Chris Van Dusen was born on St. Patrick's Day in 1960 in Portland, Maine. He attended The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and graduated with a BFA degree in 1982. He spent several years illustrating for kids magazines before he wrote his first book, DOWN TO THE SEA WITH MR. MAGEE which was published by Chronicle Books in 2000. His latest, IF I BUILT A HOUSE is his fourteenth book.

IF I BUILT A CAR and the follow-up, IF I BUILT A HOUSE, detail the decidedly futuristic, but simultaneously retro, visions of a boy named Jack. Why did you decide to root Jack’s forward-looking fantasies in a time before much of the digital technology we now take for granted?

In my opinion, the everyday designs of the 50s and 60s were so much more interesting than the way things look today. The cars were cooler, the houses more sleek, everything from furniture to fashion was so much more appealing back then. Even the colors stood out.

That's probably why there is so much interest in the "retro" look these days. I LOVE things from this era, and so I never even considered putting Jack (the main character from the If I Built... books) in the present day. In my mind, he had to exist in 1964.

Picture books can be a great way for teachers to connect art and literacy. Since many of our readers are likely more familiar with the literacy aspect, can you talk a little about the process and techniques you used to create the illustrations for IF I BUILT A HOUSE?

All of my illustrations are traditional paintings. I use a paint called gouache (I tell kids it rhymes with "squash") which is sort of like an opaque watercolor. It reproduces extremely well. In other words, the colors you see in the printed book are almost exactly identical to the original art. I do not use computers to produce my illustrations. A lot of people think I do because my colors are so flat and smooth, but that's another thing you can do with gouache.

I paint my illustrations on cold press illustration board which has a slight texture. Before I start a painting, I've already sketched and re-sketched the picture several times. Then I transfer the final sketch to the illustration board and start painting. I usually paint a picture from the background to the foreground. For example, if I'm painting an outdoor scene I almost always start with the sky. Since gouache is opaque, I can add things in layers and build up the painting as I go. I like to experiment with gouache and use it in all sorts of different ways. You can get some terrific effects as a result. A typical spread illustration (that's a picture that goes across two pages) takes me about 2-3 weeks to paint. So to complete the illustrations for a 32 page book can take several months!

Many aspects of your work have been inspired/influenced by Dr. Seuss and you’ve been known to sneak nods to the legendary author into your illustrations. What Dr. Seussisms might sleuthy students find in IF I BUILT A HOUSE?

Besides the basic format of the book (which was inspired by a formula Dr. Seuss used in a lot of his books, specifically IF I RAN THE ZOO and IF I RAN THE CIRCUS) there are a few things that, like you say, are nods to Dr. Seuss. Things like the gloved hands on the "Kitchen-O-Mat" and the red and white stripes in Jack's shirt and elsewhere that are similar to the stripes on the hat of THE CAT IN THE HAT. There are also several little things in the illustrations that I picked up from IF I BUILT A CAR. I think kids will have fun discovering those as well.

Your book THE CIRCUS SHIP was used extensively in Maine’s classrooms. What is your favorite classroom lesson/activity that you’ve witnessed using one of your picture books?

It's always very rewarding when a teacher uses one of my books to develop creative projects for their students. I've seen several Circus Ships in the schools I've visited where a different student draws an animal, cuts it out and pastes it on to the ship. One ship I saw was about 15 feet long and extremely impressive! I've heard of teachers that read the "Mercy Watson" books while the kids munch on hot buttered toast. AND IF I BUILT A CAR has nicely inspired many kids to use their imagination and create their own cars. I've seen cars made out of shoe boxes (and bigger!) and elaborate drawings rich with detail of all sorts of imagined cars. Like I said, it really makes me feel good.

Your books are written in rhyme and reviewers note that they read smoothly and effortlessly. How do you keep your rhyming skills so sharp?

Rhyming is tricky, but it's my preferred way to write. I say it's tricky because if it's done right, you hardly even notice it, but if it's off, it sticks out like a sore thumb. It's hard work to make a book rhyme from start to finish, flow effortlessly, and still carry on a continuous story. I work my lines over and over again until they scan without hitches. It’s almost musical in a way. There has to be a beat to each line, and the beat has to stay consistent throughout the book.

When I'm working on a story, I constantly read it out loud over and over again. If I stumble on a line, it's tweaked until it's just right. I occasionally use a rhyming dictionary, but not very often. And rarely do I start writing a book at the beginning and work through until the end because you may come up with a really good rhyme that may work at the end of the story. So I jot everything down on small scraps of paper and then piece it all together like a puzzle. It's an odd way to create a story I know, but it seems to work for me.



5 Questions With... J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen (TAKE TWO! A CELEBRATION OF TWINS)

Reviews of Winter Books for Children

Sean Beaudoin is the author of FADE TO BLUE and YOU KILLED WESLEY PAYNE. HIs latest novel is the rude zombie opus THE INFECTS. His stories and articles have appeared in numerous publications, including THE ONION, the San Francisco CHRONICLE, SLATE, and SPIRIT, the inflight magazine of Southwest Airlines. He frequently ends his bio with an ironic or self-deprecating personal comment.

Nero, the protagonist of your new novel, THE INFECTS, is on a wilderness trek when zombies (in the form of camp counselors!) strike. He and cohorts must rely on their knowledge of zombies in pop culture to survive. Which books, movies, or TV shows would you rely on in if you were in the same situation?

Definitely Voltaire. And Hunter S. Thompson. Also, the Dirty Harry series. I’d probably need a healthy dose of BREAKING BAD and THE SOPRANOS. And multiple viewings of STEEL MAGNOLIAS and ROAD WARRIOR. Dr. Ely Kyburg’s ZOMBIE DIANETICS would no doubt be indispensible as well.

THE INFECTS, like most stories involving an undead apocalypse, is pretty heavy on blood, violence, and gore. How difficult was it to stay true to the tropes of the genre, yet still write something that teens would find fun, relevant, and entertaining?

When I first sat down to put zombie to paper, my only caveat was that I was either going to write an undead novel that staked out new territory, or I was not going to do it at all. I may be naïve or even deluded, but I think THE INFECTS has a unique origin story and internal logic. In terms of gore, I’m under the impression that it’s on the light side compared to what’s typical of the genre. I think of it more as a black comedy than straight horror.

As far as predicting what teens find relevant or entertaining, I remain mystified. I just try to write stuff that I would have dug at sixteen and hope there are enough like-minds around to sell out a printing or two.

You’ve noted that zombie stories can be a way of discussing serious global problems (i.e., poverty, global warming, etc.) in a very entertaining way. What about the flesh-eating undead makes them a fun vehicle for exploring such serious topics?

I guess because they’re sort of a blank slate upon which almost any sublimated fear, violent fantasy, or political viewpoint can be grafted. There’s always another zombie angle. For instance, I’ve always wanted to know what happens when there’s no one left to fight back or hide or barricade themselves in basements. When there’s no one left to brain zombie skull with baseball bats or run screaming through the woods. What happens after the last human is eaten? Do all the zombies suddenly look up and shrug? Do they shuffle around purposelessly for months, years, decades? Do they just lie down and never get up again?

I want to see a movie about post-human zombie society, where the zombie leaders all come together like the United Nations and decide what their stated goals and resolutions are. How they eventually get over their differences and build schools and hospitals and libraries. How they start to get fat and comfortable, watching reality TV and giving each other the finger on the highway.

When the zombies win, we all win.

Because then we are them, and they are us.

Just with worse breath.

Reviewers have noted that THE INFECTS includes a critique of fast food/large scale chicken production. How does that fit into the context of a zombie story?

Fast food freaks me out. I literally haven’t eaten McDonalds since 1986. My abstention is not so much political in nature—although I’m sympathetic to that line of thinking—as it is that factory scale meat processing strikes me as hallucinatory and demented. To be able to sit down and eat a Quarter Pounder with bacon and cheese you simply can’t allow yourself to ponder the steps required for it to arrive boxed and steaming in front of you. I wanted readers to think about that just a little bit, without being preachy.

Personally, I’d always rather hear a good chicken-anus joke than listen to a lecture. And the bottom line is that people are going to eat what tastes good to them, regardless. But so are zombies. And, as we all know, zombies mostly prefer sweaty, alienated teenagers.

You’ve said that you write YA because you feel it allows you to reach people who really care about what they are reading. What experiences or observations have led you to this conclusion?

I sometimes get letters from teens alluding to a deep connection with one of my books, in ways I’d never anticipated while writing them, and expressed with a combination of heart-melting enthusiasm and intelligence. I don’t think I can describe many letters I’ve received from adults in quite the same way.



Putting Books to Work: Ann Rinaldi's A BREAK WITH CHARITY: A STORY ABOUT THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS

Beyond the Notebook: Writing a la Poe

R.J. Palacio lives in NYC with her husband, two sons, and two dogs. For many years, she was an art director and book jacket designer, designing covers for countless well-known and not so well-known writers in every genre of fiction and nonfiction. She always wanted to write, though. She kept waiting for the perfect time to start writing, but found that it’s never the perfect time to start writing a book. So she decided to just go for it. WONDER is her first novel.

WONDER is the story of Auggie, a boy with severe facial deformities (or, as you prefer to call them, facial anomalies) who’s entering the fifth grade at Beecher Prep after being homeschooled all his life. While WONDER is a book that deals with bullying, you’ve said it’s ultimately a story about the power of kindness. Why?

Bullying can be a lot of different things. There are some obvious forms of bullying that happen to Auggie in the book, but there’s the insidious kind of bullying that happens that is less obvious. That kind of bullying—and I’m not sure the word “bullying” is even the right word here—is harder to stop than the other kind because it’s harder to see. Social isolation. Malicious gossip. Hostile group dynamics. In my mind, the only way to combat these more subtle forms of bullying is by creating awareness of their harm.

We can’t teach kids empathy, but we can help foster it. And we can’t teach kids to be kind, but we can show them how kindness can empower them. Kindness is the best antidote to that more subtle form of bullying.

You credit an encounter you and your sons had with a young girl with facial anomalies similar to Auggie’s for inspiring WONDER. In prior interviews, you’ve expressed disappointment in the way you reacted to the situation. How did writing WONDER help you work through those emotions?

I was disappointed because I wished that I could have had the wherewithal to talk to the girl and her mother. Instead, I was so afraid my toddler would hurt her feelings by his reaction, I bolted—and that just made it all worse.

Writing the book was my way of making it right. I guess it was my way of creating a world in which a girl like that would be okay, and happy, and feel safe. Like the song says, “with love, with patience, and with faith, she’ll make her way.” I wished for her a joyful life.

Auggie is the protagonist of WONDER, but the story weaves his first-person account with those of his classmates and family members. Why did you choose to have the reader experience the story from so many angles?

I wanted to tell Auggie’s complete story, both from the outside and from within. He’s a smart kid, but he doesn’t always understand the impact—beyond the looks he gets—that he has on people around him. And I wanted to show that impact. To do that, I knew I had to leave his head, but I gave myself two rules: 1) the characters would all propel the narrative forward, and tell a piece of the larger story in mostly linear, forward-moving motion; 2) the characters would enhance Auggie’s story.

Multiple reviewers have noted that by the end of the novel, the reader no longer thinks of Auggie in terms of the way he looks. How did you coax the reader through this transformation of perception?

I’m glad to hear that, but I can’t take credit for the way readers might have changed their thinking. It wasn’t conscious on my part to transform the reader’s perception about anything: I really was just telling Auggie’s story. If their vision of him changed, it’s to their credit.

Some characters in WONDER bully Auggie, but others hurt him inadvertently. How can teachers and parents help students understand that their actions can be hurtful even if they’re not being openly mean?

We create empathy by asking questions: what would it be like to walk in someone else’s shoes? How would you feel if someone said that about you? Getting kids to think about the other person, other people, is the best way, I think, to having them understand the impact of their mean words. The real issue is making kids realize that they have control over the choices they make: they can either choose to be mean or they can choose to be kind.