Welcome to Books by Maryann Macdonald
|
|
Here I am in Paris, one of the
best places I’ve ever lived for pastries… and
people-watching. Cafes line the streets, with chairs set
up facing the sidewalks. Relaxing in these chairs, you
can enjoy your apple tart and really take in the people
passing in front of you. I sit in cafes almost every
day, sipping strong coffee and people-watching. I like
to listen to people talking too, because it’s fun to
hear what their stories are. This is called
eavesdropping, and is an important skill for a writer.
But if you see someone who looks like me sitting in a
café writing things down, don’t sit too close if you
want to talk about something secret….
I grew up in a big family near Detroit (Francie in my
book Secondhand Star lives in a big family, too.). With
eight kids and lots of pets (Princess Josie’s Pets is
about a girl who loves animals), our house was always
crowded and noisy. My Irish grandmother sometimes lived
with us, too. She was a good storyteller and so was my
father. Grandma told us stories about all the naughty
things she did when she was a little girl (true) and Dad
told us about all of his adventures when he was a cowboy
(not-so-true). Dad also read Grimm’s Fairy Tales to us
and took us to the library every single week. So it’s
not surprising I grew up loving stories and wanting to
write my own.
I love the fable about the tortoise and
the hare! The hare thinks he is so fast that no one can
beat him in a race… but the tortoise challenges him
anyway. On the day of the race, the hare is so sure he
will win that he takes a nap when he is only halfway to
the finish line. The tortoise keeps plodding along,
slowly but steadily. In the end, the tortoise wins the
race.
Are you like that tortoise? I am. My first children’s
book was rejected by 15 publishers, but I believed in it
and kept sending it out. When it was finally published,
it continued to sell, slowly and steadily, for 15 years!
Since then I have published 20 more children's books and
had lots of fun doing it. The latest one,
The Costume
Copycat, is a story about Angela, a girl whose sister
always steals the show on Halloween night.
|
Hello from Paris!
|
|
