Authors and illustrators on SLJ‘s Day of Dialog “Informational Picture Books” panel. (l. to r.) Jonah Winter, Kathleen T. Isaacs (moderator), Thomas Gonzalez, Jim Arnosky, Jennifer Berne, and Elisha Cooper.

Nearly 250 librarians got an information boost from the first panel of authors and illustrators at School Library Journal’s annual Day of Dialog, the pre-BEA event. Moderated by Kathleen T. Isaacs, author of Picturing the World: Informational Picture Books for Children (ALA, 2013), the lively discussion offered Jim Arnosky, Jennifer Berne, Elisha Cooper, Thomas Gonzalez, and Jonah Winter the chance to share more information about their creative processes, who they write for, and why they choose to create nonfiction for young readers.

The prolific Arnosky said he gets inspiration for his work as an outgrowth of his interest in the natural world, which can be seen in his recent Shimmer and Splash (Sterling). “Once I learn about one animal, I wind up learning about a dozen more. My wife and I just get in a truck, go where they live, and stay there for months. It’s a self-perpetuating thing for me.” An illustrator as well as an author, his creative process sometimes starts off as a movielike stream of images, which later gets populated by facts. He knows he’s latched onto a future project when a subject continues to occupy his thoughts. “A book is a special medium; it’s like a poem, or a good song. And it stays with you and becomes a part of your mind,” he shared.

Jonah Winter

Winter also compared writing an informational title to another art form. “An author is like a sculptor. You scrape away at the marble until an actual figure appears.” While writing picture book biographies such as You Never Heard of Willie Mays?! (Random), he is conscious of the images that go along with the story, mindful of the pacing and the format’s usual 32-page count.

Berne agreed with the sculptor motif, and added that, as an author carves away, “somehow the right path appears” which allows you to figure out “what needs to go and what needs to stay.”

Cooper said he relishes working on a project because, “you start off ignorant at first, but then your curiosity takes over, and you fall in love with it.” He added, “there’s an art in the gathering, but an art in the carving down.”

Illustrator Gonzalez, who recently completed work on Alice B. McGinty’s Gandhi (Amazon), spoke from an artist’s point of view. “The pace is given to me, which is a little bit of a challenge, but at the same time it forces me to resolve any issues. I do like to sneak things in here and there; working on a book then becomes like leaving your fingerprint.” Winter responded, “And, that’s what makes a picture book interesting though, the liberties the illustrator can take.”

Thomas Gonzalez and Jennifer Berne

With the current resurgence of nonfiction, especially in light of Common Core State Standards, the need for accuracy in informational books is as important as ever. While the panelists believe that getting the facts right is always a goal, some of them had different opinions on the level of accuracy needed for a children’s title. Gonzalez makes sure to steer clear from anachronisms in his illustrations, “I do spend a lot of time researching on the time period and the subject’s background. You don’t want to include an iPhone in a picture book about Gandhi.”

Berne said she felt strongly that authors are charged with presenting someone’s life to the world, and it’s a crime to change historical facts. “You can see a life through 100 different kinds of lenses, but it still has to be the truth. I feel a real responsibility to the person I’m writing about.” Her On A Beam Of Light: A Story Of Albert Einstein (Chronicle), offers a different look at the famous scientist’s life.

Winter argued, “I believe in staying true to the essence of the figure, but there may be some details that need to be excluded or even altered for the condensed picture book format, which I’ll mention in the author’s note. I know this is a bit controversial, but I want to tell a good story.”

Cooper quipped that in his picture book Train (Scholastic), the trains actually run on time, as opposed to real-life schedules. He shared that the author’s goal is to be factual, but he or she has to move the story forward, and there are countless choices to be made. “We have to draw a line in a certain way.”

(l. to r.) Jim Arnosky and Elisha Cooper

Arnosky, who writes about the natural world, also noted that he treats, “a tree as if it were a historical figure. I feel a responsibility to that tree. And, I don’t want to add anything in my books that kids will have to unlearn later.” Arnosky said he is also very aware of his audience, and is sure to include vocabulary found in everyday conversation. He said candidly, “I don’t use a dictionary. I never did, because if I were talking to my grandsons I wouldn’t try to find a better word, I’d just talk. I make these books for children that are waiting to see another story about animals.”

Berne shared that she writes for kids, and for the adults who read the books to young readers. “It absolutely has to be as good for the adult reader. I try to imagine a whole crowd of people at different ages,” she said, adding that she likes to take into account what the subject of the biography would think about the work as well.

Cooper pictures a smaller audience in his head: “I write for a small group of people who are close to me, who I love and respect.”

The “Real World Horror” panel at SLJ‘s Day of Dialog 2013 included  (l. to r. ) authors Elizabeth Wein, Julie Berry, Elizabeth Scott, Matthew Quick, Adele Griffin, and moderator Karyn Silverman.

Following Holly Black’s keynote on her recent foray in horror, a panel of YA authors shared with nearly 250 children’s librarians what inspired them to write about “tough stuff” at SLJ’s annual pre-BEA Day of Dialog event. Moderated by Karyn Silverman—SLJ blogger and librarian and educational technology department chair of the Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School—the panel’s discussion flowed from dark to light, touching on topics such as school shootings and Nazi Germany.

Matthew Quick, author of The Silver Linings Playbook on which the Oscar-winning film is based, grew up in a blue collar town “where you didn’t talk about depression or mental health,” and where being a young man who cried about books meant that there was something “profoundly wrong with him.” Quick didn’t read much YA fiction as a teen, but revered Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Ernest Hemingway as father figures. His new title, Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock (Little, Brown, 2013), centers on a potential school shooter, and was galvanized by a deeper look into recent alarming events. “Literature is the place where I can tell the truth as I see it. I’ve met so many kids that are like Leonard: kids that so many people would easily dismiss, when really they are dark storms on verge of crisis. I wanted to explore what happens when kids don’t pull the trigger,” shared the former educator-turned-author.

Adele Griffin took inspiration from a personal tragedy when writing Loud Awake and Lost (Knopf, 2013): very much like Amber, her main character, Griffin’s own brother experienced a life-altering car accident that left him and his family indelibly scarred. “Fiction can be so humbling. I don’t know why I got the privilege to write this story, but my brother had to experience the actual tragedy,” she confessed. She enjoys writing for teens because “they’re on the brink of their own lives, and have a certain suppleness to their character. They’re willing to be changed and can still be changed.”

Elizabeth Wein. Code Name Verity author, also endured a similar cataclysmic car accident that resulted in her mother’s death, and left her brother quadriplegic to this day. “This experience in my background is what drives me to write about horrible things, and how despite them, you go on living,” she shared. Wein’s new title, Rose Under Fire (Hyperion/Disney, 2013), is a companion novel for the acclaimed Verity, and follows another brave female pilot who is caught behind enemy lines during World War II and is detained in a Nazi concentration camp.

Known for her hard-hitting novels, Elizabeth Scott’s works are a far cry from the “issue-books” and frothy “Sweet Valley” series that were prevalent during her teenage years. The idea for Heartbeat (HarlequinTeen, 2013), about a girl whose mother is brain-dead and being kept alive by machines for the sake of the unborn baby, came to Scott when she read an obituary about a woman in a similar situation. The author opined, “everyone has a well of misery somewhere in their lives and some people are drawn to it more than others. Writing about the dark places that some of us don’t want to see is incredibly liberating, because you’re telling something that needs to be said.”

Quick shared that he tries to make order out of chaos in his books, and he hopes that readers can understand that “It’s not just chaos. We’re not alone.” His biggest fear is not connecting with people through his writing. “You just hope that when you stick your hand out someone will be there to shake it,” he said. Scott is most afraid of people’s inaction. “I’m afraid of people who look away when something bad is happening. How it can be obvious that someone is suffering, and how easy it is to look away.”

Despite the heavy themes, Silverman pointed out that in each of the panelists’ books, redemption came in the form of friendship, and that in these stories, making connections with other people continued to be a saving grace. Julie Berry, author of All the Truth That’s In Me (Viking, 2013), loves titles with romance, but “one of the things that makes me nuts is when romantic stories are spun so that the love interest is the total focus for the main character. Without friends we’re toast—girls should know that their lives gain richness not from some guy, but by a core of female friends.” The mostly-female panel emphatically agreed.

Friendship is the definitive theme in Wein’s Verity, and makes a comeback in her latest book, she noted. While conducting research on Nazi concentration camps for Rose Under Fire, she discovered a common thread: “From reading the survivor accounts, I gathered that if you didn’t have people to count on, then you wouldn’t make it. Friendship had to be present so that my character could survive.”

Wein added that the underlying theme for her new book is hope, something that the authors agreed the real world—and the teens they write for—need to see more each day. In a place where Sandy Hook and other tragedies continue to be in the news, YA novels can be conduits for teen readers.

And Berry argues that this is good for kids. “The scales are falling from their [teens’] eyes. They see the news; they see the truth in their communities. There is no guarantee that you can make it through life unscathed. There are no answers, but the novel is the closest we can come to approach them; there can be a messy resolution, or a blossom of hope.”

Lizi Boyd

After a day of stimulating, substantive presentations at SLJ’s annual Day of Dialog on May 29, Rita Auerbach, children’s literature specialist and storyteller, moderated the final panel of the event, “Visual Storytelling,” which featured a diversity of acclaimed author/illustrators speaking about their art. The panelists were Lizi Boyd, Inside Outside (Chronicle); Oliver Jeffers, The Day the Crayons Quit (Penguin); Matt Phelan, Bluffton: My Summer with Buster Keaton (Candlewick); Chris Raschka, Daisy Gets Lost (Random); and David Wiesner, Mr. Wuffles! (Houghton Harcourt).

Oliver Jeffers

Boyd set the scene by quoting from Rilke—“art is childhood”—and naming the poet the source for the title of her latest book, Inside Outside. “It was as if I was transcribing it from a child’s eye,” she said of her concept book, which begins and ends with winter scenes. Her artwork was inspired by the changing of the seasons in Vermont where she lives, she said, noting that, while winter is her favorite time of year, spring in Vermont offers one special “lime sherbet day” when the leaves near her home begin to bud.

Jeffers drew laughter from the audience for claiming that he didn’t know he had to prepare for today’s event. He continued to entertain as he related some of the the funny (and true) inspirations for his stories, the advantage of being both author and illustrator of a book (which is how he usually works in picture books), and how he came to create the artwork for Drew Daywalt’s The Day the Crayons Quit  (a clever—and tricky—editor was the matchmaker for artist and writer).

Matt Phelan

“I intended to be a fine artist, a painter,” Jeffers told the crowd. “Then I realized I was trying to create this narrative,” for which picture books are perfect for exploring. He said he didn’t consider himself a writer, but “a storyteller who uses words and pictures.”

Talking about technique, Phelan, who considers the graphic novel a “medium” rather than a genre, described some of the various artistic styles he employs to set the tone of different stories in his graphic novels, and the ways in which utilizing various sizes of panels can help control a story’s pacing. “I am really fascinated by that, and by the power of the silent panels,” Phelan said.

Raschka also noted that “more and more I’m doing books with fewer and fewer words.” He called it “a fascinating thing to do” but a scary one, too, since “it all hangs on the pictures. You can’t hide behind anything…it has to keep you turning the pages.”

Chris Raschka

Raschka then showed the audience some of the “little books” he creates when he pitches new stories to his editors. Each features color artwork in a bit of a rough storyboard. “This is how Daisy  began—this is what I send to my editors,” he said, revealing some of the vibrant pages within. “I just keep making books like this over and over again, until finally I have a book that everyone likes, but it’s not a hardship for me; this is the closest thing to the art form that I like.”

David Wiesner and Rita Auerbach

Wiesner also talked technique, and demonstrated his use of visual language by taking the audience through his various color and typeface choices in Art and Max, which he uses to identify which character is speaking, plus the very intentional layout of Flotsam. The final version of his award-winning picture book differs from its earlier drafts in many key ways, and Wiesner shared examples of these in black and white to show how the layouts evolved during the publishing process.

The final color version, Wiesner said, aims for maximum storytelling impact. “The turn of the page is the essence of the picture book,” he said. Weisner also revealed some inside spreads of his new release Mr. Wuffles!, whichs includes visual depictions of an alien language, a bug language, and a cat language—but no text. “Is this [really] a wordless book?” he joked.

Ultimately, attendees were left amused and amazed, yet with the feeling of wanting to know more about these artists and their intriguing creative work.

Librarians, SLJ editors, and author/keynote speaker Kevin Henkes enjoy the first Day of Dialog panel.

Built by Books
After a brief welcome by Rebecca Miller, School Library Journal editor-in-chief, who encouraged attendees to tweet their feedback (#SLJDOD13), Henkes was introduced by Luann Toth, managing editor of SLJ’s Book Review, with effusive praise. The modest Henkes addressed the crowd of about 250 librarians, sharing anecdotes about his family’s relationship to books, and the ways in which he encouraged his own children to become passionate readers, starting with the move of his large personal collection of picture books to the family bookshelf.

“I knew their condition would take a nosedive,” he admitted, to lots of chuckles from the audience. “But it was worth it…it helped my children to be built by books.” His efforts also included reading aloud to his children very often and for many years, which he called “something I did right.” He said giving kids access to books and simply “letting the enchantment take over” is “something librarians have always known” how to do—getting the right book to the right kid and letting it “work its wonders.”

Henkes also addressed the hot topic of gender, noting, “Boys do in fact enjoy books about girls, even if they say they don’t…a good story is a good story regardless of the gender of the protagonist.”

Henkes then treated attendees to a read-aloud from his new middle-grade novel, The Year of Billy Miller, which was enthusiastically received by the crowd.

Nonfiction author Jonah Winter, panel moderator Kathleen T. Isaacs, illustrator Thomas Gonzalez, author/illustrator Jim Arnosky, author Jennifer Berne, and author/illustrator Elisha Cooper.

Spotlight on Authors
The day’s programming then launched into a diverse nonfiction panel, “Informational Picture Books,” which featured author/illustrator Jim Arnosky, author Jennifer Berne, author/illustrator Elisha Cooper, illustrator Thomas Gonzalez, and author Jonah Winter, moderated by Kathleen T. Isaacs, author of Picturing The World: Informational Picture Books For Children (ALA, 2013).

The panelists discussed the inspirations for their books; their creative processes; voice and point of view; their thoughts on the audiences they write for; the ethics of historical and scientific accuracy in children’s nonfiction; and the difficult task of editing away extraneous details in order to craft a tight narrative for their books—even when it comes to the illustrations.

“It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup,” Arnosky said.

Authors Holly Sloan, Ayun Halliday, Gordon Korman, Linda Urban, and Josh Farrar.

Next up was a discussion of middle-grade fiction and graphic novels, “Middle School Drama and Trauma,” moderated by Caroline Ward, head of youth services at Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT. The panelists were Ayun Halliday, Josh Farrar, Gordon Korman, Holly Sloan, and Linda Urban.

The discussion began with each author naming why they are drawn to writing for this particular grade level—“it’s the past and the future right there stacked on top of a complicated now,” Urban noted—and then touched on the role of humor in their books; voice and point of view; and the marketing of tween books, which called back to the keynote in an intriguing exchange about gender appeal.

“After the Nobel Peace prize, there is no greater thing than a librarian saying your book is the go-to book for a reluctant boy,” Korman said, but he stressed, “that doesn’t necessarily speak to the girls who are finding that book on their own. It’s a good lesson to take a step back from our preconceived notions of what a girl and boy book are.” It was a sentiment that resonated with the crowd.

The authors also cited John Green as an inspiration in the field of inspiring cross-gender appeal for his books and characters, and for harnessing the power of social media, which led to a discussion among panelists of the appropriate ways to use the Internet in promoting to the middle-grade level.

YA author Holly Black surprised attendees with a dramatic reading of a poem she wrote as a tween.

Taming the Monsters
At midday, the crowd was excited to hear from luncheon speaker Holly Black, the bestselling author of contemporary fantasy novels for teens and children.

In a hilarious presentation that featured a slideshow of resources, references, and candid photos, Black spoke about the ways that her upbringing—growing up in a 100-year-old house, with a mom who liked to tell ghost stories—has influenced her writing; the inspiration for her latest book, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (Little, Brown), a young adult vampire tale that debuts in September; and the human race’s fascinating—and complicated—relationship with monsters.

“We absorb what we’re scared of and find ways of making it harmless to us,” Black said, revealing that, as a child, she transformed some of her Barbie dolls into “good” vampires in order to protect her from the “bad” vampires. Black also highlighted for the audience some classics and out-of-print gems of vampire fiction that were among her favorite teen reads, and read aloud a poem about vampires that she had written in seventh grade, to the delight of the crowd.

Coldest Girl is the first book Black has written that features vampires, even though her fascination with the iconic characters goes back to childhood. “I didn’t know if I had anything to add to the conversation,” she noted. It was only after contributing, on request, a short story to a recent vampire anthology, that “it turned out I had all these thoughts and feelings and memories” on the subject, she explained. “I had forgotten all the things I told you about today.”

Added Black, “in our domesticated hearts is a yearning to get close to death and escape…and maybe watch others get close and not escape. We are fascinated by extremes of human behavior and our own monstrousness. Imagine how much weirder and worse it could get.”

Her latest novel aims to do just that. “What might seem glamorous from a distance is pretty horrific close up,” Black said of some of the key plot points in Coldest Girl. “It’s also about a girl like me who grew up on scary bedtime stories. Her story is my story.”

During a Q&A session immediately following her talk, Black revealed that she is halfway through writing a new YA faerie book that she’s calling The Darkest Part of the Forest; that a sequel to Doll Bones is not in the cards at the moment—“I don’t have an idea about what that would be that wouldn’t be a little bit sad, and by a little bit sad I mean really sad,” she said; and that the secret to the famed hidden library in her Massachusetts home can be found at www.hiddendoors.com.

“You, too, can have a secret anything,” she joked.

Authors Matthew Quick, Julie Berry, Adele Griffin, Elizabeth Scott, and Elizabeth Wein.

From Darkness to Light
During the afternoon, attendees experienced two panels seemingly at opposite ends of the spectrum: “Real-World Horror in YA” and “Visual Storytelling.”

SLJ blogger Karyn Silverman, high school librarian and educational technology department chair of the Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School, got things going as moderator of “Real-World Horror.” Panelists were Julie Berry, Adele Griffin, Elizabeth Scott, Matthew Quick, and Elizabeth Wein.

In an intense discussion, each author shared titles of some of the books they read as teens as well as the reasons they now write for teens, the sometimes very personal inspirations behind their most compelling and acclaimed books, and the role of such themes as hope and friendship in such dark, real-world stories. The authors also shared some of their greatest fears in life.

Author/illustrators Lizi Boyd, Oliver Jeffers, Matt Phelan, Chris Raschka, and David Wiesner.

Rounding out the day was the compelling “Visual Storytelling” panel, featuring author/illustrators Lizi Boyd, Oliver Jeffers, Matt Phelan, Chris Raschka, and David Wiesner. It was moderated by Rita Auerbach, children’s literature specialist and storyteller, who told the crowd, “we have five of the finest artists in the world for you, truly a distinguished panel.”

Each artist explained in depth the extent of their creative processes and discussed pacing, economy of word choice, variations in storytelling formats (including near-wordless books and graphic novels), conventions of the genre and ways to break them. Attendees were treated to visual examples of the artists’ most popular work and previews of their newest titles, truly a highlight of the day.

As Wiesner put it, “Everyone here, we work dramatically differently, but it’s an amazing art form and an amazing world to be a part of.”

Added Auerbach, “Explore their books further and find all sorts of wonders!”

Authors of SLJ’s DOD 2013 panel “Middle School Drama and Trauma.” l. to r. Holly Sloan, Ayun Halliday, Gordon Korman, Linda Urban, and Josh Farrar.

From tragic turning points to budding first love, some of the most talented and up-and-coming authors for the middle grade audience shared their insights on the writing process, connection to their intended audience, and how humor plays a part in all of their works at SLJ’s annual Day of Dialog.

Held at Columbia University’s Faculty House and moderated by Caroline Ward, head of youth servicesat Ferguson Library in Stanford, CT, the second panel of the day focused on themes of friendship, loss, identity, and overcoming great obstacles. Ward posed several questions that led to lively conversation among the panelists.

The speakers noted that readers between the ages of 10 and 12 were special because they’re beginning to take charge of their own opinions and experiencing important emotions for the first time, something Josh Farrar noted was “gold to authors.” Farrar explores first crushes in his book A Song for Bijou (Bloomsbury, 2013), a tale about Alex, a boy who falls for Bijou, a girl who relocates to Brooklyn, NY, after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

The prolific Gordon Korman incorporates humor in most of his titles, including Hypnotize Me (Scholastic, 2013), which features a main character who doesn’t know that he’s descended from the two most powerful hypnotist bloodlines on the planet. Middle schoolers see humor in their world and often use it to protect themselves, noted Korman. The other panelists agreed that because of the age level of the protagonists, there will always be some underlying humor in even an issue-filled book for tweens. While Farrar’s story is about a survivor of the tragic earthquake, humor and positive relationships lighten the tale’s mood and offer hope.

Ward’s inquiry to the novelists about writing gender specific novels stirred up passionate reactions from the crowd. Linda Urban, author of The Center of Everything (Houghton Harcourt), whose main character turns 12 while coming to terms with her grief following the death of her grandmother, made a plea to the editors and publishers in the room to create gender neutral covers for middle grade titles. Urban argued that the cover art often will make the book interesting to either girls or boys, even though the story itself might have more universal appeal.

Ayun Halliday, author of Peanut (Random), a graphic novel about a girl who fakes a peanut allergy in the hope that she will get sympathy and make friends in her new school, raved about her novel’s unique cover design, which features a single peanut against a blue background, and has no obvious intended audience. Holly Sloan, a former TV and film screenwriter, wrote Counting by Sevens about a 12-year-old girl genius whose world is forever changed when her parents die in a car crash, declared “There are no books for boys or girls. There are books for people”.