Q & A with Joan Holub

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Joan, welcome back to Books on the House for Kids and Teens!

Joan:

Thank you, Books on the House and Misa. I’m delighted to be here. Your site is wonderful!

BotH:

You have 2 brand new picture books, Twinkle, Star of the Week Groundhog Weather School.  Would you tell us about them?

Joan:

In Groundhog Weather School (Putnam), Professor Groundhog needs help getting the February forecast right, so he starts a school to train more groundhog helpers. HIs students learn how to build a burrow, natural weather facts, shadow facts, and lots of other useful information. In the end, the groundhogs report their shadowy results for the most accurate Groundhog Day prediction ever—or is it?

Twinkle, Star of the Week (published by Albert Whitman & Co) is a humorous story about a class of real, kidlike stars who attend Sky School. Their teacher is Ms. Sun. The story is based on an event that takes place in grades K-2^nd called Star of the Week, in which kids each get a turn at getting to be special for one week of the year. In my book, Twinkle has a setback—the kind that seems so dramatic when you’re a child—but she recovers by thinking and wishing and wishing some more. Simple facts about stars, planets, and astronomy are woven into the story. And did I mention the cover has glitter–something I love!

BotH:

How did you get the writing bug and how do you get ideas?

Joan:

I read everything in sight as a child (the backs of cereal boxes, billboards, comics, books) and still do. I haunt bookstores and the library. I didn’t know I’d become a writer until late in my twenties. Over the course of fifteen years, I filled two file cabinets full of rejected manuscripts and also authored and/or illustrated 125 published books.

As for ideas, I never run out of those. I have a notebook full of them that I review from time to time. The hard part of creating a book is turning an idea into a story with a beginning, middle, and end; a story I enjoy writing and that I hope will captivate a reader.

BotH:

You are also an illustrator.  Do your characters and stories come to you first in images?

Joan:

The story always comes first for me. I began my work in children’s books as a book designer, then became an illustrator, then an author-illustrator. Now, I’d say I’m an author first; illustrator second. There are so many great artists out there these days and it’s thrilling to see how their visions make manuscripts come alive. They often add things to the text that I didn’t think of. For instance, in Groundhog Weather School, Kristin Sorra added a set of groundhog burrow blueprints in the front matter, complete with directions. Really clever.

BotH:

You illustrated The 100th Day of School.  The 100th day is celebrated in every elementary school I know!  Are you the one behind this nationwide celebration?!

Joan:

When Scholastic gave me Angela Shelf Medearis’ easy reader manuscript titled The 100^th Day of School to illustrate, I had never heard of the 100^th Day of School event. So I had to do a little sleuthing to find out more. Because Angela was one of the first to see a need for a book about the 100^th Day (and because her book is very cool), this book has sold over one and half million copies!  I began getting so many wonderful suggestions from educators for ideas about how to celebrate the 100^th Day in the classroom, that I shared some of them on my webpage at http://www.joanholub.com/100thDay.html  And there’s also some information about when the 100^th Day is, what it is, and who started it. (Hint: It wasn’t me. )

BotH:

What’s the next Joan Holub book we can look forward to?

Joan:

Goddess Girls for Aladdin Paperbacks, which I co-authored with the fabulous Suzanne Willams. The first two books will be in stores April 6th: #1 Athena the Brain and #2 Persephone the Phony. The series came about over dinner when I asked Suzanne if she’d consider writing something together. We brainstormed and eventually Goddess Girls was born. We wanted to write the series for a tween audience (8-12); to stay somewhat true to the original Greek myths about the four goddesses: Athena, Persephone, Aphrodite, and Artemis; and we wanted to include action, humor, and friendship themes. I’m really excited about the series and am completely in love with the cover illustrations by Glen Hanson.

BotH:

Thank you for sharing with us, Joan!

Joan:

You’re welcome. It was great fun.