Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon's new book is The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man, an illustrated children’s book. From his Q & A with Alexandra Alter at the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog:
You have four kids, so I assume you’ve spent hours and hours reading to them. How did that shape your approach to writing a children’s book?--Marshal Zeringue
I definitely felt like as a parent reader, I had some very clear… I don’t know if preferences is the right word. When my kids were younger, when I went through all four of their toddler-hoods and it was bedtime and time to pick out a story to read, when I went over to the shelf to grab something, I wasn’t going to pick the one that was dense with text. Too long and too many words, those were things I didn’t like, and really bland, saw dusty kind of prose.
Which books did you like?
The Frances books, “Bedtime for Frances”. The writing is so wonderful in those books that you don’t mind going through them for the 70th time. “Dinosaur Bob.” “The Leaf Men.” Maurice Sendak of course. The Olivia books.
So how did your experiences as a parent inform your choices as a writer?
I wanted to...[read on]
