Episode #138: What made you write your book? Who or what inspired you? with Kelly Jones

Welcome back! Today on Kids Ask Authors, we welcome author Kelly Jones to answer the kid question, ‘What made you write your book? Who or what inspired you?’'“

TRANSCRIPT:

GRACE LIN: Hello, I'm Grace Lin. Children's book author and illustrator of many books including the middle grade novel, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and the picture book, A Big Moon Cake for Little Star. Today, I am here with Kelly Jones, the middle grade author of, Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer and it's follow up book, Are You Ready to Hatch an Unusual Chicken? As well as middle grade novels, Sauerkraut and Happily For Now. Welcome, Kelly.

KELLY JONES: Thanks so much for having me, Grace. It's fun to be here.

GRACE LIN: Thanks for being here. I'm so glad you're here. Okay. Are you ready for today's kid question?

KELLY JONES: Yes.

GRACE LIN: Okay. Today's question is from a kid named David and they ask...

What made you write your book? Who or what inspired you?

GRACE LIN: What made you write your book? Who or what inspired you?

KELLY JONES: That's a great question, David. Thank you. I was inspired to write this book because I decided to get some chickens of my own. I'm talking here about the Unusual Chicken Series and I was doing research on how to take care of them and that was an interesting thing. I love learning new things. I love figuring out new things, figuring out how to do something or learning more about them. And you probably do too, Grace, huh?

GRACE LIN: Well, I really love the idea that your book was inspired by your chickens.

KELLY JONES: Yes. It was so interesting. Have you ever been so excited about learning something new that you had to tell everybody you knew?

GRACE LIN: I see that especially with chickens because you're like, "Oh, and do you know my chicken did this and my chicken did that?"

KELLY JONES: Yes. And it's so fun. And so, I guess, I told everybody I knew and then I still wanted to tell even more people. And so, I started writing chickens and it happened partly because I was watching my own chicks. This is after I did my own research. So, I did my own research, I talked to people about how to take care of chickens and I got books from the library. I took a class on how to take care of chickens. I read some non-fiction books about how to take care of chickens. I watched some videos about how to take care of chickens. So, I was learning all of these fascinating things. And then, when I got my own chickens, I was watching what they did. So, for instance, I would watch a chicken and I would think, What kind of superpower would that chicken want? Because I'm always thinking about what kind of superpower I would want, because superpowers are really exciting and you have to be ready, I feel, for what if somebody was like, "Okay. Kelly, today you get a super power. Now pick." That would be a hard choice. And so, I'm always thinking about this and I thought, "Okay. So, I was watching a chicken who grabbed a slug and she took off running and all these other chickens were chasing her trying to grab her slug because kids can't hold something in their hands and take bites out of it because they don't have any hands. So, she was running and I thought that chicken would want super speed. And that turned into a chicken in my book called Road Runner.

GRACE LIN: So_

KELLY JONES: Yeah. Go ahead.

GRACE LIN: Before you continue, why don't you give a quick recap of your book so that an idea of why these chickens are so important?

KELLY JONES: Yes. So, I was really interested in the real facts of how to take care of chickens, how to take care of chickens in our world. Things like what do they eat and where do they sleep and how do you keep them safe from predators. And then, I also was thinking about what if they had superpowers because that would make it so much trickier to take care of. So, I started thinking about a girl who was taking care of chickens for the first time. Only her chickens had superpowers. And that's where the idea for these books came from but it came from watching my own chickens, from watching that chicken with the slug, from watching... There was a time when a chicken, or there was a time when a dog got into my backyard and chased all the chickens around. He didn't hurt them, but he scared them. And this one chicken hid so well that I could not find that chicken for four hours. And that turned into a chicken called chameleon. And you can probably guess why?

GRACE LIN: Guess what?

KELLY JONES: What superpower that chicken has in my story? So, it's taking a real world situation and asking yourself what if and taking it that next further step.

GRACE LIN: So, was the character, the girl character who got these unusual chickens, was that inspired by anyone?

KELLY JONES: Sophie wasn't inspired by a particular person. She was inspired by a lot of people that I've met. So, I have met some really brave people. I have met some really shy people. I have met some people who have lost their grandmothers the way that she did. I've met people who moved to a new place and aren't, aren't sure how they're going to fit in yet and aren't sure if people will appreciate them and aren't sure how to make new friends. And those are all things that are part of Sophie in these stories. And there are some pieces that are, I share with Sophie. I'm not shy the way Sophie is, and I don't have some of the same challenges that she does. I haven't moved to a new place in quite the same way or at the same time of my life that she did, but I'm curious. She is, I try to do the right thing. I think, Sophie's braver than I am but some of those things I think we share.

GRACE LIN: That's so interesting because a lot of people ask me similarly in my book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon if it is based on me. And I would answer just how you talk about Sophie. I'm like, "No. She's not me, she's more like the person I wish I was like." It's like she's very brave. I'm not as brave as her. She always tries to do the right thing, which I try. So, I think, it's interesting how we write our human characters more, almost like idealized versions of ourselves sometimes.

KELLY JONES: And I think, I love, Where the Mountains Meets the Moon, so much and I think we all want to be that character. I think, we all see things that really inspire us in those characters sometimes even when we wrote them ourselves. And that's neat too. Characters take on their own new lives and they do things that surprise me at least. Do they surprise you too?

GRACE LIN: Definitely.

KELLY JONES: Yeah. And so, it's almost like creating a friend you would like to meet in some ways.

GRACE LIN: Exactly.

KELLY JONES: For somebody that you would like to get to know. And in my case, I usually spend a lot of time, a lot of years with that character. So, I love it when somebody is as special as Sophie is and I bet you do too.

GRACE LIN: Or the chickens in your book-

KELLY JONES: Yes.

GRACE LIN: Which chicken in your book is one of your own chickens?

KELLY JONES: So, they were all inspired by different aspects of my chickens. I told you about the chicken with the slug and I told you about the chicken that hit under the bush there. I had a chicken who would come out every morning and knock all the chickens out of the way.And that chicken was the most Henrietta the chicken with who can move things with the power of her tiny chicken brain. So they all inspired some things, but they also, she's a cranky chicken too in some of my...

GRACE LIN: She's always glaring?

KELLY JONES: Yes. Yes. I figured out one of the reasons my chickens always look a little bit cranky is because they have beaks so they can't smile. Their mouths don't move like that. And that's something that I observed by watching them. A lot of the research that I did for this book was through observation, through observing them myself. And that was an exciting way to do research.

GRACE LIN: That is a great way because it's an old adage, but they always say, write what you know, but there's also write what you learn about in your real life too.

KELLY JONES: Yes. What are some of the ways that you've researched things that you've put in your books? I'm curious.

GRACE LIN: The wildest, I was just thinking about this the other day in my book, Mulan, There's a seat where the character is flying and I remember that I really wanted to capture that feeling of flying, but I have never flown fly in the air. So, I remember I actually went ziplining just so I get that story.

KELLY JONES: Research can be the most fun part of a book sometimes. I've never actually hatched my own chickens.

GRACE LIN: Oh really?

KELLY JONES: And, Are You Ready to Hatch an Unusual Chicken? Sophie hatches chicks for the first time and I've never done that. So, I had to do a lot of research for that and I guess, some expert advice on that. Yeah, but I thought about it too. I thought what if I was writing about... If I ever want to write about hatching dragon eggs or any magical animal that comes from an egg, I would have some information that I could work from. And that was really exciting too, to think about what if possibilities for the things I'm already learning about.

GRACE LIN: Yes, exactly. Well that was really cool. I love that book. Unusual Chickens for Exceptionally Poultry Farmers, because I have chickens and I actually quite a bit about chickens by reading your book. So I hope all of our listeners who are chicken lovers are just animal lovers in general. If you have not already read Kelly's books, Unusual Chickens for... The Unusual Chicken Series, we'll call it, go out and read it because it's super fun.

KELLY JONES: Thank you so much.

GRACE LIN: So, thank you so much, David, for asking today's question and thank you Kelly for answering it.

KELLY JONES: It was my pleasure. Thank you.

GRACE LIN: Bye.

Today’s KID BOOK REVIEW comes from Calleigh! Calleigh is reviewing “Are You Ready to Hatch an Unusual Chicken?” by Kelly Jones.

My name is Calleigh. The book I would like to talk about is called 'Are You Ready to Hatch An Unusual Chicken?' by Kelly Jones. This book is about a Mexican American girl named Sophie Brown whose family inherited a foam in California and she inherited an unusual chicken company. Another unusual chicken farmer sends Sophie some unusual chicken eggs and once they hatch, one of the chicks can breathe fire. When Sophie and her cousin Lupe move her chicks to Redwood Farm, the shavings catch on fire from the fire breathing chick. Her parents blame it on Lupe for smoking even though she didn't do anything. Sophie must keep her fire chick safe and prove Lupe is innocent. I like this book because it is very funny and it also has chickens with superpowers.

Thank you Calleigh!

More about today’s authors:

Once upon a time, KELLY JONES was a librarian and a bookseller. Now, she writes novels for young people and takes care of a few hilarious chickens. She’s the author of Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer; Are You Ready to Hatch an Unusual Chicken?; Murder, Magic, and What We Wore; Sauerkraut; and Happily for Now. You can find her online at her website, curiosityjones.net, or on Twitter and Instagram @curiosityjones.

Grace Lin, a NY Times bestselling author/ illustrator, won the Newbery Honor for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and her picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star, was awarded the Caldecott Honor. Grace is an occasional commentator for New England Public Radio , a video essayist for PBS NewsHour (here & here), and the speaker of the popular TEDx talk, The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf. She is the co-host of the podcast Book Friends Forever, a kidlit podcast about friendship and publishing (geared for adults). Find her facebook, instagram , twitter ( @pacylin) or sign up for her author newsletter HERE.

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