1. What draws you to write for young readers?
When I was a child, stories offered me validation, comfort, and hope. That’s what I want to, in any small way, extend to kid readers with every project.
Books spark your imagination and possibility, they show you what the world is like or could be like, they give you a conduit into the interior lives of other people like no other medium can. They are guides, companions, lights on the path.
And it was in teaching middle school students that I found my way to children’s literature as an adult and fell in love with stories for kids all over again.
2. Please tell us about your latest book, To Make, and any future work you’d like to mention.
TO MAKE, with art by Mags DeRoma, celebrates and inspires creativity, the creative process, and making of any kind. It’s meant as manual and encouragement for makers—and since everyone is a maker, for us all.
3. What do picture books allow you to do as a storyteller?
Picture books allow me to get to the heart of what is most meaningful to me swiftly and succinctly. They allow me to tell visual stories where the blanks will be filled in with beautiful art in a separate but essential collaboration. They allow me to write poems that are stories too. And they allow me to dream and dare with language and narrative.
4. Any message for young authors (and their teachers)?
Keep making! That’s the theme and message of this book and it’s what I wanted to say in writing it—to myself first when I needed to believe that, and then to everyone who reads it. And I want to say that to you! The making process can be frustrating, disorienting, and full of waiting, but it is also full of all the good stuff too and much much more.
So keep making!
“Because one day you will share something wonderful that only you know how to make.”
Bio:
Danielle Davis reads, writes, and roller skates in Los Angeles. Her first middle grade novel was Zinnia and the Bees. Her first picture book is To Make illustrated by Mags DeRoma.
She’s got an MA in literature and creative writing and has had the privilege of teaching English to middle school and community college students. Her blog is This Picture Book Life. Her YouTube channel for kids is This Writer’s Life, and through it she’s part of the team at KidLit TV.
She likes to make anything out of words.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writesinla/
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