9/23/2023 0 Comments C beautiful oops![]() Books become treasured connection points. Think of the triangle that is created when your arms are around a child and you’re holding a book. Yes, I’m an actress, and I’ve sold yogurt, and I’m silly and vulgar and all the crazy things that I am-but I write books.Īnd what that means to me is that I am a catalyst for that moment between an often exhausted parent and a child. What I realized in that moment was the power of being an author. And what the father says to his wife in that horrible waiting room is this: “The thing I'm going to miss most is the weight of him on my lap during story time.” In this incredibly difficult moment in the hospital, his parents decide to donate his organs. Probably because read-aloud is my favorite part of parenting! Do you ever think about the grown-ups when you write your books?Ĭurtis: Years after I started writing books for children, I played the mother of a boy named Nicholas Green in the movie The Nicholas Effect. When I was writing them, I would imagine parents and grandparents snuggling with their kids at bedtime, reading together. I just released my first two picture books- I Love You All the Time and You Have Feelings All the Time. The embrace of that conversation-and the safety of it-is what’s important. Without this being a proselytizing book, the conversation is that nobody is the same, everybody sees things differently. I have spent years learning about how people think and see and learn differently. I’m the parent of a child with learning differences. These pictures we shared back and forth became a book that celebrates both the differences and the connectivity between people.Ĭurtis: In this world today, there are so many opportunities for conversation about differences. I would drop everything and run over to my iPad to draw on it and send it back. I’d be doing whatever I was doing and all of a sudden there’s a text and a photo from Jamie. Saltzberg: While I don’t celebrate Christmas personally, making this book was as close to Christmas as I could get. Jamie, you took photographs and sent them to Barney, who used art to transform them in unexpected ways. It’s a collaboration called What Do You See? A Conversation in PIctures. And for somebody who as a kid felt a little lost and a little out of control, I found a career that allows me to control everything-except the sales. You get to be Spielberg: You’re the actor, director, set designer, everything. I thought, My gosh, this is like a small movie. After college, I saw a William Steig book, The Amazing Bone. In college, I studied art because John Lennon studied art. But I had a mom who was a reading and studies skills counselor at UCLA, and she gave me enough tools to get through. I was always getting sent home with notes saying, “I think your child has potential, but we’re just not sure what to do with him.” I had a lot of learning issues that they just didn't diagnose in those days. So if my son came home and said, “I’m hungry,” I’d go, “Good title.” It drove my kids crazy when they were little. When I don’t expect it, one slams into my head.īarney Saltzberg: I get a lightning bolt on a regular basis. Since then, books come to me like a muse. ![]() But now I do.” And in that second, I realized it was a book for children about identity. When I was little, I didn’t know who I was. When I was little, I didn’t know what dreams were. And at the end of the list, I wrote three things that made me cry: “When I was little, I didn’t know what a family was. I didn't even know it was a book-I just made a list of things that Annie once couldn’t do and now could. Then one day, my 4-year-old mentioned to me, "Back in the day, I used diapers, but now I use a potty.” When she walked out of the room, I sat in my office with tears in my eyes and wrote on a piece of paper, When I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old’s Memoir of Her Youth. ![]() Jamie Lee Curtis: I never thought I’d write a book in my life. Deborah Farmer Kris: April 2 is International Children’s Book Day. ![]()
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