Fifty kidlit authors and illustrators answer a Vanity Fair-style “Proust Questionnaire” (i.e. short to read, long on insight). Same 10 questions for all (plus, for some, a wild card 11th of their choosing.) The series intro explains more and lists the participants.
Here are the final five:
Deborah Underwood
What is the trait you most admire in others?
Compassion.
What is your greatest strength?
Persistence sprinkled with fairy dust. Definitely not parallel parking.
What would your friends say is your greatest strength?
Creativity and/or knowledge of nearby vegan desserts.
How have you experienced bravery you didn’t know you had?
By pursuing a career in writing for kids.
What is your greatest extravagance?
I’m a small-scale-extravagance person: coffee drinks, cookies, pedicures.
What is your most treasured possession?
Changes daily, but right now it’s a thank-you card from the students I taught this summer.
What was your big break?
Kate O’Sullivan at Houghton Mifflin buying The Quiet Book manuscript.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Giving a talk to 1,000 people without passing out, dying, or throwing up.
Setting aside the reality of whether or not you can sing, with whom would you like to perform a duet?
Either Joan Baez or my teenage musical crush, Barry Manilow.
What is your motto?
I have two: “The more time you spend with animals, the happier you are.” Also: “No time travel before breakfast.”
WILD CARD: Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Mma Ramotswe from the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.
Audrey Vernick
What is the trait you most admire in others?
Generosity of spirit.
What is your greatest strength?
Ability to see humor in most situations.
What would your friends say is your greatest strength?
Holding it together when times are hard.
How have you experienced bravery you didn’t know you had?
Helping a family member through a debilitating depression.
What is your greatest extravagance?
I chemically straighten my hair every year.
What is your most treasured possession?
A copy of my book So You Want to Be a Rock Star signed by Bruce Springsteen (with the advice “Practice, practice, practice”).
What was your big break?
Still waiting…
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I can’t claim them as an achievement, exactly, but I am inordinately proud of my children.
Setting aside the reality of whether or not you can sing, with whom would you like to perform a duet?
Bruce Springsteen.
What is your motto?
“I will (fill in important item on current to-do list), or fail to do so!” (It’s derived from a Jim Ignatowski line on Taxi.)
WILD CARD: What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Having to read or listen to someone else’s dream with the sound of leaf blowers in the background.
Emma Walton Hamilton
What is the trait you most admire in others?
Integrity.
What is your greatest strength?
Eternal optimism. (What would you expect from Mary Poppins’s daughter?)
What would your friends say is your greatest strength?
Probably staying calm under pressure.
How have you experienced bravery you didn’t know you had?
Our daughter was born 10 weeks premature and spent a month and a half in the neonatal intensive care unit. I’ve also seen both kids through a couple of surgeries. Having and loving children demands a whole new kind of bravery.
What is your greatest extravagance?
Shoes, books, and gifts for people I love.
What is your most treasured possession?
Good health.
What was your big break?
My mother saying to me, “Let’s write that together.”
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Co-parenting two bright, funny, big-hearted, and conscientious human beings.
Setting aside the reality of whether or not you can sing, with whom would you like to perform a duet?
Benedict Cumberbatch. (I’m also setting aside the reality of whether or not he can sing.)
What is your motto?
“Would you rather be right, or happy?”
Hans Wilhelm
What is the trait you most admire in others?
To be totally present.
What is your greatest strength?
To quickly see the “big picture” and to grasp how it all connects.
What would your friends say is your greatest strength?
I like to think it is kindness—but it may just be my vanity speaking here.
How have you experienced bravery you didn’t know you had?
I cannot think of a single moment when I have been particularly brave.
What is your greatest extravagance?
Eating out with friends all the time.
What is your most treasured possession?
Having lived in many countries and continents, I stopped accumulating valuable stuff a long time ago.
What was your big break?
When I received 12 offers from various publishers for my very first book. (I had sent it out as multiple submission.) Unfortunately it never happened again.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Over my desk hangs a big sign “Guard yourself from power, greed, lust, and personal achievements” as a constant reminder.
Setting aside the reality of whether or not you can sing, with whom would you like to perform a duet?
Renée Fleming.
What is your motto?
“Love everything and everyone.” (Even made a video about it.)
Jonah Winter
What is the trait you most admire in others?
Courage.
What is your greatest strength?
Not touting my greatest strengths. Oops…
What would your friends say is your greatest strength?
I have no idea.
How have you experienced bravery you didn’t know you had?
I once confronted a muscular, angry guy on a subway platform who was probably a foot taller and outweighed me by 100 pounds. He had been speaking rudely to my father.
What is your greatest extravagance?
Caviar.
What is your most treasured possession?
I’d like to answer that question at some point, but first a message to potential thieves…hey guys—here’s where I keep the loot…!
What was your big break?
When I was 13. It was a roller skating race. I was in the lead. Then I collided smack-dab with a metal pole with my kneecap as the only buffer. I’d say that was my first and biggest break.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Grilled branzino with rosemary and lemon.
Setting aside the reality of whether or not you can sing, with whom would you like to perform a duet?
Tony Bennett.
What is your motto?
“‘Tis a wise man who waters his goat—but a fool who forgets to dry him.”
WILD CARD: Who are your heroes in real life?
Annie Pearl-Avery, a former foot soldier in the Civil Rights Movement; Bryan Stevenson, head of the Equal Justice Initiative—he has been called “America’s Mandela”; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the strongest voices for justice in American history.
Here are the final five:
Deborah Underwood
Compassion.
What is your greatest strength?
Persistence sprinkled with fairy dust. Definitely not parallel parking.
What would your friends say is your greatest strength?
Creativity and/or knowledge of nearby vegan desserts.
How have you experienced bravery you didn’t know you had?
By pursuing a career in writing for kids.
What is your greatest extravagance?
I’m a small-scale-extravagance person: coffee drinks, cookies, pedicures.
What is your most treasured possession?
Changes daily, but right now it’s a thank-you card from the students I taught this summer.
What was your big break?
Kate O’Sullivan at Houghton Mifflin buying The Quiet Book manuscript.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Giving a talk to 1,000 people without passing out, dying, or throwing up.
Setting aside the reality of whether or not you can sing, with whom would you like to perform a duet?
Either Joan Baez or my teenage musical crush, Barry Manilow.
What is your motto?
I have two: “The more time you spend with animals, the happier you are.” Also: “No time travel before breakfast.”
WILD CARD: Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Mma Ramotswe from the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.
Audrey Vernick
Generosity of spirit.
What is your greatest strength?
Ability to see humor in most situations.
What would your friends say is your greatest strength?
Holding it together when times are hard.
How have you experienced bravery you didn’t know you had?
Helping a family member through a debilitating depression.
What is your greatest extravagance?
I chemically straighten my hair every year.
What is your most treasured possession?
A copy of my book So You Want to Be a Rock Star signed by Bruce Springsteen (with the advice “Practice, practice, practice”).
What was your big break?
Still waiting…
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I can’t claim them as an achievement, exactly, but I am inordinately proud of my children.
Setting aside the reality of whether or not you can sing, with whom would you like to perform a duet?
Bruce Springsteen.
What is your motto?
“I will (fill in important item on current to-do list), or fail to do so!” (It’s derived from a Jim Ignatowski line on Taxi.)
WILD CARD: What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Having to read or listen to someone else’s dream with the sound of leaf blowers in the background.
Emma Walton Hamilton
Integrity.
What is your greatest strength?
Eternal optimism. (What would you expect from Mary Poppins’s daughter?)
What would your friends say is your greatest strength?
Probably staying calm under pressure.
How have you experienced bravery you didn’t know you had?
Our daughter was born 10 weeks premature and spent a month and a half in the neonatal intensive care unit. I’ve also seen both kids through a couple of surgeries. Having and loving children demands a whole new kind of bravery.
What is your greatest extravagance?
Shoes, books, and gifts for people I love.
What is your most treasured possession?
Good health.
What was your big break?
My mother saying to me, “Let’s write that together.”
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Co-parenting two bright, funny, big-hearted, and conscientious human beings.
Setting aside the reality of whether or not you can sing, with whom would you like to perform a duet?
Benedict Cumberbatch. (I’m also setting aside the reality of whether or not he can sing.)
What is your motto?
“Would you rather be right, or happy?”
Hans Wilhelm
To be totally present.
What is your greatest strength?
To quickly see the “big picture” and to grasp how it all connects.
What would your friends say is your greatest strength?
I like to think it is kindness—but it may just be my vanity speaking here.
How have you experienced bravery you didn’t know you had?
I cannot think of a single moment when I have been particularly brave.
What is your greatest extravagance?
Eating out with friends all the time.
What is your most treasured possession?
Having lived in many countries and continents, I stopped accumulating valuable stuff a long time ago.
What was your big break?
When I received 12 offers from various publishers for my very first book. (I had sent it out as multiple submission.) Unfortunately it never happened again.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Over my desk hangs a big sign “Guard yourself from power, greed, lust, and personal achievements” as a constant reminder.
Setting aside the reality of whether or not you can sing, with whom would you like to perform a duet?
Renée Fleming.
What is your motto?
“Love everything and everyone.” (Even made a video about it.)
Jonah Winter
Courage.
What is your greatest strength?
Not touting my greatest strengths. Oops…
What would your friends say is your greatest strength?
I have no idea.
How have you experienced bravery you didn’t know you had?
I once confronted a muscular, angry guy on a subway platform who was probably a foot taller and outweighed me by 100 pounds. He had been speaking rudely to my father.
What is your greatest extravagance?
Caviar.
What is your most treasured possession?
I’d like to answer that question at some point, but first a message to potential thieves…hey guys—here’s where I keep the loot…!
What was your big break?
When I was 13. It was a roller skating race. I was in the lead. Then I collided smack-dab with a metal pole with my kneecap as the only buffer. I’d say that was my first and biggest break.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Grilled branzino with rosemary and lemon.
Setting aside the reality of whether or not you can sing, with whom would you like to perform a duet?
Tony Bennett.
What is your motto?
“‘Tis a wise man who waters his goat—but a fool who forgets to dry him.”
WILD CARD: Who are your heroes in real life?
Annie Pearl-Avery, a former foot soldier in the Civil Rights Movement; Bryan Stevenson, head of the Equal Justice Initiative—he has been called “America’s Mandela”; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the strongest voices for justice in American history.
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