Episode #95: What is your favorite genre? with Christina Soontornvat

Welcome back! Join authors Grace Lin and Christina Soontornvat answer this great kid question, “What is your favorite genre?” Thank you for tuning in!

TRANSCRIPT:

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. Today, I am here with Christina Soontornvat, author of many books. Including the middle-grade novel, A Wish in the Dark and the early reader series, The Diary of an Ice Princess. As well as the author of the middle-grade non-fiction book, All Thirteen, which comes out in October 2020 about the Thai cave rescue. Hi, Christina.

Christina Soontornvat: Hi, Grace. Thanks so much for having me.

Grace Lin: Oh, thanks for coming. Are you ready for today's question?

Christina Soontornvat: I think I'm ready.

Grace Lin: Okay. Today's question is from a person named Alexandra and Alexandra asks...

Alexandra: What is your favorite genre?

Grace Lin: What is your favorite genre?

Christina Soontornvat: Oh, okay. Well, so sometimes when I hear this question, I think of two different things. So I think about genre, what type of story it is, but also what age range. Because like you, I write for lots of different ages. I write picture books for very young kids and families to read, and older people. I, as an adult, love reading picture books. And I write chapter books. And then, I also write longer novels that have no illustrations. So if I had to say, what's my favorite, I don't... It would be really hard to pick one, because I feel like they are all so different. And I'm usually always working on one book in each age range at the same time. So I'm always working on a chapter book, my Diary of an Ice Princess chapter book series. They have such tight and rolling deadlines that at some point, I'm always either writing a new draft or editing those.

Christina Soontornvat: And I love that chapter book age range, because my daughters. I have two daughters, one is in first grade and one is in fourth grade. And my first grader is, that's like her sweet spot right now. That's really what she's reading. So I get to pick her brain about ideas and I get to show her the illustrations as they're coming in and now, we get to read them together. So, that's very special there. I'm always working on some sort of middle-grade novel. And I love those, even though they're so much harder for me because they're so much longer. I feel like I can get much deeper into a story. I can have a bigger cast of characters. I can explore kind of like bigger ideas. So A Wish in the Dark is a novel that talks a lot about social justice, and protest, and equality.

Christina Soontornvat: For older readers, those are ideas that I enjoy exploring in my books, in my fantasy books. And then picture books, I love. Because I have always been a huge fan of picture books. Even as an adult, I've collected picture books, including your picture books, Grace, I'm a big fan of your picture books. And I'll say that, I think people have this idea about picture books that they're easier because they're shorter. But one thing I found out is that, you have so much more room in a novel to kind of... You have so many more words in a novel that you can use to express your idea. And in a picture book, because your words are so spare... Usually my picture books are under 500 words. You have to find the perfect word. And sometimes, that takes forever.

Christina Soontornvat: When I'm working on a novel, I might be writing lots and lots of words during a day, and I'm cutting most of them by the end of the day. When I'm working on a picture book, I might write no words during a day. But I'm still working so hard on it, because I'm trying to find those perfect words to express what I want to say and tell that story. So whoever asked this question, I clearly did not answer it. Because I said, I liked all... There's something different that I like about all of them.

Grace Lin: Well, that makes sense. Because each genre has a favorite part. But see, you answered it in terms of like, age. How about if you were talking about fantasy versus nonfiction?

Christina Soontornvat: Yeah. So when people talk about genre, that's another thing that they usually mean, is what type of book do you like? Like, mystery, horror, or realistic? And for me, my favorite genre as a kid reading, was always fantasy. And that is mostly what I write. So even when I write a picture book or a chapter book, those so far have usually been fantasy.

Christina Soontornvat: When I was a kid, my parents owned a Chinese restaurant and I spent a lot of time just sitting at the restaurant. Because when your parents own a business, you have to go to work with them a lot. And there are lots of fun things about hanging out in a Chinese restaurant, but there's a lot of boring downtime. And I would always pick the books that were the least like our real world. I just wanted to like sit in the booth at the restaurant and feel like I was completely taken into another world. Like, just walking into a wardrobe and finding Narnia, or imagining myself as part of this big, epic battle for the future of our world. So fantasy has always been my favorite. And now, that's my favorite thing to write. Even if I try to write a story that is realistic, it usually ends up somehow, there's like a dragon is going to come into that story.

Grace Lin: Well, so you are answering Alexandra's question there.

Christina Soontornvat: There. Yeah. What about you? What's your favorite genre? Because you also write across genres as well.

Grace Lin: Yeah, I get this question a lot as well. And I'm a little bit like you, where I don't really have a favorite age group. I usually answer this question by telling the kids that I don't really choose what age it is. I don't choose the genre, it's usually the story that chooses it. Like, I get the story and then I write it, and then I see, "Oh, okay. This is going to fit as a picture book." Or I said, "Oh, okay. This is going to fit as a middle-grade, or this is going to fit as an early reader." And then I kind of move in that direction after the story chooses what genre it wants to be. So, that's usually what I tell them. So I don't really have a favorite genre, but I do notice that a lot of my ideas usually tend to go to picture books or middle-grades. And once in a while, early readers. But they've never gone to anything older.

Christina Soontornvat: Okay. Oh, so you've had an idea that you've started as something older, and then it's gone to a younger age range.

Grace Lin: Usually, what happens is I'll have an idea that's supposed to be something younger and I'll turn into something older.

Christina Soontornvat: Gotcha.

Grace Lin: I know for my Ling & Ting books, which is the early reader, I was trying to make it into a picture book. But that you were saying about a picture book, is picture books have to be so spare. And I realized when I was trying to make Ling & Ting into a picture book, there were so many nuances that were getting lost. Because I wanted to write this book about Chinese-American twins. And when I was doing it as a picture book, it had to be so spare. I felt like what I was trying to get across, that people who might look exactly the same can also different. And that wasn't getting across in the way that I wanted as a picture book, and I realized that I needed to give it more layers. But it wasn't enough layers for a novel, and I realized that the early reader was the perfect genre for that. So it's kind of like, the story tells me which way it wants to go.

Christina Soontornvat: Yeah. I've had that happen to me, too. And same, where I thought I was going to write a picture book, and then it needed to be more, it needed to be longer. And then sometimes, you get an idea and you're like, "Oh, this has to be illustrated." Like, it couldn't be a novel without illustrations because you need more than just words to express what you're trying to say. And that's cool, too.

Grace Lin: Yeah, it is. Whenever people ask me this question, I always kind of give them the non-answer. And I say, "My favorite genre is storytelling."

Christina Soontornvat: Oh, yeah. And they're like, "Oh, come on."

Grace Lin: Exactly.

Christina Soontornvat: I've been surprised, though. Like, I feel like I put myself in a box and say, "Oh, I love fantasy. I'm a fantasy author. And I love reading fantasy, and that's my game." But then, I always surprise myself when somebody's like, "No, you should really try this like memoir. You're going to love this memoir." Like Nikki Grimes' memoir, Ordinary Hazards. It is not something that I normally would pick up. And then I'm always like, "Oh my gosh, yes. I love this too. Of course."

Grace Lin: That's true. So that's why it's also a little bit dangerous to decide that you have a favorite genre, because it might close you off to other things as well.

Christina Soontornvat: Yeah. But it's nice to be surprised.

Grace Lin: Yes, it is. Well, thank you so much, Christina for answering this question from Alexandra. And thank you Alexandra, for asking it. It was so interesting.

Christina Soontornvat: Yeah, it's a great question. Thanks so much for having me, Grace.

Grace Lin: Thanks. Bye.

Today’s BOOK REVIEW is from Kelly. Kelly is reviewing “A Wish in the Dark” by Christina Soontornvat:

The book that I would like to review is A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat. This fantasy book is about a boy named Pong who is born into a prison system and a girl named Nok, the prison warden’s daughter who tries to find him when he escapes. During their separate journeys, they realize that the world that they know is not what they expected. I liked this book because every chapter was very exciting and suspenseful, and the end of each chapter made me want to keep reading to find out what would happen next!

Thank you Kelly!

More about today’s authors:

Christina Soontornvat is an award-winning author, engineer, and STEM educator. Her many works for children include picture books and the Diary of an Ice Princess chapter book series. Her middle grade fantasy novel, A Wish in the Dark, and All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team were both named 2021 Newbery Honor Books.

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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