Five Tips for an Amazing Author Visit by Chitra Soundar

As a children’s author, I’m often invited into schools, libraries and festivals to tell stories and share my book with children and often parents. 

Illustrated by Poonam Mistry

If you’ve written a picture book and got it published, then you might want to visit schools to share your stories. 

Here are five tips for a wonderful author visit. 

1) Read the book aloud many times, knowing when to dramatize, where to change voices, how each character sounds. Prepare for the visit. 

Remember picture books are usually shared with children from 3 years old. So it’s important to engage them with the reading. When I read You’re Safe With Me to children, I change the voice for each animal in the story, that matches their personality, and the dialogue. You can try this out with your own family or friends to get prepared. 

Here is my reading of Tiger Troubles (illustrated by Hannah Marks) that helps illustrate this.

2) Expand and stretch the story. Introduce nursery rhymes as appropriate to break up the reading. Children love to join in and they enjoy and remember the experience when they can participate instead of being passive listeners. 

Illustrated by Frané Lessac

For example, when I tell the story of Pattan’s Pumpkin, as the pumpkin floats, we sing Row, Row, Row the boat together with some relevant changes in the words that surprise the children and the adults alike. 

3) Carry props -  they could be shop-bought, handmade. But it adds a new dimension to the listening. Children can see and touch the object (pre-covid of course) especially if the characters or things in your story are new to the listeners. When I tell the story of Manju's Magic Wishes and the sequel Manju's Magic Muddle (both illustrated by Veronica Montoya), I carry a magic lamp with me and it is fascinating to see how the little ones are definitely happy to suspend disbelief and imagine the magic. And that's magic. 

4) Ask the publisher for a pdf version of the story and convert it to a slideshow (google can help you find tools to do this). In every class, there will be children who need visual cues to keep their attention. Also it honours the craft of the illustrator to show the children the art from the book and talk about it. Just remember not to leave the presentation / pdf behind in a school or festival computer. 

5) Create activities for the story – be it a colouring sheet (ask the publisher to give you one from the book) or a word search puzzle (google for this too) or a craft activity children can learn to do from the teachers. Check out my dedicated website for book related activities here. 

That's just five tips from the tip of the author visit iceberg I've shared with you. What are your tips to bring your book to readers and listeners? Share in the comments. 

Bedtime Stories in Broad Daylight

As a picture book writer and a storyteller, I take my books into libraries, festival events and bookshops to tell stories. I don’t read from the book – I tell them like a story – sometimes with songs, but also with actions, sounds and interactivity.

Tales on Moon Lane with
Farmer Falgu Goes on a Trip, illustrated by Kanika Nair

            Often the audience is a group of children ranging from 3 years to 7 years old. Often these events are in the middle of the day either right after breakfast (so the children have eaten) or after lunch (so the children have eaten). That time between naps and bedtime, the time between playtime and nappy change time. Understandably the children are not sleepy – they are raring to go and want to join in the fun.

            This is fantastic because if I tell the story of Pattan’s Pumpkin, then the story is an adventure. It’s exciting to join Pattan as he journeys down the mountain.

            But I’ve also written three beautifully illustrated bedtime stories. Stories shared by parents with their children with a comforting refrain. These are stories that are meant to be read when the child closes it eyes and is ready to be comforted and lulled into the safety of dreams.

Illustrated by Poonam Mistry,

it was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal 2019

Illustrated by Poonam Mistry,
it has been longlisted  for the Kate Greenaway Medal 2020

Illustrated by Poonam Mistry,
all 3 published by Lantana Publishing 

            

How do I tell these three stories in the middle of a busy library or a festival in broad daylight when the children are definitely not sleepy? I had to adapt the performances to suit the venue, the timing and the level of interactivity the event organisers demand.

1.    The setting: I discuss the setting, the fauna and the flora of the region in these books. The first one is set in an Indian forest, the second one in the Arctic and the third one in the grasslands. I talk about these habitats, and who lives there, what grows there. Children love to contribute to these discussions. The first book You're Safe with Me has a number of unfamiliar animals and birds that fascinate children.

2.    Discuss the issues and the science discussed in each of the books before telling the story – the first one handles fear and water cycles, the second one about climate change and third one is about mutualism. I discuss these concepts with children – relate it to their own real life and then when I do tell the story, they can make the connections.

3.    Adding songs that are more interactive and noisy than bedtime ones. For example, to perform You’re Safe With Me, I’ve adapted “The wheels on the bus” to my own story – they know the rhyme, I teach them the words and soon we are singing together.

4.    We chant together – the refrain which is also the title appears at the end of each section of the story and the children join in. They are waiting for it and they love to say it with me.

5.    Activities - I always carry colouring sheets, puzzles, word searches all related to the book – so just in case older children have accompanied their younger siblings or a child is less happy to sit down and listen, they start working on the activities. Colouring has definitely opened the door older children to join in with the story.

6.    Workshop – Sometimes the group of children who have bought tickets to my event are all over seven. Armed with a sleepy bedtime book I suddenly face an eager crowd that is worried about being bored. 

When that happens I turn the session into a writing workshop. 

I go through the story with them and then we get on with the writing of their own stories or non-fiction projects.

 

I’ve also blogged about taking picture books into older classrooms here, if you are interested in doing writing workshops with your picture books.

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Chitra Soundar is an internationally published author of over 40 books for children. Her picture books have been translated into German, French, Japanese and Thai and have been included in the White Ravens Catalogue and IBBY International Books of USA. 
You're Safe with Me was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal 2019 for Poonam Mistry's illustrations and their second book together You're Snug with Me has been longlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2020. Find out more at www.chitrasoundar.com and follow her on twitter at @csoundar.

When Science is the Fabric on which I Stitch Stories • Chitra Soundar

As a storyteller, I love retelling origin stories. I go looking for stories in my own culture and others where the nature is explained in a story full of wisdom. How the sun came to be or why the stars shimmer? Such stories are also full of emotions and life lessons.

When I wrote You’re Safe With Me, that was my underlying objective – I wanted to explain thunderstorms in a poetic way while also making it scientifically accurate because science has come a long way since origin stories. Teaching children something wrong like the earth is flat will backfire when a 4-year will demonstrate to me why I’m wrong.

But the science between rains and rivers (the water cycle), the thunder and lightning didn’t require much research, I was born in the land of monsoons and I grew up near rivers and oceans.

But when I came to write “You’re Snug with Me” which will be out in November 2018, the second book in the series, the story was set in the polar regions amidst a polar bear family. While keeping the words of wisdom of Mama Bear like an ancient storyteller, I also wanted to make sure that the science wasn’t wrong. But I didn’t grow up in a land of ice and snow. Even though the story is fictional and involves polar bears talking, Mama Bear needed to be poetic and factual (but not in an overt way). It would be weird to break the storyteller voice to say "And the world has risen in temperature and the snow is melting at the pace of...."

Here are the five things I learnt while writing a story that will not present any facts, but still needs to be accurate:

a)    The science of description – I needed to understand the colours of the polar region through day and night, through winter and spring. What trees might grow there and what colours do they exude? Otherwise even the simplest of descriptions would ring false.

b)    The science of sensory details - I needed to understand the touch, smell and sounds of the land above, the oceans beneath and the den in which these cubs spend their first few months. What does snug feel like for a cub that knows only the den?

c)     The science of habitat – who else lives along with polar bears and what is the food pyramid? What would be the little bears be afraid of and who will be afraid of them?

d)    The science of climate change – what are the threats to the bear cubs? What do they need to know about their world and in protecting their world?

e)    The science of growing up – when do the cubs learn to swim? When do they hunt themselves? And when do they leave their mother and lead an independent life? Because it’s a scary world out there and one day these cubs will have to find food and start a new family too.

Where did I go for research?

• I read a lot of original research literature about pregnant polar bears in dens, how they hibernate and what they do inside. 
• I watched videos of simulated dens that some zoos have created. 
• I watched innumerable number of youtube videos and BBC Nature videos of polar bears and their cubs
• I contacted scientists and researchers who work with these magnificent beasts to ask about their specific facts.

Here is a little treat - watch the apprehension of polar bear cubs emerging out of their den for the first time.

What was my approach to writing the story itself? 

a)    Do initial research about the topic – that would take me two days of solid reading, getting completely lost inside Google and wandering into research rabbit holes.

b)    Then I’ll write a storyboard to see if I know the scenes based on my research. Especially for this book where there is a pattern based on the first book, it was critical to know how many call and response patterns did the Mother and cubs have?

c)     More research to fill in the gaps if I don’t have the 15 spreads I need. (12 if UK books, but because Lantana Publishing targets UK and US simultaneously, they prefer 15 spreads)

d)    Then I will start writing the story. If I don’t know a detail, I will make a note and keep going. This is the stage where the rough draft of the text will happen and the structure will slowly emerge.

e)    Over the next two stages I’ll get the structure right – when is the refrain happening – every two spreads or three? Where do page-turns happen? Will I have sounds or specific patterns of text for each group of spreads?

f)      Then I go back to do specific research – I need to know about the specific animals I have used in the story or the colour of the sky or the sound of the snowdrift. This will help tighten the words and cut as many adjectives and adverbs I can.

Then finally when I’m happy, I send it to the editor, who then after a few edits, will send it to fact-checkers and her own science testers to make sure we have the facts right before we will finalise the text for illustration.

When you read the story you will hopefully not notice any science protruding like a jagged rock in the story. The aim is to create a seamlessly joyful story that works because of the science but the facts are woven into its fabric just like nature itself is.

Do you research for fictional picture books? What kind of research do you do? And how much of that is procrastination and how much of that is essential?

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Chitra Soundar is an Indian-born British writer, storyteller and author of children’s books, based in London. When not writing stories or not visiting schools, Chitra fills her well with her nephews, taking photos of flowers and birds, going to museums and attending dancing classes. Find out more at www.chitrasoundar.com or follow her on twitter via @csoundar.

How to Catch a Reader: Make Up Cool (Fibs) Stuff! • by Natascha Biebow

From Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Waterson

Can you tell the truth from a bunch of made-up imaginings, er . . . fibs, when someone is spinning a really good yarn? Do your stories masquerade as believable ‘truths’?

One of the most admired qualities of storytellers is their amazing ability to convince readers that their yarns could be true, and maybe really ARE true . . .

This is because the premise and their characters are believable, which makes readers want to go the story’s journey. And, in doing so, they are helping readers to figure out some important stuff about their world.

Take REALLY REALLY by Kes Gray and Nick Sharratt:

When Daisy gets a babysitter for the first time, she eats her mum's note and tells the her sitter all kinds of more and more elaborate fibs – testing, testing, but also working her way through this new experience. All the while, her fingers are safely crossed behind her back!

From Really, Really by Kes Gray and Nick Sharratt

In OLIVIA SAVES THE CIRCUS by Ian Falconer, Olivia is invited by her teacher to tell the class about her holiday. 

The story starts innocuously enough – Olivia’s mum took her and her brother to the circus. But then . . .

. . .  the circus people were off sick and only Olivia could do all the acts!

She was Olivia the Tattooed Lady, Olivia the Lion Tamer, Olivia the Tight-rope Walker, the Clown, and Olivia the Queen of the Trampoline, and Madame Olivia and her trained dogs. She was FAMOUS!

From Olivia Saves the Circus by Ian Falconer

From Olivia Saves the Circus by Ian Falconer

Olivia’s teacher is skeptical. “Are you sure, Olivia?”

“To the best of my recollection.”

From Olivia Saves the Circus by Ian Falconer

Her deadpan response is of course what makes the story humorous, however, it is also a beautifully observed picture of the lying game.

So why do children (and grown-ups) tell fibs and stories?

Young children can’t actually tell the difference between a fact and a lie until they are around two years old. This is because they don’t have the ability to get into another person’s shoes yet. The first lies they learn to tell are those where they say they deny doing something.

From the age three, young children also begin to tell white lies, such as to hide a surprise or to thank someone for a present even when they don’t really like it.

Take the classic NO ROSES FOR HARRY by Gene Zion and Margaret Blog Graham. 

Harry is a white dog with black spots. On his birthday, he is given a lovely homemade jumper from Grandma. But it has roses on it. “It was the silliest sweater he’d ever seen.”

From No Roses for Harry by Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham

THE LIE: It wouldn’t do to tell Grandma. Harry wears the sweater dutifully, but he’s sure the other dogs will laugh at him. 

From No Roses for Harry by Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham

Eventually, the sweater unravels and a bird makes a nest out of the wool. Harry doesn't tell anyone.

From No Roses for Harry by Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham

But then: disaster! Grandma is coming to visit!

From No Roses for Harry by Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham

THE SORT-OF-TRUTH: Harry feels compelled to show Grandma what’s become of the sweater (she thinks Harry has been incredibly generous). Best of all, at Christmas, Harry gets a new sweater – white with black spots. This time, he loves it!

From No Roses for Harry by Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham

Being able to tell a fib or a believable story is often a way in to becoming socially acceptable, on the finely balanced scales of weighing up right and wrong. It’s also a sign that children are developing important cognitive skills such as ‘theory of mind’, the ability to recognize that others have different beliefs or feelings than they do, which develops slowly in the preschool and kindergarten years.



In Sarah McIntyre's poignant story THE NEW NEIGHBOURS

the whole tower block is convinced that the rats who have moved into the ground floor are "big, dirty, thieveing, dangerous rats" before they have even met them . . .

From The New Neighbours by Sarah McIntrye

But when they finally get to meet the pair of tiny, neat and friendly new neighbours in person, the friends are hugely embarrassed by the rats' kind invitation to come in and share CAKE. Lettuce doesn't want to admit the crazy stories they'd made up, so she fibs:

From The New Neighbours by Sarah McIntrye

So, if I’m a writer, can I fib as much as I like? Will I be believed?

In John Burningham’s JOHN PATRICK NORMAN McHENNESSY, THE BOY WHO WAS ALWAYS LATE, the lines between what is true and what is a fib are seemingly clear until the tables are turned and the grown-up teacher fibs. Or is it everything John has been saying really The Truth?

John Patrick Norman McHennessy spins all kinds of yarns to convince his teacher why he is late for school. He has met a crocodile, a lion and even a tidal wave! Of course, his teacher does not believe him.

From John Patrick Norman McHennessy by John Burningham

But when his teacher is captured by a big hairy gorilla, John replies there are no such things as big hairy gorillas. Who’s telling what truth and what is the fib?

I would venture that telling made-up ‘truths’ is something authors are wired to do. As I tell stories, I reach back into my past, I tell about encounters and observations from last week and dig deep for tales inspired by my childhood. I embroider. My stories are inspired by where I’ve been and where I want to go, and this helps me find my bearing on what is true for me today. By telling stories, I am making something ‘real’, even if it’s a big fat fib, conjuring it up in my mind’s eye.

We tell stories about things we need to be true.  

We tell stories about things we wish were true.

We tell stories to avoid punishment or consequences.

Lying requires the child to hide the truth, plan up a story about it, tell someone about it, and remember it! So, we began practising our storytelling ‘lying’ skills right from when we're preschoolers.

Of course, as children get older they also develop their moral compass, so they can distinguish between right and wrong, what is made-up and what is true. They are encouraged to tell the truth.

Like in THE TRUTH ACCORDING TO ARTHUR, where Arthur tells all kinds of alternative versions of what really happened when he borrowed his brother’s big bike, accidentally wrecked it and scratched Mum’s car. 

An alien did it! . .  . A super cool princess borrowed the bike!

From The Truth According to Arthur by Tim Hopgood and David Tazzyman

The bike was really a robot! . . .

From The Truth According to Arthur by Tim Hopgood and David Tazzyman

Arthur tries bending, stretching, disguising it, hiding, and ignoring The Truth . . . But eventually, when Mum asks what has happened, Arthur looks The Truth straight in the eye and confesses. It’s not nearly as interesting as the stories he was telling, but Mum is pleased he told The Truth.

A fun game I like to play is to imagine what the world will be like in the future. Will it be one where we can fly everywhere rather than use a car on a road? Wouldn’t it be spectacular if I could just go and see my mum in Brazil for a cup of tea and then be back in London in time for dinner? Will robots deliver our post?

If I can’t tell a story or a weensy-fib-imagined truth, I can’t invent the future. If I can’t imagine what we might invent to fill the gaps in our world, to solve our current problems, then I might be powerless to change anything. Stories help young readers feel empowered to imagine and to make stuff up.

When a story resonates, the reader will nod and say, “Yes, that’s true! Now listen to what happened when . . ." and tell his or her version of this ‘truth’. And so we are all linked by a circle of fibs, a circle of stories. (But we should really tell The Truth.)

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Natascha Biebow, MBE, Author, Editor and Mentor

Natascha is the author of The Crayon Man (coming in 2019), Elephants Never Forget and Is This My Nose?, editor of numerous award-winning children’s books, and Co-Regional Advisor (Co-Chair) of SCBWI British Isles. She runs Blue Elephant Storyshaping, an editing, coaching and mentoring service aimed at empowering writers and illustrators to fine-tune their work pre-submission. Check out her Cook Up a Picture Book courses!