Episode #61: What makes a good book? -with Traci Sorell

Welcome! Authors Grace Lin and Traci Sorell answer this kid question: What makes a good book?

TRANSCRIPTS:

Grace Lin: Hello. I'm Grace Lin, children's book author and illustrator of many books, including the middle-grade novel When the Sea Turned to Silver and the picture book A Big Mooncake for Little Star.

Grace Lin: Today, I am here with Traci Sorell, the co-author of the middle-grade novel Indian No More with Charlene Willing McManis, and she's also the author of the nonfiction picture books We Are Still Here!, illustrated by Frane Lessac, and Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer, illustrated by Natasha Donovan. Hi, Traci.

Traci Sorell: Hi, Grace.

Grace Lin: Thanks so much for being here today.

Traci Sorell: Thank you for inviting me.

Grace Lin: Are you ready for today's question?

Traci Sorell: I am.

Grace Lin: All right. Today's question is from a young person named Eli and they ask...

Eli: What makes a good book?

Grace Lin: What makes a good book?

Eli: Oh, Eli, that is a great question. My short answer is that a great, a good book, and even a great book, is one that holds your interest and that you want to continue reading. My longer answer is a book that takes you on a journey, whether it's fiction or nonfiction. After reading it, you feel like you've been on an adventure, maybe you've learned something new about yourself perhaps, but you feel like the time you spent in those pages was worth it.

Grace Lin: That's such a nice way of putting it. I was trying to think when I was reading that question to you and listening to your answer I was thinking yeah, it is true. What makes a good book? I loved the short answer especially, it's just a book that just keeps you reading, makes you keep asking what comes next? What comes next? [inaudible 00:01:51].

Eli: Right. Because it's your preference, right? It's subjective to you, and so if it holds your interest and you want to continue, to me that's a great book, you know?

Grace Lin: And it's also something very special about books because the person who is really in control of the book is actually the reader. The reader can stop at anytime. I mean, I guess you could say that about a movie too, but it's such a different kind of control. You know, for a movie, everything is so at you, it feels so immersive, whereas in a book you're kind of creating your own immersive experience. So a good book is one that makes you continue creating that immersive experience and want to continue that immersive experience. So I really like your answer about what makes a good book, the short version. And I like the long version too. So that's what makes a good book. What do you think makes a great book?

Traci Sorell: A great book is one that you're going to finish and tell everyone you know they must read it. When you start book talking and sharing that with everyone else, you know it's a great book. You're immediately talking to all your friends and saying, "You better get this at the library. This needs to be something you read right now."

Grace Lin: Yeah.

Traci Sorell: That's when I know I've read a great book because I want everyone to read it.

Grace Lin: Well, I guess to me reading is such a personal thing. I guess to me what makes a great book is a book that stays with me for a long time after and a book that changes the way that I think even in small details. I was thinking about how...

Traci Sorell: I absolutely agree with that. Yes.

Grace Lin: I was thinking how I'll see a skunk cabbage and it'll remind me of something that Anne in Anne of Green Gables said about skunk cabbage. It's not that it changes my life, but it just makes that moment in my life a little bit richer because I'll remember that moment in the book. And I feel like that's something that a great book does, it changes your life and it adds to the richness of it. So I think that is the determining factor for me. But I think that I need to go one step further, like what you said, and when the book is great shout it from the rooftops.

Traci Sorell: Well, now that I'm older and I have my own income and things I also make sure I gift those books. So if I find a really great kids book or board book, I give those to other people. I gift those because, whether that's to schools or to someone who's just had a child, adopted a child, someone that may be celebrating a birthday, I just try to share books that I love.

Grace Lin: So how do you try to make your books good books or even great books?

Traci Sorell: I always think about how who is reading the book. And so I think about myself as child and I was one of those people that loved to get taken on an adventure and I loved to learn something new. I liked to have a character that I could relate to and maybe a character I couldn't relate to but I was going to learn something from. And so I think about that child that is inquisitive, that is curious like me, and that's who I assume my reader is. And so I have to be on my A game because kids are super smart and they are looking at whatever I've written, whether that's fiction or nonfiction, they're like, "That doesn't really work like that." You know?

Traci Sorell: So I feel like whatever I'm doing, I have to bring my best self to this in terms of the research that I do, again whether it's fiction or nonfiction and what's included, whether that's the language, whether that's things that will be described in the text or that I talk about that the characters do or if it's nonfiction am I true to the event or the person that's being displayed. So I really center those readers and think about what they're seeing and interacting with on the page because I know who I was as a reader. And so I just always assume that I've got really inquisitive, smart kids who are looking at this book and saying, "What are you going to share with me? What are you going to bring to the table?"

Grace Lin: I loved what you said about picturing yourself as a child and what you would expect from a good book, and I think that really rang true for me because when I was thinking what do I do to try to make a good book and then I realized it was the same thing. It's I think about what I would have wanted in a book and what would have made me think this was a good book. And I always try to fulfill those things. Me, personally, when I was child if there was kind of like a loose thread anywhere by the time I finished reading a book, that would drive me crazy and that would mean to me it was not a good book.

Traci Sorell: Yes.

Grace Lin: So for me...

Traci Sorell: Yes.

Grace Lin: ... it's very important that I don't have any loose strings. You know, certain things, all the things that matter to me I try very much to make the book that I would have thought was good when I was younger. So those are the things...

Traci Sorell: Absolutely.

Grace Lin: ... that I try for, which I think is what you were saying as well. So one last thing since we're talking about good books...

Traci Sorell: Sure.

Grace Lin: . tell me an example of a really good book that you, a great book that you want to shout from the rooftops right now?

Traci Sorell: Oh my gosh, there are many. But I will tell you what I just read yesterday that I absolutely loved and that is a new picture book by Martha Brockenbrough, written by her and illustrated by Gabriel Alborozo, called This Old Dog.

Grace Lin: Whoa.

Traci Sorell: And it's about a dog and this younger baby that comes into this family and their interactions. The dog wants life to go a little slower, but things are really kind of speeding up with the baby, we got to have these hurried walks. And then as the baby develops things can kind of slow down because the baby moves at the dog's pace, you know learning to walk and stuff. Anyways, just a very delightful story and I loved how things all came together. I enjoyed the illustrations. So, like I said, I just read that last night. And that's a new one from Levine Querido, which is a company that just started with its first books this fall and that's one of its new picture books.

Grace Lin: Awesome. I'll just quickly name a book that I think is really good that I just saw too is a book called All Because You Matter written by Tami Charles and illustrated by Bryan Collier. It's so...

Traci Sorell: I can't wait to see this.

Grace Lin: ... beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. It's a book the images stay with you...

Traci Sorell: I'm jealous.

Grace Lin: ... for a long time.

Traci Sorell: I bet you've already read it.

Grace Lin: Yeah.

Traci Sorell: Yeah. And you know that picture...

Grace Lin: So that was a great book.

Traci Sorell: Yeah. That image is her son.

Grace Lin: Oh, is it? I had no idea.

Traci Sorell: Yes. Yes.

Grace Lin: But it's beautiful. When we were talking about books that stay with you, I was talking about things that I've read, but this in terms of pictures, there's pictures that you see that will, the images stay with you for a long time because they're just so beautiful. So...

Traci Sorell: I'm jealous.

Grace Lin: Well, thank you so...

Traci Sorell: I've got it ordered.

Grace Lin: Oh good.

Traci Sorell: I'm ready to read it.

Grace Lin: You will not be disappointed. That I will start shouting from the rooftops more and more.

Traci Sorell: Okay.

Grace Lin: Well, thank you so much, Traci, for answering this question. And thank you Eli for asking this question.

Today’s POEM is written by Eagle! His poem is called “Arrow to the Sun”.

Arrow whizzing through the blue sky, Arrow pierces a fushia cloud, Arrow flies up to outer space and back, Arrow has lunch on the white crescent moon. The crescent moon shoots the Arrow firing the Arrow over Mercury, Venus, Mars. Turning right, the Arrow crashes into the sun. It sizzles up like a sausage.

Thank you Eagle!

More about today’s authors:

Traci Sorell writes fiction and nonfiction books as well as poems for children. Traci’s lyrical story in verse, At the Mountain’s Base, illustrated by Weshoyot Alvitre (Kokila, 2019) celebrates the bonds of family and the history of history-making women pilots, including Millie Rexroat (Oglala Lakota). Her middle grade novel, Indian No More, with the late Charlene Willing McManis (Tu Books, 2019), explores the impact of federal termination and relocation policies on an Umpqua family in the 1950s. Her debut nonfiction picture book We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga, illustrated by Frané Lessac (Charlesbridge, 2018), won a Sibert Honor, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Picture Book Honor and an Orbis Pictus Honor. It also received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, The Horn Book and Shelf Awareness. A former federal Indian law attorney and policy advocate, she is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and lives in northeastern Oklahoma where her tribe is located. For more about Traci and her other works, visit www.tracisorell.com.

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.

Special thanks to the High Five Books & Art Always Bookstore, Ms. Carleton’s 2nd grade class at Jackson Street School for their help with our kid questions and reviews.