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swan: the life and dance of anna pavlova + laurel snyder author interview
Swan: the Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova by Laurel Snyder, illustrated by Julie Morstad (2015).
This is one special book. It might make you smile and dance and cry.
(click image(s) to enlarge)
The language and text are both so beautiful and skillful in this book. We can feel the cold of Russia, the thrill of watching one’s first ballet performance, the discipline of practicing turns and bends over and over. The longing to be a ballerina. The joy of finding one’s passion. The satisfaction of sharing it with others, as Anna Pavlova did.
I love the way Julie Morstad uses white and white space throughout the book (all that snow!), as though foreshadowing this moment when Anna becomes that magical white swan.
Born to a poor washerwoman and with the wrong feet for ballet, Anna Pavlova became a star against the odds. She was best known for “The Dying Swan,” a short ballet choreographed for her and that she performed thousands of times.
And oh that ending, when Anna is transformed into the dying swan of her famous performance. On her deathbed she asked for her costume and her last words were: “Play that last measure softly.”
“Every day must end in night.Every bird must fold its wings.Every feather falls at last, and settles.”
Big thanks to Chronicle Books for images!
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This Picture Book Life: Tell us about your history as a dancer, specifically with ballet. What was the first time you saw a dance performance?
Laurel Snyder: Well, I studied dance as a kid, almost entirely ballet. I think the initial draw for me was social–because I started taking classes with my best friend, Susan, to whom the book is dedicated. But from the beginning, I loved ballet, and over the years I went to three different dance schools in and around Baltimore. The problem was that as I got older, it began to feel clear that I’d never be a Pavlova. That was the hardest thing about ballet for me. Once I was in high school, it felt like dance had to be all or nothing, and neither my body or skill were enough to make me a star. So I quit when I was in high school. I didn’t see a lot of professional performances when I was a kid, honestly. I think that maybe part of the allure of Pavlova for me, as a kid, was in the grandeur I saw in her old photographs. I’d just sit and stare at her…
TPBL: What influence did Anna Pavlova have on you? What drew you to her and her story?
LS: She was definitely an influence, though I’m not entirely certain how it began. I remember my best friend and I had these paper dolls, and we’d fight over them! The Swan was always my favorite, but if memory serves, Susan preferred Les Sylphides. Then, at some point I got my hands on an old book of photos, that included a portion of Anna’s diaries, and I became obsessed. I loved the rags-to-riches quality of her story. She was this impoverished washerwoman’s kid, who became a kind of princess. I was also a little obsessed with the idea of boarding school, and I loved history, so for me, Anna’s saga was utterly dreamy.
Now, as an adult, I’m drawn to the idea that Pavlova really was a missionary for dance. That she wanted to spread the word, share it with the world! It had changed her life, and she wanted to spread that passion. But I don’t think I grasped that as a kid. When I was ten, it was just the transformation of Anna herself that I loved. And the idea of having a grand passion. I wanted to be devoted to something myself!
TPBL: How was your manuscript paired with Julie Morstad (*swoon*)?
LS: That was sheer genius on the part of the folks at Chronicle. My editor Melissa was the person who introduced me to her work, and I fell in love at first sight. I was over the moon when Julie agreed to do the project, and when the first sketches came in, I burst into tears. She really did capture the pictures in my head. I’m not sure how that happened. It’s a kind of magic.
TPBL: Tell us about the spread in which Anna is told she cannot attend ballet school. The thing is, you don’t tell us explicitly that’s what she was told. How did you go about writing those lines and how did you decide on the strategy you used to communicate that information so subtly?
LS: That’s a really good question! My first genre is poetry– and this book began that way, as a sort of poem. I didn’t begin with a story so much as a tone, an emotional thread. I wanted to share my sense of Anna as a girl. Loneliness, coldness, and then the dazzle of that first ballet, and the hard work of her training. For that kind of emotional/image narrative, a poem just made sense.
TPBL: I appreciate how you deal with death in SWAN. Tell us about spending time with Anna’s death in the closing spreads. What relationship does death have to Anna’s life and dance and/or to your own philosophy of writing picture books or this one in particular?
LS: Actually, the publication of this book probably hinged on the fact that I couldn’t imagine the story without the death/end. Long before I had a contract, I wrote the manuscript, but I knew I couldn’t deal with the idea of her death being left off, and I also knew most editors wouldn’t want to include it. I kept imagining people saying, “Why don’t we just end it HERE, when she’s blossomed into a swan! Isn’t that NICE?”
So I reached out to an editor I’d been following online, who seemed to feel like I did about such matters. I asked her whether a picture book biography could include a deathbed scene. And that was the beginning of my poem becoming a book.
LS: I feel very very strongly that most kids can handle big ideas and sad moments. Some kids– and I was this way myself– crave sadness. Often, kids ARE sad, and when you ARE sad, it can be terrible to be constantly surrounded by balloons and smiles. Sometimes, the most comforting thing is to know that sadness enters everyone’s life, and that you aren’t alone. Books are such a good way to encounter the sadness of others. They help us build empathy, and also keep us company.
But also, this isn’t just about sadness. It’s important for kids to hear stories of good deaths. Anna’s life was a good life, and her death was a good death, in a way. She changed the world, lived on her own terms, and died surrounded by the art she loved. She was mourned deeply, and this book is a part of that. Mourning isn’t just sadness. It’s missing, a celebration of a life well-lived.
If we teach kids only about death as atrocity, we make it a terrifying thing. Which is awful, because of course we’re all going to die. Anna lived well, and was mourned deeply by millions of people. Her gift continues now, far beyond her life. I can’t think of a happier ending for anyone, really.
Big thanks to Laurel Snyder for writing the book and sharing her answers! I leave you with this footage of Anna Pavlova dancing “The Dying Swan.” I’m so glad this exists.
this is sadie + interview with sara o’leary + fox masks
This is Sadie by Sara O’Leary and Julie Morstad (out May 12th!).
This picture book is about a girl and her imagination. She’s a reader, of course. But a maker, too. She’s a child being a child, during those magical times in a secure childhood when there is little expected of you but to use your imagination.
It’s wondrous in story and concept and artwork. I already know it will be one of my favorites from 2015 and a book to cherish always.
I was lucky enough to ask Sara O’Leary, one of my favorite authors and people, questions about writing the book. And she answered them!
(You know I’m a fan because I posted about When I Was Small my very first month of this blog!)
(click image(s) to enlarge)
See those first lines? Those are some of my favorite first lines of a picture book EVER.
This Picture Book Life: Can you tell me about those first lines? Was that the original start of the book?
Sara O’Leary: I wasn’t really conscious of this until you asked this question, but no, those first lines weren’t in the opening of the first draft. And as I go through line-by-line I see that nothing of that first draft survived verbatim into the words now on the page!
When I started working with Tara on revising the manuscript she got me to go through and make myself a dummy copy with illustrations. And to be honest, I’d never done this before even though it was something I’d counselled students to do. And when I went through that process it helped me to start thinking of the story visually and I arrived at the idea that I wanted the story to open out from Sadie rather than opening with her. And then I thought of the way kids play with boxes. My own son when he was small would play Jack-in-the-Box for what seemed like hours at a stretch.
And so that’s how we got to the box on the first page. But once we agreed on that idea of Sadie being concealed to begin with, it ended up influencing the choices we made when it came to the cover. And that’s how Sadie ended up wearing her little fox mask–which I now love.
Notice that fox stuffed animal? He pops up again and again. I really like that fox.
TPBL: Was the fox your idea or did Julie Morstad add in the fox on her own?
Sara O’Leary: There was a fox in the first draft of the story–a line about how when she grew up Sadie might get married and how she might marry a fox or a tin soldier but that she was in no hurry. And then the idea of her little fox family came in later. And then once Julie had added that into Sadie’s imaginative world I found that we didn’t need the line of text anymore. That happened a few times.
My favourite joke in the whole book is when the text says that Sadie is quiet in the mornings because old people need a lot of sleep and then we see Sadie merrily hammering away. My second favourite is when she “tidies her room” and we see everything madly stuffed underneath her bed. That sort of friction between the text and image pleases me inordinately.
It’s very strange because this is my fourth book with the fabulous Julie Morstad but it’s the first that really and truly feels like a collaboration rather than a co-creation. It’s partly a product of working with Tara Walker who is an absolute genius of a picture book editor–an Ursula Nordstrom for our times. It’s also partly a product of knowing Julie and her work so well that I was kind of writing the book for her this time and imagining it as a way of showcasing just what she can do.
“For me it started with the idea of her as a small girl
with a big imagination.”
A shout out to Julie Morstad here. This illustration stops me in my tracks. Luminous.
TPBL: What elements did Julie include that delighted or surprised you? What is your favorite illustration?
Sara O’Leary: There’s not a single illustration in this book I don’t love. My very favourites though are the picture book spreads–the entry of this new character into narratives that were part of my own childhood. It’s almost like stepping through the looking glass yourself. And for sheer beauty I love the fairy tale spread more than any other spread not just in this book but maybe in any book in existence. I love how brave and fierce and yet serene Sadie looks. When I was a kid my favourite poem was Isabel, Isabel by Ogden Nash and I see that in this image too. That little girl who bravely ate the bear up.
TPBL: Tell us a little bit about you as a child.
Sara O’Leary: I was very spoiled as a child in the sense that for my first five years I was an only child and my mother always had paints and clay and books and blocks and things for me to busy myself with–so that being a child who likes to “make and do and be” is very familiar to me. I was also, judging by the snapshots, a boy for about fifty per cent of my existence and so I like to think that like Sadie I could as easily imagine myself into being Mowgli as the Little Mermaid. And I kind of think it must be the same for Julie. The Alice in Wonderland spread came back to me and I was both pleased and amazed to realise that rather than placing Sadie in the role of Alice she had chosen to portray her as the Mad Hatter. It’s perfect!
Sadie is such a composite at this point that I find it hard to claim that she is really like me. She is but she is also like my kids, and like Julie and her kids, and also, I think, like our editor (and third collaborator) Tara Walker. I hope that she’s very easy to project yourself into–a bit like Sendak’s Max. A friend read the book and said: “Oh, you wrote this book just for me!” and really that’s about the best compliment you could hope for. Sadie’s pretty much childhood and imagination embodied for me.
Thanks to Sara for being so generous and talking with me about this magical book!
And to the wonderful people at Tundra Books for images!
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FOX MASKS!
This is Sadie‘s own activity kit includes a printable fox mask like the one Sadie wears on the cover!
And ever creative Kellie who made a peg doll in honor of Viva Frida has made one for Sadie over on her site! And Sadie’s wearing the fox mask! Here are some more:
Check out this super sweet paper plate fox mask too from mom.me.
You can go a step further with this felt DIY version from Fercute.
And I adore this paper maché mask from Ambeau!
Here’s another printable from Little Gatherer with a unique design.
Finally, this one’s for sale at KissMeGo.
With Sara O’Leary’s generosity, I’m giving away two This Is Sadie book jacket/posters over on twitter! (It features Sara (and my!) favorite spread from the book.) Come find me there and enter to win one!
julia, child picture book + chocolate almond cupcakes by coco cake land
Julia, Child: words by Kyo Maclear, pictures by Julie Morstad.
Julia is a child. (One who wears roller skates, which I especially admire.)
She bears some resemblance to THE Julia Child in her affinity for French cooking and butter, but this picture book is otherwise a fictional tale.
click image(s) to enlarge
Julia has a best friend named Simca. Together, they are experts in friendship and cooking and childhood.
Those are the themes of this standout book.
“When they dreamt of the future,
they always pictured themselves cooking happily together:
the oldest children in the world.”
The girls are pretty clear on how growing up is not to be desired. They’ve seen grownups. They know they’re “wary and worried, hectic and hurried.” Who would want to be like that?
Morstad’s illustrations show adults as line drawings, unfilled out with color the way the children are. They look like people who’ve lost something along the way.
So Julie and Simca prepare a meal to bring out wonder in those big, busy people. Through a wonderful meal that draws people to it with its rainbow-like aroma.
“‘The problem,’ said Julia, ‘is that too many grown-ups don’t have the proper ingredients.'”
The dinner has its ups and downs, but dessert is the biggest hit: petits gâteaux—”chocolate almond cupcakes with chocolate butter icing and the richest, creamiest centers.” Small, tasty bites to remind each adult of loveliness, with plenty to go around so they don’t get too greedy or worry about running out.
Slow-down, sweetness, wonder, and imagination. These are the ingredients of friendship and cooking and childhood. These are what to cultivate, like Julia and Simca do.
p.s. Kyo Maclear has a knack for inventing fictitious childhood characters from historical grownup ones. (See Virigina Wolf.)
“What I’ve tried to do here is forget the facts
and capture something about Julia Child’s spirit.
And by spirit, I mean her gusto, joyful abundance
and joie de vivre.”
Excerpted from Julia, Child by Kyo Maclear. Text copyright © 2014 by Kyo Maclear, Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Julie Morstad. Reprinted by permission of Tundra Books, a division of Random House of Canada, a Penguin Random House company. All rights reserved.
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You all know how much I love the baking blog Coco Cake Land, right? In honor of Julia, Child, Lyndsay is sharing chocolate almond cupcakes inspired by the ones Julia and Simca make in the book!!
I’m delighted to collaborate with such a blogging superstar and lovely person! She knows a lot about baking joyfully with plenty of imagination and play!
CHOCOLATE ALMOND CUPCAKES WITH CHOCOLATE PASTRY CREAM
2 dozen cupcakes
FOR THE CUPCAKES
- ⅔ cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup of dutch process cocoa powder
- ¾ cup boiling water
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups almond meal
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs
FOR THE CHOCOLATE PASTRY CREAM
- 3 egg yolks
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- ¾ tablespoon flour
- ¾ tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup heavy cream
- ¾ cup chopped dark chocolate
TOASTED ALMONDS
- ¼ cup toasted almonds, chopped
MAKE THE CUPCAKES
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Gently oil the top of the cupcake pans and line cupcake pans with cupcake liners.
- In a medium bowl, whisk cocoa powder with the boiling water until you have a smooth, thick and creamy chocolate paste. Whisk in the vanilla extract.
- In another small bowl, combine the almond meal with the baking soda and salt.
- Place the sugar, oil and eggs into the bowl of stand mixer with the paddle attachment and beat on high until thick and creamy, about three minutes.
- With the mixer on low, add the chocolate mixture until combined.
- Add the almond flour mixture until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl, about one minute.
- Using a medium sized ice cream scoop, dole out the cake mixture and fill the cupcake liners just over half full.
- Bake for 20 minutes – cupcakes will rise, and fall again.
- Let them cool in the pans.
MAKE THE CHOCOLATE PASTRY CREAM
- In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, flour and cornstarch.
- In a saucepan, bring the milk and cream to a low boil.
- Whisk half of the milk mixture into the egg yolk mixture, then add the egg/milk mixture back into the saucepan with the rest of the milk.
- Cook the pastry cream over medium heat, whisking constantly until thick – about 3-4 minutes.
- Remove the pastry cream from the heat and add the chopped chocolate. The chocolate will melt into the hot pastry cream. Whisk to combine.
- Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and power-chill in the freezer for 30 minutes, or let cool in the fridge for 2 hours to set.
- Dollop two tablespoons of chocolate pastry cream into the sunken chocolate almond cupcakes.
- Sprinkle with toasted almonds and finish with a fresh berry.
TOAST THE ALMONDS
- Place almonds on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for ten minutes (watch they don’t burn!) Let cool until crispy, then chop.
Thank you, Lyndsay!
Check out the whole post with more photos to admire over at Coco Cake Land!
how to + the art of julie morstad
How To by Julie Morstad is not your typical how to book. It shows how to do the very best things in the most imaginative ways.
Go fast. Go slow. See the wind, feel the breeze, be a mermaid.
It’s magical yet completely down to earth. Earthy even. Simple. But sophisticated. Wise. I think this book embodies children beautifully. They often know how it’s done, right?
But sometimes kids need reminders too. Especially nowadays. That you feel the breeze by riding a bike, become a mermaid by lounging in the bathtub, wash your face in the rain. Why of course you do.
How To reminds me in theme of Nikki McClure’s prints and in subject and style to Amy Cutler‘s artwork.
You might remember Julie Morstad’s illustrations from When I Was Small or the other Henry Books by Sara O’Leary. Can I just give a shout out to Simply Read Books for publishing such gems?!
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I was a fan of Julie Morstad‘s work before I knew it included picture books. So I’ll leave you with these, some of my favorites of her illustrations. Earthy, simple, sophisticated, and magical, don’t you think?
“Stilts“
when i was small/miniature things are fun
When I Was Small, written by Sara O’Leary, illustrated by Julie Morstad
Being fascinated with small things starts when we are small. Looking into a patch of grass and imagining a whole world of ants and bugs: a tiny world. The Borrowers were small. The Smurfs. The Oompa-Looompas. The Lilliputians in Gulliver’s Travels. Hey, My Little Pony and Matchbox Cars too.
For author Sara O’Leary it started with The Friendly Giant, a Canadian television show she watched in childhood. (She’s the author of When I Was Small and two other picture books starring Henry, including When You Were Small).
image: LP Cover Lover
She says: “The show’s intro features a little model village…the camera pans along to an enormous booth and then up to the giant who invites you into his castles where waiting by the fire are three chairs (made absurdly tiny by the scale of his gigantic hand).”
‘One little chair for one of you, and a bigger chair for two more to curl up in, and for someone who likes to rock, a rocking chair in the middle,’ the giant says to viewers.
“When I started telling stories to my own boys I think part of me harkened back to that feeling I had when I was small–that feeling of wishing to be very small indeed, small enough to curl up in a tiny chair in an imaginary castle and play make-believe.”-Sara O’Leary
In When You Were Small, Henry asks what he was like when he was small. In When I Was Small, still curious, Henry asks his mother what she was like when she was small. It’s not exactly what you’d expect. They weren’t just small back then. They were TINY. It’s pretty wonderful to imagine yourself or someone else that teeny. So tiny that yarn is jump rope and a single raspberry is a feast.
The book (and its companions) with illustrations by uber talented Julie Morstad, is charming and so full of whimsy! It beautifully captures a child’s perspective, imagination, and fantasy. A little one is already so small compared to big things around them. But also big compared to tiny ones. What fun to play with scale!
Inspired by “The World’s Most Beautiful Miniature Books,” author Sara O’Leary, amazing person that she is, made her own miniature When You Were Small cover. Amazing right?
And Etsy has a treasure chest full of miniature objects I didn’t imagine existed. But they do!
(In honor of one of my favorite authors.)
A GEOMETRIC IRIDESCENT RAINBOW HOUSE
image: Robin Mitchell Cranfield book design
