But Is It Poetry?: Talking Rhyming Picture Books with Laura Gehl

Happy Poetry Friday, everyone!

This week's host is Catherine
at Reading to the Core.

Today, I am guest-posting for Michelle Heidenrich Barnes at Today's Little Ditty. You'll find my new list poem lesson for elementary schoolers at Michelle's blog. It features a model poem by Heidi Stemple, who was kind enough to let me and Michelle share, "Under My Bed."

Here at Author Amok, I'm sitting down to chat with picture book author Laura Gehl. Laura is based right here in Maryland. I was intrigued when Laura G. proposed a discussion of this question: Are rhyming picture books poetry?

Before our interview, I did some field testing. I took Laura's just-out book, And Then Another Sheep Showed Up, to Durham, North Carolina, and read it to my three-year-old nephew. And read it. And read it. By his request. Needless to say, I did not come home with the book.

Laura's new release is about a family of sheep
whose small Passover Seder turns into a meal
crammed with family and tradition.
Find it at Kar-Ben.

Laura S: When we first got in touch, you said that rhyming picture books aren’t always considered to be poetry. Can you speak about that? Why do you think some people differentiate between a rhyming text and a poem?

Laura G: I talked about this question with Corey Rosen Schwartz, author of several great rhyming books including The Three Ninja Pigs.  I don’t consider my own rhyming picture books to be poetry, nor does Corey consider her own books to be poetry.  However, both of us agree that there are rhyming picture books that we consider poetry.  For me, two examples would be Good Night Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon.  It’s hard to put into words just what makes these books seem like poetry, but tone, mood, rhythm, and overall feel are definitely part of the package.  Also, different readers may experience books differently.  If a reader believes one of my books is poetry, that’s great!  I’m honored.  But for me, they don’t read as poetry.

Laura S: Does that mean, for you, the definition of poetry extends beyond rhyme and meter? Is it tone or subject matter that makes a text feel poetic?

Laura G: For me, tone yes and subject matter no.  Any subject can be turned into poetry by a skilled poet.  Take Shel Silverstein.  He could turn a peanut butter sandwich or a boa constrictor into a poem.  Or a pancake.  Or monsters.  Even Captain Hook. 

Laura S: In your latest picture book, And Then Another Sheep Turned Up, the illustrations and page turns emphasize rhythm and rhyme. How do you think these poetic techniques support emerging reading skills?

We all love taking breaks.  For beginning readers, who are working hard to decode each word, breaks are especially helpful.  In And Then Another Sheep Turned Up, having a refrain helps beginning readers.  So does the repeated tagline “And then another sheep turned up!”  When emerging readers come to those repeated lines, they can take a break and not work so hard, because they have already decoded all of those words.  Even outside of the repeated lines, rhythm and rhyme can help beginning readers.  Take this verse:

Sharon Sheep came in at nine,

halfway through the seder meal.

“I’m sure ready to recline.

Getting here was an ordeal.”

Readers might not recognize the words “recline” and “ordeal.”  But they do know the ending sounds these words need to have in order to complete the verse, which makes decoding those two words much easier.

Laura S: The illustrations also help readers figure out those unfamiliar words. And they give adults an opportunity to talk about new words with the children they are reading to.

I brought And Then Another Sheep Turned Up with me when I visited my three-year-old nephew. It was a big hit with him. Once my nephew had some of the repeated lines down, we could play a game where I said a line incorrectly (“And then another hippopotamus turned up!”) and he corrected me. I like the way that structured texts help build pre-reading skills and confidence. Why do you think poetic techniques such as rhyme and repetition are easy to memorize, even for young ones?

Laura G: Think about how kids learn to talk—just by listening, with no formal teaching.  Kids learn to talk by hearing jumbles of words and gradually making sense of the jumbles, and early on they grab on to the words they hear the most often.  That same skill, that they’ve honed since birth, comes into play when kids grab on to a repeated line and remember it. 

As far as rhyme goes, kids do gravitate toward rhyme really early on. You can ask a three-year-old to come up with rhymes for cat, and he or she will give you a whole list…but the child is just as likely to say “lat” as to say “bat.”  For young children, the sound is what matters, not whether the rhyming word is actually a real word.  And feeling that joy in how words sound, not just what they mean, is a huge part of poetry, right? 

Laura S: I loved the wordplay in One Big Pair of Underwear. Let’s talk about the joy of rhyming words, which are so much fun to hear and to say.  How does sharing wordplay with children lay a groundwork for them to enjoy poetry?

Children can send Laura G. their drawings of animals
wearing underwear. Laura posts the pictures
at her website and they are hysterical.

Laura G: Rhyming picture books can be a bridge for kids between the familiar (books) and the unfamiliar (poems).

Kids enjoy rhyming, tongue twisters, alliteration, and consonance.  It’s all fun for them!  If wordplay is first introduced in the context of a picture book to children who already associate books with family, love, and fun…then poetry using those same devices may seem more accessible and less foreign to those kids.

Laura S: I agree. One of our favorite books when my children were little was Dr. Seuss’s Fox in Socks. They loved watching Mom mess up tongue twisters. The grander my mistakes, the more they laughed. We howled over the wordplay in Charlotte Pomerantz’ The Piggy in the Puddle. What are some of your other favorite rhyming picture books to share with family?

Laura G: Julia Donaldson’s books are wonderful.  Jane Yolen’s for sure.  Corey Rosen Schwartz’s fractured fairy tales.  Karma Wilson’s Bear books.  Also, some of Jan Thomas’s books play with rhyme in a really fun way: The Rhyming Dust Bunnies is a great one for younger kids.  

Thanks for a great conversation, Laura!

Laura Gehl is the author of ONE BIG PAIR OF UNDERWEAR, a Charlotte Zolotow Highly Commended Title and Booklist Books for Youth Editors’ Choice for 2014; HARE AND TORTOISE RACE ACROSS ISRAEL; AND THEN ANOTHER SHEEP TURNED UP; and the PEEP AND EGG series (hatching spring 2016 from FSG/Macmillan).  A former science and reading teacher, she also writes about science for children and adults.  Laura lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland with her husband and four children.  Visit her online at www.lauragehl.com and www.facebook.com/AuthorLauraGehl.

Poetry Friday: 5 Questions for Debbie Levy

Greetings, Poets!

Last Friday, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act with Debbie Levy's new picture book, WE SHALL OVERCOME: THE STORY OF THE SONG. [Read the post here.]

Find it at IndieBound

As promised, Debbie is here in person to tell us more about the book, which explores the history of this Civil Rights anthem in free verse. But first...

This week's Poetry Friday blogroll is brought to you
by my friend and fellow Marylander
Tabatha Yeatts-Lonske
at The Opposite of Indifference.

I'm thrilled that you're here today, Debbie! I am so curious about the genesis of both the song and the book WE SHALL OVERCOME that it was hard for me to stick to five questions, so let's dive in.

What was the genesis for the idea that became WE SHALL OVERCOME? I’d like to know more about the concept that songs have back-stories. Why did you choose this particular song’s story to tell?

I began gathering string on the life of this song years ago. “We Shall Overcome” and issues related to “We Shall Overcome” kept popping up during research on other books for young readers that I wrote—a book about bigotry, a biography of Lyndon Johnson, and a book about the lives of enslaved people on southern plantations. So I began filing my discoveries away.

Find it at Amazon.

Find it at IndieBound.

What went into the file, especially early on, wasn’t specifically or only about the song “We Shall Overcome.” In working on my children’s book about plantation slave life, for example, I was captivated by first-person narratives of formerly enslaved people describing their music. And I was struck by this observation by Frederick Douglass, from his autobiography:

I have often been utterly astonished . . . to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by tears.

The precise words and tune of “We Shall Overcome” don’t date back to slavery days, but for me there is an undeniable connection between this song, which has so frequently been sung to embolden those fighting for justice and to comfort those who have suffered, and the songs of which Frederick Douglass spoke. I found, and the book chronicles, a history of voices upon voices singing songs that evolved into “We Shall Overcome,” with people making changes in the lyrics and melodies to suit their circumstances. I wanted to create a book that could reach even the youngest readers, and put them in touch with the history of an activity they all know something about: singing.

What role does music play in your own life? Do you listen to music when you’re writing?

I don’t listen to music when I’m writing. (Do you?) I like quietness.

[AA: I’m with you, Debbie. I love listening music, but find it too distracting when I’m writing.]

But music has played a large role in my life. I’ve played piano since I was a little girl. I don’t play well—I play worse now than I did as I child—and my sight reading of music is abysmal. But having a piano in my life feels necessary. In this I know I am influenced by my grandmother, Rose Salzberg, who was a piano teacher when she was a young woman in Poland and Germany and whose playing in our home and in her own home was a constant soundtrack in the life of our family here in Maryland. Certain Chopin pieces, which were her favorites, bring me to tears.

Rose's Sheet Music
(Courtesy of Debbie Levy)

If musical talent skipped a generation in my case, it did land squarely on my sons’ shoulders. My eldest is a jazz musician working in New York and abroad. My youngest is a talented singer, although it’s not something he chose to make a career of. It’s awfully sweet when they visit and the house is full of live music again.

What was involved in tracing “We Shall Overcome” back to its beginnings in slavery, but also in tracing its progress in more recent history as the song spread around the world?

My research for this 32-page picture book was as far-ranging as any research I’ve done, and I’ve done a lot of research as a lawyer, editor, and writer. The sources range from songbooks to academic studies; from decades of newspaper articles (here’s a favorite headline from a 1967 New York Times article: “Popularity of U.S. Rights Hymn Irks German Reds”) to liner notes from LP records; from books about the civil rights movement to articles about African American song traditions to interview transcripts.

Remember the file I mentioned earlier, in which I started collecting the bits that helped me conceive of and write this book? Another signature item that went into the file was the text of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s speech in March 1965 urging passage of the Voting Rights Act after Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, in which he echoed the words of the song:

What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.

Then when I found video of that speech and actually heard his distinctive twang saying these words—very moving to me. (Here’s the text and the video: http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3386.)

One more tidbit: before I started my research, I had no idea that “We Shall Overcome” has been sung by schoolchildren in India for years. I believe that you are more likely to find kids in a school in Mumbai who know this song, and who have sung it at school assemblies, than if you go into a school in this country.

I loved your book THE YEAR OF GOODBYES, which looks at early Nazi Germany through the eyes of your own Jewish family. Threads of that book’s focus on history and human rights appear again in WE SHALL OVERCOME. Do you have a personal connection to the song?

Thank you for loving THE YEAR OF GOODBYES, Laura, which has a special place in my heart since it’s about my mother. As for a personal connection to the song “We Shall Overcome”—I have the same connection any other human has to a song with such rich history, significance, and power. Maybe my response is sharpened by my roots in a family that experienced persecution during the Nazi era. But you know, a picture book is collaboration. 

The illustrator of WE SHALL OVERCOME, Vanessa Brantley-Newton (http://oohlaladesignstudio.blogspot.com/), has distinct and personal memories of being subject to the injustices of segregation during her 1960s childhood, the types of injustices that gave rise to the use of the song as a civil rights anthem. Working on this book was a deeply personal experience for her. And the editor who first acquired the manuscript of this book—her roots are in India, and the song’s story resonated for her in part because of the connection she felt personally to the tradition of singing “We Shall Overcome” in that country’s schools.

What are some ways that classroom educators might use your book to introduce a unit on the American Civil Rights movement?

I’d suggest that educators begin with a kid-appropriate discussion of the type of injustices that underlay the rise of “We Shall Overcome.” In my own interactions with young students around this book, I have been finding that they don’t necessarily grasp the notion of racial bigotry at first. (I don’t view this as a bad thing!) But we do need to introduce them to this part of our history, which, as we adults know, isn’t really a thing of the past.

So I like to begin by talking about unfairness, with some “what if?” questions. What if . . . you couldn’t go to your favorite park because of hair color? Had to sit apart in school or on bus or in movies because you go to a different church—or don’t go to church? Couldn’t go to the place where they serve the best ice cream in town because only blue people can and you are orange?

They giggle, but they get it. And then I talk about how, not so long ago, restaurants could refuse to serve you a meal if you were African American. I explain that, in those days, if you were African American, if you were Mexican American—you could not drink out of the same water fountains as white people in some parts of the country. I share photographs of these and other segregationist practices. They are pretty striking.

And I ask: if you were being treated so unfairly, or if someone you loved were, how would you feel? We can agree that being treating this unfairly could make you so angry and frustrated that you might want to fight. But fighting with your fists could create even more problems for you and it probably wouldn’t get you what you wanted.

We discuss other ways to fight—not with your fists but with your brain. You could join with others who are treated unfairly. You could tell everyone out in the world about what was happening. You could march in protest. You could quietly, but firmly, demand your rights.

Miami University Freedom Summer
(Courtesy of Debbie Levy)

I explain, again showing photos, that this is exactly what African Americans, and others who wanted to help fight the unfairness, did. They fought with their brains. And I explain that there was another important way that people fought with their brains. Yes, they marched, they sat in at lunch counters, they protested. But they did something else.

Anti-segregation March
(Courtesy of Debbie Levy)

THEY SANG! We talk about how singing shows the people who are treating you unfairly that you are strong, that you are a human being, and that you will be heard. And if inside you are feeling a little scared or sad, singing can give you courage and can lift your spirits—especially if you’re singing with others.

I’d also encourage educators to read the book aloud and, where the lyrics are excerpted, sing them. I’d encourage them to go to the online sources listed in the back of the book and on my website to hear the song being sung by different people, and in at least one different language.

Once the students have read the book and had discussions like the ones I’ve described, I love to ask them to come up with new verses that would apply to their lives today, in their schools or neighborhoods—and we sing them together.

Thanks for your questions, Laura!

Thank you so much for answering them, Debbie. I think you captured the heart of WE SHALL OVERCOME with these words: “Singing shows the people who are treating you unfairly that you are strong, that you are a human being, and that you will be heard."

Debbie Levy is the author of the picture books We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song (2013); Dozer’s Run: A True Story of a Dog and His Race (2014); the young adult novel Imperfect Spiral (2013); The Year of Goodbyes: A True Story of Friendship, Family, and Farewells (2010); and other books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for young people of all ages. The Year of Goodbyes was a Kirkus Best Book of 2010, a Parents’ Choice Award recipient, a VOYA Nonfiction Honor Book, and a Sydney Taylor Award Notable Book, among other honors.  We Shall Overcome has been named a 2014 Jane Addams Book Award Honor Book, a Bank Street College Best Book, and a 2014 Notable Social Studies Trade Book.  www.debbielevybooks.com

Poetry Friday: We Shall Overcome

Last week was the 50^th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It’s the perfect time to read poet Debbie Levy’s new picture book WE SHALL OVERCOME: THE STORY OF A SONG.

Read more about it at Debbie's website.

I’m featuring the book for Poetry Friday today, but be sure to stop back next week when Debbie visits Author Amok. She’s joining me for “5 Questions for the Author.”

Today's host is my friend
Linda Kulp at Write Time!

I picked up WE SHALL OVERCOME for several reasons:

1.   Debbie Levy is a local author whose work I’ve enjoyed and admired. 

2.   “The Story of a Song” is an intriguing topic for a picture book.

3.  This is the kind of book I like to recommend to educators when I visit our diverse local schools.

WE SHALL OVERCOME lived up to my expectations on all three counts. But it also made me cry. Like big, blubbery, I-can’t-see-what-I’m-reading-because-tears kind of cry.

With a deceptively light tough, WE SHALL OVERCOME traces the song that became a Civil Rights anthem to its roots in American slavery. The book opens with these lines:

Back in slavery times—

when enslaved people worked long days

with no pay and no say,

no freedom, no fairness,

no choice and no change—

the people sang.

They suffered, yet they sang—

to soothe the hurt,

to fight the cruelty,

to declare that—yes!—they were human beings.

Each spread shows how the song moved from cotton fields to black churches, from community to community, evolving over time. “I’ll overcome” became “We will overcome” during the early years of the Civil Rights movement.

They started to protest.

They brought a church song, “I Will Overcome,”

to the streets.

But since they were marching and working together,

they sang “We will Overcome.”

We, together, will overcome.

We see the song’s power to comfort protesters at segregated lunch counters. It is taken on the road by a group called the Freedom Singers, and sung at the historic 1963 March on Washington. But the story doesn’t end when the Civil Rights Act passes. Debbie continues to follow “We Shall Overcome” as it travels to South Africa and throughout the world.

I loved this book’s combination of music, history, and human rights. But I think what made me cry was how Debbie gets this point across: the words of “We Shall Overcome” represent a deep faith in humanity and in our ability to—someday—value all human beings as equals.

Debbie was kind enough to provide this wonderful photograph of herself and the book's illustrator, Vanessa Brantley-Newton, at the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, DC.

King incorporated the words "We shall overcome" into his speeches.

A spread from WE SHALL OVERCOME
from Vanessa Brantley-Newton's website.

One feature of the book I’d like to highlight comes after the text. WE SHALL OVERCOME includes an easy-to-follow timeline of the events mentioned in the book. Thumbnails of Vanessa's wonderful art brings these dates to life.

Thanks to Debbie Levy for giving me permission to post excerpts from WE SHALL OVERCOME today. For more information about the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, visit the Civil Rights 50 website.

Next week, Debbie will be here in person to tell us about her writing process. I can’t wait to hear how she developed, researched, and wrote the story of this important song.

5 Questions for Kelly Bingham (Part 2)

Happy Poetry Friday, Writerly Friends!

First, some good news. My middle grade novel-in-verse, THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY, earned a spot in Pitch Wars! What is Pitch Wars? Read this post.

Before you throw that snowball, stop by Tabatha's place,
The Opposite of Indifference. Tabatha is hosting
this week's Poetry Friday party.

I am very excited to be mentored by playwright and MG novelist Joy McCullough-Carranza. I will also get to know the work of my fellow Team #JoyNTriumph (we're working on that team name) mentees, Davy DeGreeff and Lyudmyla Mayorska. You can read Joy's description of all three team projects at her blog.

Speaking of novels-in-verse, Shark Girl author Kelly Bingham returns today for more of our interview. Yesterday, Kelly gave us wonderful insights into how she constructed the plot for her sequel, Shark Girl Returns (find Part 1 here). Today, we'll talk about the visual elements of a verse novel, as well as Kelly's uproarious twist on ABC books, Z is for Moose.

Welcome back, Kelly!

5 Questions for Kelly Bingham (Part 2)

Amok: Although the Shark Girl books are in verse, you also use letters, text conversations, and email threads in the novels. I like the way that these voices contrast with Jane's yet she rarely comments on the letters (many of which are from her Shark Girl "fans"). Can you talk about how these other text features create tension in Jane's story?

Fan-created book trailer for Shark Girl.



Bingham: My goal was to simply break up the sameness of having poem after poem for 300 pages. An instructor at Vermont College suggested it. I had already included some letters in the book, and she urged me to expand the letters, include more of them, and to find other forms of writing as well. That's when Jane's inner conversations with herself were born. Also, newspaper articles and phone conversations. And in the second book, there are texts as well.

I hope that these things give the reader a visual rest from the poetry. As for story, I feel that these "extra" things are the only way we can exit Jane's head and see things from a perspective other than her own. All the poetry in Shark Girl comes through Jane's eyes... her personal filter. The non-poetry parts are there to tell us things Jane wouldn't ordinarily mention. A newspaper article can fill us in on facts, dates, and locations; things that Jane would not include in her own narrative without sounding unnatural. Phone conversations can engage us as readers by having us listen to what's being said, and then reading between the lines and picking up on unspoken emotions. It is my hope that these pieces invite the reader to connect the dots and figure out for themselves what Jane is avoiding, or not saying.

I particularly like the arguments Jane has with herself in her head. Don't we all have that voice? That nagging, "If only" voice? Jane has something in her that wants to dwell on the terrible thing that happened to her, and to magnify and brood on all the ripple effects she now faces. And for a while, Jane listens to that voice and feels victimized and depressed.

I hoped for an uplifting, empowering moment when, near the end of the book, Jane firmly tells that voice to shut up and go away. Of course, she did not get to that point overnight. I tried to show a graduation separation from that "if only" way of thinking she'd been caught up in. Jane takes baby steps, but finally moves on, and hopefully that scene resonates with readers.

That's a long answer, all to say: I use those other elements to break up the story, to lend a different point of view, so the reader can pick up information that Jane doesn't share with us herself, and to show a progression of Jane's healing, a growth of her belief system.

Amok: I just bought copies of your hilarious picture book, Z Is for Moose, for all of the young readers in my family. I'm looking forward to the sequel, which comes out in 2014. Where did you get the idea for this book? What was it like switching from a serious YA novel-in-verse to a light-hearted (and sparely worded) picture book for little guys?

Bingham: Thank you! I got the idea for this book when my son was three and learning his ABCs. I went to the library and got all the ABC books I could find. There weren't many to choose from. We read them over and over. Only a couple were funny. The rest were pretty straightforward. (This was ten years ago!)

When we'd read all the library books, my son said, "I like funny books. Can you get me another funny book?"

I went back to the library, but that was it for ABC books. I couldn't find him a funny one, so I decided to write this for him. I wrote it by sketching it out in comic book form, so we would have a little booklet to look at together at night.

I knew he would like crazy, wacky things happening, so that's what I made happen. I also knew he'd respond to the moose acting up and disrupting things, creating surprises on every page. I had a great time writing it for him, and because it was just for us, I didn't sweat it or worry about what was good or what someone else might think.

So, even though I was switching gears, it was easy. I never wrote this book with the intention of writing a REAL book that I would show anyone else. I felt no pressure and had no expectations from myself. And that was good, because if I had, I'm sure I would have become too frozen in anxiety to write the book at all. I never thought of myself as a picture book writer up until that point, so I also felt I didn't have any business taking the manuscript too seriously.

Later, I showed the book to many friends and they all convinced me to send it to someone. I was shocked, but took their word for it. I wrote the book up in manuscript form and found a wonderful agent who sold the book right away. It was my first sale!

It turned out that it would be eight more years before Moose hit the shelves, and during that time I finished Shark Girl and sold it and made some big changes in my life. By the time Moose cam out, my son was 13 and of course didn't remember the book anymore. But I dedicated the book to him.

Amok:  How does your background as a story artist for Disney help you as a picture book author and as a poet? What can you share with other authors about telling a clear story, but leaving white space -- both for the illustrator and for the reader to participate in the story?

Bingham: Great question!  My advice, as general as it may be, is:  Don't be afraid of white space.

I would like to add, don't be afraid of ANYTHING, period, when drafting.  When you are drafting is the time to explore. I think sometimes we are afraid to experiment with being dramatic, or even being hilarious, because we think we may come off as pretentious or stupid or fall flat on our faces. But drafting is exactly the time to fall on our faces, because it's all entirely private, and because sometimes, the act of falling on our faces leads to something unexepectedly, wonderfully exciting. We need to step outside our boxes from time to time in order to push our writing into growth. That doesn't mean we have to try something drastically different than we feel comfortable with. (Although, we could!) We could take baby steps, and that would be fine. But when you find yourself holding back out of fear of not quite being able to do what you want, then stop yourself. Just try it. Experiment with a thousand different takes and see what happens--you may be wonderfully surprised! Always be open to exploring new territory.

As for white space in particular, consider it one of your tools, just as much as text, spacing, punctuation, italics, and dialogue are tools.  You can use white space for dramatic or comic effect in many ways.  Grab some poetry novels or picture books and flip through, looking to see if the author has used the white space in any meaningful way. If so, analyze it. Learn as much as you can.

When something dramatic is happening in your book and things are getting heavier and heavier, sometimes a page of nearly all white space is a period on the end of a long sentence you would like your reader to absorb and let settle.  Sometimes it's a rest--both visual and mental--until you turn the page and resume your dramatic, grueling journey.

Sometimes white space can indicate (in a novel) thought or reflection on the part of your main character.  It can be used to indicate hopelessness, distance, regrouping, or overwhelming grief. It can indicate a passage of time. It can be used for many things, and maybe you are the person who will use it to brand new effect in your book!

I think white space can also be used in picture books as both aiding the story and the illustrations.  White space can make something pop, to stand out in a very clear way--something you want your reader to pause and really notice.  It can be used as a silent beat, a reason to catch your reader's attention and help them slow down, then wind-up for the surprise that's coming when they turn the page--perhaps a very colorful illustration that pops out at you right at the same time the story climaxes, for example.

As for the first part of your question:  My time at Disney helped me tremendously in ways I can't quite articulate fully.  For one thing, I spent 12 years surrounded by some of the smartest, most talented storytellers you could ever hope to meet. I absorbed a ton of knowledge by watching everyone around me work.  We made mistakes and threw them away every single day. 

And I learned lessons that apply to writing: 

• Nothing is ever successfully rushed--always take your time. 
• Everyone has something to contribute. 
• New ideas often come from unlikely places. 
• Sometimes starting over is the best path to follow. 
• When one story area is so problematic that you can't figure it out at all, maybe you need to look at what comes before and after--that may be where the problem lies. 
• Don't be afraid to ask for help. 
• Don't guard your lovely, wonderful, precious ideas--sometimes being open to new ideas from others will lead to a greater story than you have now.

Love what you do and surround yourself with others who feel the same way.

As for the specifics of storyboarding; the skills used in boarding are skills also used in writing.  In boarding, you block out your action in panel after panel, like a comic book.  You choose lighting, staging, camera angle, expression and action, all to convey a single moment in one sketch.  You string these sketches together, and soon people are able to see how you imagine your story playing out.

Working this way allows you to see sagging areas that need trimming, or areas that are confusing, perhaps areas that rush by too quickly.  Maybe you see that you tend to stick with the same camera angle too much and that you need to spice things up a bit.

I fully believe my complicated "bulletin board" system is an offshoot of this storyboarding system, and I am grateful for it.

You don't have to be an artist to storyboard, either.  For anyone out there who is writing a picture book, I suggest you try either boarding your story out, or making a rough dummy.  You may find the process stimulates other creative parts of your brain and helps you problem-solve or tighten.  Certainly the process of making a dummy will have you think about page turns and how much text goes on each page, and why.

Moose can't wait for the M page.
Art by Paul O. Zelinsky

And again--if you are a writer (not an illustrator) then no one will see these dummies or boards but YOU. So feel free to let your creative self go and explore and see what happens.  No one will laugh at you, I promise!

Thanks for all of the encouragement, Kelly, and for stopping by Author Amok.

 Readers, Moose has taken over my blog! Due to a Blogger glitch, the phrase "Moose can't wait for the M Page" is dancing around my screen. Please excuse Moose if he interrupts the interview. He's just excited about visiting Author Amok.