Today I’m participating in a blog tour with author-illustrator (or is it illustrator-author?) Jon Klassen. I personally loved his picture book Where Is My Hat, and my 4-year-old twin daughters loved it as well. And they seem to peel off a new layer each time we read it.

First, some links, and then to the interview:

Click here to learn more about the book  

Watch the trailer

Get to know Jon Klassen

Chris: When you were working on I Want My Hat Back, was there anything you missed about illustrating other people’s stories as opposed to your own?

Jon: I’d never done my own story for a book before, so I think the novelty of it rode over anything I would’ve missed. Since then I’ve been putting together other ones of my own, and you really do start to miss the collaborative part, if only because the starting point comes from somewhere else and it’s more of a problem to solve. With your own stories you’re second guessing everything a bit.

Chris: Do you have a philosophical position on being subtle versus over-the-top when it comes to character expressions?

Jon: I don’t disagree with over-the-top, when someone feels like it fits. I do have a harder time drawing it, but with this book I also really enjoyed trying to load the context of the character just standing there. Books give you that extra tool to tell what that character is doing and feeling, so it’s fun to try and push that. I also think that people can relate to characters not being over the top. A lot of times you can be having huge emotions, but you’re standing still and looking blank.

Chris: Do you have a philosophical position on the ethics of rabbits?

Jon: This rabbit I think could’ve used a lesson in the concept. I guess he does get one. I didn’t want to make him evil or, again, over the top, but instead he comes off sort of indifferent when he’s found out, and I think that makes the bear even more upset than he was.

Mr. Pickwick In Chase of His Hat - illustrated by Robert Seymour

Chris: A wise man once said, there’s “nothing more foolish than a man chasin’ his hat.” What’s your response?

Jon: I might be wrong, but I think there’s a whole paragraph given to that in The Pickwick Papers, and I almost made a student film out of it. It really is such a weird thing to find yourself doing, but if you’re used to wearing a hat, there isn’t a lot that can make you panic in quite the same way that losing your hat does.

Chris: Is there a relationship between Party Bear of Red Cap Cards fame and the protagonist of I Want My Hat Back?

Jon: Yes! I’m flattered you know of him! I’m never very prone to drawing characters, but the cards were a nice place to try out an idea like that. I wanted to do animals that looked like someone had come and put party hats on them and they had no idea what they were doing there. I liked that way of presenting a character a lot – like they had been shipped there for your purposes but that doesn’t mean they’re really going to get into it. That tone carried into the book a lot, too. I like to think most of the animals in the book just punched the clock once they said their lines and went back
to doing whatever it is they do.

Chris: Has Cormac McCarthy commented on your illustration inspired by The Road?

Jon: He never has. I’m kind of offended. I’ve heard he’s such a chatty guy.

Chris: What are you working on now?

Jon: I’m working on other stories with animals in them. The animals are being tricky, though.

Chris: Last question: have you seen my hat?

Jon: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

***

I’m the last stop on the blog tour, but be sure to check out all the previous stops:

Tuesday, Sept. 20 – UK: Playing by the Book

Wednesday, Sept. 21 – AUS: Kids’ Book Capers

Thursday, Sept. 22 - US: Not Just for Kids

Friday, Sept. 23 – UK: Bringing Up Charlie

Saturday, Sept. 24 - AUS: My Book Corner

Sunday, Sept. 25 – UK: Wham Bham

Monday, Sept. 26 - Canada: Pickle Me This

Tuesday, Sept. 27 – US: There’s a Book

Wednesday, Sept. 28 – AUS: My Little Bookcase

What’s new is that publishers are increasingly adjusting their marketing strategies to work with this reality instead of against it.

More and more titles are being published as YA in the US and as adult in other countries, and sometimes vice versa. Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels, originally published as an adult title by A&I in Australia, was published as YA by Knopf in the US. The Book Thief was published as an adult title in Australia.

And publishers in the UK regularly publish YA and adult editions  simultaneously. This is certainly the case for His Dark Materials.

From my own experience writing middle grade and YA fiction (and working very closely with other writers) is that one of the most difficult questions you can ask an author is the age target of the book. That question confounds me like no other.

When I was writing Kaimira, I did have a certain audience in mind. They were people like me, people who love losing themselves in massive fictional worlds. They are readers above all else, but they enjoy immersive storyverses in any format, from fan fiction to gaming.

But this audience I had in mind did not have a specific age. They could just as easily be 30 as 13.

We will be embedding audio, video, and gaming into everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we’re now talking about. So for the time being, at least, we’ll be creating a lot of our digital content as applications, to be sold on app stores, in HTML.

Penguin will be selling these “books” not in the Apple bookstore but in the app store. They are more app than book, which brings up an interesting question that people will likely debate for some time: where does one draw the line between an ebook and an app? For book publishers, who are moving by choice or cowpoke across the digital frontier, it’s an important distinction. For young readers, who already consume their stories with a side dish of community and gaming for dessert, this distinction doesn’t matter much.

Except for Disney’s Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars, which they appear to be actually making. This production brings up a logical fallacy that drives me nuts, the assumption that:

• Kids are ahead of adults in adopting new technologies.
• Adults all love them some blogging and tweeting.
• Therefore: Why aren’t the kids on Twitter? Where are their blogs? What the heck is going on? Hurry, somebody do a study!

It’s a mistake to start with the assumption that just because one demographic has adopted a technology that all others will follow. The better assumption is that no group is going to adopt a technology unless it’s a good lifestyle fit.

So, without further ado, my favorites from the folks at Jezebel.

• margaret48267: are you there god?
• The Twits
• The Bridge to Tumblrbithia
• From The Mixed-Up Tweets Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
• Wikipedia Brown, Boy E-Tective
• The /bin/cat in /dev/hat
• The Little Search Engine That Could
• Charlie and the Chipset Factory
• Tales of a Fourth Grade Code Monkey
• Frog and Toad Are Facebook Friends
• A Rickroll In Time
• Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Comments Section
• The Fantastic Mr. Firefox
• The Box.net Children
• The Etsy Bitsy Spider
• Charlotte’s Web 2.0
• Hardy Boys: Die Hardyer (ok, so this last one isn’t social media, but I had to include it)

My favorite part:

It is as futile for us to fight technological advances as it was for Plato to battle literacy. Yet I have hope. I have seven grandchildren, all of whom are well-equipped with electronic gadgets. Yet all of them are readers – because their parents are readers who have read to them, because they have teachers who care about literature and librarians who introduce them to books they will enjoy and be enriched by.

• Kids can hear Chris from Sesame Street read the story aloud.
• Kids’ parents can record their own voices reading the book, or kids can record themselves reading it.
• Chris defines new vocabulary from the book.

ScrollMotion has also teamed up with my publisher, Candlewick, to launch additional titles for iPhone, most notably the Maisy series by Lucy Cousins and books by Kate DiCamillo.

I’m hoping to see many more Candlewick titles show up on the IceBerg reader.

Personally I think it’s good to let the world stay blobby as long as you can. Why rush to structure everything? So I don’t push any of these until the girls show interest, then we go as crazy with it as they want. The only system I’ve recently started pushing, albeit very lightly, is letters. That’s because reading is… well, it’s reading.

Speaking of which, I’m going to be at the IBBY Regional Conference this weekend. IBBY = International Board on Books for Young People (the “P” is silent). This organization interests me greatly because it’s about children’s books on an international scale. Building metaphorical bridges and such, which is very much aligned with my interests.

And not too shabby either is the fact that Shaun Tan (The Arrival, Wall-E) and Katherine Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia) will be there. Katherine Paterson has been a hero of mine since I was a kid, and Shaun Tan has recently become a hero. Interestingly, Shaun is Australian of Chinese decent and Katherine was born in China. I hope I get a chance to meet them.

Kaimira: Book One, the Sky Village
Monk and Nigel Ashland, with illustrations by Jeff Nentrup
Walker £6.99
A dystopian fantasy, ‘Kaimira’ is set in a world divided into three factions: humans, beasts and Meks (machines). Like Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ series, it boasts an appealingly feisty female heroine and a more thoughtful, troubled male one. One of the most seductive aspects of Pullman’s books is the settings he conjures for the adventures of his characters and – though the writing here is not in the same class – the Sky Village, a community of linked hot air balloons floating high above China, and other richly described locations, offer similarly escapist pleasures. ‘Kaimira’ ends somewhat abruptly in order to establish the opening for volume two, but it’s a satisfying read and worth considering as a present for a young reader suffering Pullman (or Potter) withdrawal symptoms.

39 Clues
written by Rick Riordan
Scholastic

Airman
written by Eoin Colfer
Hyperion

Best Friend for Claudia
written by Beatrice Weinberg Katz
PublishAmerica

Boots and Pieces
written by Emily Ecton
Simon & Schuster

Boy of All Time
written by Che Dee
Calderwood Books

Cabinet of Wonders
written by Marie Rutkoski
Macmillan

Dark Legacy
written by K. G. McAbee
Calderwood Books

Dark Whispers
written by Bruce Coville
Scholastic

Diamond of Darkhold
written by Jeanne DuPrau
Random House Children’s Books

Dinosaur Blackout
written by Judith Silverthorne
Coteau

Dragon Flight
written by Jessica Day George
Bloomsbury USA

Escape the Mask
written by David Ward
Amulet

Ever
written by Gail Carson Levine
HarperCollins

Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague
written by Brandon Mull
Shadow Mountain

Facttracker
written by Jason Carter Eaton
HarperCollins

Family Matters
written by Kristin Sheley
iUniverse

Farworld: Water Keep
written by J. Scott Savage
Shadow Mountain

Fish and Sphinx
written by Rae Bridgman
Great Plains Publications

Flora’s Dare
written by Ysabeau S. Wilce
Harcourt

Girl Who Could Fly
written by Victoria Forester
Feiwel & Friends

Gods of Manhattan
written by Scott Mebus
Dutton Juvenile

Graveyard Book
written by Neil Gaiman
HarperCollins

Grim Hill: The Secret Deepens
written by Linda DeMeulemeester
Lobster Press

Gypsy Crown
written by Kate Forsyth
Hyperion

Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go
written by Dale E. Basye
Random House Children’s Books

House of Many Ways
written by Diana Wynne Jones
Greenwillow Books

Inkdeath
written by Cornelia Funke
Scholastic

Kaimira: The Sky Village
written by Monk Ashland
and Nigel Ashland
Candlewick Press

Lamplighter
written by D. M. Cornish
Penguin USA

Land Beyond the Clouds
written by Valerie Bishop
Light Publishing

Magic and Other Misdemeanors (The Sisters Grimm, Book 5)
written by Michael Buckley
Amulet

Magic Thief
written by Sarah Prineas
HarperCollins

Mary Lamb Enters the World of Maze
written by F. T. Botham
PublishAmerica

Masterpiece
written by Elise Broach
Henry Holt

Misty Forest Fables
written by Acrid Hermit
Fauna Trek

Monks in Space
written by David Jones
Annick Press

Once Upon a Time in the North
written by Philip Pullman
Knopf Books for Young Readers

Order of Odd-Fish
written by James Kennedy
Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers

Other Side of the Island
written by Allegra Goodman
Penguin USA

Ottoline and the Yellow Cat
written by Chris Riddell
HarperCollins

Out of the Wild
written by Sarah Beth Durst
Penguin USA

Palace of Mirrors
written by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Simon & Schuster

Philippa Fisher’s Fairy Godsister
written by Liz Kessler
Candlewick Press

Portal
written by Jaqlyn Von Eger
Trafford

Queste
written by Angie Sage
HarperCollins

Remarkable and Very True Story of Lucy and Snowcap
written by H. M. Bouwman
Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books

Ring Dragonz
written by Mister Rengerz
Helm Publishing

Robe of Skulls
written by Vivian French
Candlewick Press

Runemarks
written by Joanne Harris
Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

Savvy
written by Ingrid Law
Penguin USA

Seer of Shadows
written by Avi
HarperCollins

Shadow Diamond
written by S Brooke
PublishAmerica

Sisters of the Sword
written by Maya Snow
HarperCollins

Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing with Fire
written by Derek Landy
HarperCollins

Softwire: Betrayal on Orbis 2
written by PJ Haarsma
Candlewick Press

The Curse of Cuddles McGee
written by Emily Ecton
Aladdin

Things That Are
written by Andrew Clements
Philomel

Thornspell
written by Helen Lowe
Knopf Books for Young Readers

Travelers Market
written by Maureen Doyle McQuerry
Idylls Press

Tygrine Cat
written by Inbali Iserles
Candlewick Press

Unnameables
written by Ellen Booraem
Harcourt

Warriors Power of Three: Eclipse
written by Erin Hunter
HarperCollins

Well Witched
written by Frances Hardinge
HarperCollins

Wild Magic
written by Cat Weatherill
Walker Books for Young Readers

Winter Wood
written by Steve Augarde
Random House Children’s Books

Chris Rettstatt is the author of the sci-fi & futuristic new series Kaimira (first book, The Sky Village).

1.) What made you start writing?

When I was eight, I read Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein, and I immediately began writing poems. Within a few hours I’d filled up a notepad with poems. And since then, I never stopped writing.

2.) If you weren’t an author what would you be?

I sometimes joke that I’m a children’s book author who wishes he was a linguist. That’s because I love language and grammar, and I love studying foreign languages. I also like making up my own languages, which I’m doing with the Kaimira Code. But that’s mostly a joke, because as much as I love those things, I love writing even more.

3.) How did you choose you character’s names?

My wife’s nickname is Longmei. She was born in the year of the dragon, which is “long” in Chinese. Adding “mei” which means “sister” in Chinese, makes it into a nickname.

When I first started developing Rom’s character and his tribe, I was drawing inspiration from Romani cultures (sometimes called Gypsies). And then ROM has a techie meaning as well, as in CD-ROM, and so I just kind of liked it.

4.) What’s the best thing about being an author?

No matter what I do, whether traveling to other countries or standing in line at the supermarket, it’s all research.

5.) What’s your ideal writing spot?

I do a lot of writing in coffee shops, particularly when I’m traveling, but I’d have to say my favorite spot is my desk at home. I’ve got everything I need there and plenty of room to pace around.

6.) How did you come up with the idea of The Sky Village?

I was sitting outside, trying to imagine this strange future world I had just started to create. What would my characters see and hear? I looked up at the clouds, and the idea just hit me — a village made of hot air balloons.

7.) Why YA?

I don’t think so much about the age borders around books. When I was in my teens, and even before, I read whatever looked good, and even now I have a hard time remembering which of those books were technically written for young adults. So I just write for the sort of reader I am, and the sort of readers my friends tend to be. And lately, a lot of the best books that fit my personal taste happen to be YA books.

8. Do you ever come up with play lists for your books? If so, what are the songs?

I did have a playlist while I was working on The Sky Village. The songs included:

• If I Give My Soul, by Johnny Cash (cover)
• Various songs by Faye Wong (especially Ni Kuai Le, Suo Yi Wo Kuai Le)
• It Isn’t Easy Being Green, by Kermit the Frog
• This Woman’s Work, by Kate Bush
• Don’t Give Up, by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush
• Fight Club Soundtrack, by The Dust Brothers (the whole thing)
• Where Is My Mind, by The Pixies
• Gypsy Caravan (compilation by Putumayo)

9.) Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

I believe my best advice can be drawn from my playlist. It’s somewhere between “Don’t Give Up” and “Where Is My Mind?”

Ok, my actual advice comes in two parts. On the one hand, you have to know the business of the business. You have to become familiar with what books are being published and read lots and lots and lots of them. Pay attention to the publishers. Subscribe to newsletters that keep you updated on publishing trends. Join your local SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators). Think of yourself as a partner in the publishing process.

On the other hand, you can’t let the business steer you. Stay flexible, and listen openly and humbly to feedback you get. But at the end of the day, it’s your story, and you have to trust your creative instincts. If you aren’t fiercely loyal to your creative vision, nobody else is going to be.

10.) Which character are you most like? (Can be from any book)

When I was a teen, I wanted to be like the Motorcycle Boy from Rumble Fish. But wanting it didn’t make it so.

11.) If you could collaborate with any author dead or alive who would you pick?

I’m not sure I like the idea of collaborating with a dead author. But assuming he wouldn’t be a zombie or vampire, I’d have to choose Dostoevsky. Not that he’d be all that pleasant to work with, but I could just sit at his feet and try to soak in some of that brilliantly layered characterization.

12.) Do you have any upcoming books?

Kaimira is a five-book series, and I’m currently hard at work finishing up #2, which is called The Terrible Everything.

13.) What is your favorite food or snack to eat when you’re writing?

I can’t say that I snack much while I’m writing, but I do drink a lot of strong coffee before lunch and then a lot of green tea after lunch.

14.) What were some of your favorite books when you were younger?

Lord of the Rings, The Dark Is Rising, A Wrinkle In Time, The Outsiders

15.) Do you have any pets?

Right now I travel too much to keep a pet, but I grew up with all kinds of pets running around. My dad used to rescue stray animals and bring them home, everything from hungry dogs to a pig that fell off a truck. My most recent pet, before I moved away from home to go to college, was a ferocious kitten named Grendel: Slayer of Grasshoppers.

16.) Does writing cut into your family time?

It helps that I’m a morning person, and I get my best work done before anyone else wakes up. But my twins know that I can’t resist playing with them every day, even when I’m under deadline.

17.) Do you have any hobbies other than writing?

I absolutely love traveling to other countries and then trying to figure out how to cook the food I eat there.

18.)What are some of your favorite movies?

Raising Arizona, Rushmore, Man On Fire, Miller’s Crossing, Spirited Away, Harold and Maude, A Clockwork Orange, Princess Mononoke, Oldboy

19.) What’s your favorite ice cream?

I call it Twin Can Ice Cream. You need a small coffee can and a large coffee can, ice, rock salt, and ingredients for home-made ice cream. Put the ingredients into the small can and tape it shut, put the small can into the large one, surround it with ice and rock salt, and tape it shut. Then give the can to a pair of energetic twins to kick around, throw, roll, or whatever for about a half hour. At the end, you have some delicious home-made ice cream.