manuscript "recipe" differ when the script is your own creation? Do you still use the text to inspire the illustrations?
A: That book came into existence when I told an editor friend of mine how difficult it was to get my two and a half year old dressed because she had such definite ideas about what she would wear and wouldn't wear. All of these cute outfits that I liked she would suddenly reject outright and go for something completely different. My friend said, "oh, you should write a book about that." And I thought, "You're right! I could do that!" And suddenly, in a flash, I saw the whole book in its basic form. So I really wrote the book to illustrate it. I wrote the first draft on the plane and worked on it some more at home. Then I took a class from author Keith Baker to work on it further. Then I submitted it to an editor at Harcourt. She rejected it. I also sent it to my friend with whom I'd originally discussed the book. She said, "Thank you very much." ("But, no thank you.") Later I had my illustration editor at Harcourt look at it to see if there was a way to make it work. She suggested that I change the ending, which I did, and then Harcourt accepted it. It's coming out in Spring.
Q: You dedicated this book "for Sarah, Morris, Ella, and George". Who are these people?
A: The first book I did, I dedicated to my husband. The second book I dedicated to my parents. I also knew that I was going to dedicate the Ella Sarah book to my older daughter (the one that inspired it) and I didn't want to dedicate a book to my younger daughter before Ella Sarah came out. So the dedication was unclaimed. Then, September 11th happened, and I was really thrown by it and very frightened—especially for my children. Was this the beginning of a war? Were we going to be living a world where I had to worry about the safety of my children?
I grew up in peacetime and have no survival skills. But I came to the realization that somewhere in me I had to have strength because my ancestors came from Russia—Russian Jews—and they lived during a period of time called the pogrom where other people would beat them, and burn down their houses, and kill them. My ancestors were children during that time and they survived. Also, my grandmother a young daughter die of diphtheria. So I thought about this and I realized that there are many things for which to be grateful, and one of them is that, yes I'm worried about germ warfare and smallpox, but no, I don't have to worry about diphtheria and polio. This was the book I worked on during that time after September Eleventh have said, "I'm not going to finish this book." But instead I drew strength from their memory, worked through my fears about September Eleventh and finished it.
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