Q&A with Myla Goldberg
Q: Why did you decide to write a children's book?
A: I was actually in college when the idea of writing a children's book came to me; Catching the Moon was an idea I originally had with my friend David Gassaway, which makes this book the longest project I ever worked on: the first draft was written in 1992 and the final draft in 2006!
Q: You were pregnant with your first child when you were working on Catching the Moon. How did this affect the experience of writing a children's book?
A: Pregnancy didn't really affect the book much, but here is one really wonderful and unforeseen advantage that motherhood gave the book: About two years passed between turning in the version of Catching the Moon that was given to Chris Sheban, the illustrator, and receiving the finished illustrations. (One look at the beautiful illustrations and you'll see that it was time well-spent!) Over the course of those two years, I spent a lot of time reading to my daughter, spending more time with children's books than I'd ever spent before. The result was that when I looked back over the text to fine-tune it in coordination with the finished pictures, I had been steeped in children's literature and was able to apply what I had learned to my own text. I was particularly influenced by the cadences of Maurice Sendak's work and especially by the way his texts and images collaborate so well-his words never tell you anything that is already in the picture, but instead word and image compliment each other, each according to their unique strengths, to create a complete and richly-detailed world.
Q: Now that it's finished, have you had a chance to read the book to your daughter?
A: I have, and I was so happy when she liked it enough to want me to read it to her again! That's the best compliment a child can pay to a book.
Q: How did the challenge of telling a story in such a short space compare with writing a novel?
A: Writing a children's book has a lot more in common with writing a short story-both demand a certain narrative economy. As succinctly as possible, but without making it feel like you're following some age-old formula for storytelling, you've got to evoke a world and the people in it. With writing, it's always important to choose your words with care, but in short forms like children's books, the quality of the prose shares a lot with the qualities of poetry, in which each individual word is freighted with meaning and it's so important to make sure that you choose exactly the right ones to get your ideas across.
Q: Are you much of a fisherwoman yourself?
A: No, but I'm grateful to fisherwomen and fishermen, as fish is one of my absolute favorite foods.
Q: You live in Brooklyn, but the book has such a seaside feel to it. Did that inspiration come directly from your own experience or from your imagination?
A: I spent a lot of summers at the beach as a child and the tide always fascinated me. I was perpetually engaged in building castles just at the incoming tide's edge and trying to save them from destruction. I never had the luck that the Fisherwoman had, but then again I never had the moon on my side.
Q: How long does it take to write a children's book, compared to a novel?
A: Because I wrote the first few versions of Catching the Moon years and years before there was even a remote possibility of its being published, measuring the exact time it took to write it is pretty much impossible, but I'm ultimately grateful for the really long steeping period when the paper version of it sat in a drawer and the world of it continued to evolve in my brain.
Q: How does putting words along with pictures change the way you write?
A: The odd process by which most illustrated children's books come into being involves absolutely no communication between the author and the illustrator, so I handed in a text and then, two years later, got to see what, from my text, Chris Sheban chose to draw. The text I turned in was much wordier than what ended up in the book. Chris's images are so quiet and subtle that I wanted the tone of the words to match the wonderful softness of his pictures; plus, I wanted the pictures to speak for themselves and not to be ganged up on by the words. This meant removing words that the images made unnecessary, as well as paring away ideas or events that lay completely outside the world alluded to in the pictures. The purpose of the words, as I see it, is to deepen the world of the images without competing with or distracting from them. The process of making this happen felt a lot like sculpture to me, paring away words to get at the beating heart of the world the images had created.
Q: What's next?
A: I've already got another idea for a children's book that I'd very much like to write, one that takes place over a series of snowy days and, like Catching the Moon, involves a little bit of magic.
Contributor: Scholastic Inc.
Reviews
Catching the Moon
Myla Goldberg
Pictures by Chris Sheban
This strange, almost surreal tale begins with an old woman fishing at night, using a mouse for bait, as a puzzled Man in the Moon watches. On a moon-less night, he comes to visit. At first she doesn't seem to recognize him, as they share tea and sandwiches, and the tide washes into her house. It takes another visit for him to understand what troubles her, and to offer a solution. From that time, high tide stays away from the shacks on the shore, as they glow with the magic provided by the Man in the Moon, now recognized in gratitude. It helps to know about the legend of the moon being made of cheese, and its connection with the tides. The lengthy text is filled with both mystery and humor. The textured, double-framed, full and occasional double-page scenes seem strangely silent, a quiet perhaps generated by Sheban's Prismacolor pencils and watercolors mainly in shades of night-time blues with traces of moonlight picked up in the golden frames. The Fisherwoman is a real character, comfortable in a man's work shirt, soft hat, and coveralls; the mouse provides comic relief. Of course it's the rotund Man in the Moon with sunglasses arms, and legs, who is most problematic. The main characters appear on the front of the jacket; lifting it really sets the mood, revealing the row of shacks in the moonlight. 2007, Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, Ages 5 to 9, $16.99. Reviewers: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz
ISBN: 978-0-439-57686-4
ISBN: 0-439-57686-5
Added 07/30/07
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