Sharing the secrets

What is the challenge of telling a story with no grownups in it?

What is the best thing about having parents who work at a restaurant?

What is special about hearing a story read by the person who wrote it?

What happens when a lover of Narnia writes a book inspired by Pippi Longstocking?

And what is the secret to great storytelling?
 

Young Kindergarten, Kindergarten, first and second grade covered these questions today in their meeting with Christina Soontornvat, this year’s Karla Harry Visiting Author.

Soontornvat is the author of thirty books for children of all ages, including The Ramble Shamble Children, which she read aloud for Young Kindergarten to second grade this morning. The story of children getting messy, working hard, growing food and using their imaginations together resonated with each one of the students in the room.
 

She had done her research and found points of connection for each of the groups of Gordon students on her schedule for this visit.

This morning’s presentation to third and fourth grade was an obvious home run, considering how popular her Lotus Island series is with those students, and fourth grade’s recent exploration of Thai culture brought up many connections as well (did someone mention durian?).

 

This afternoon, she’ll be talking to Middle School about All Thirteen, her retelling of the Thai soccer team cave rescue. Sports? Death-defying adventure? Narrative non-fiction as a tool to tell the story of local and global activism? There’s a hook there for every Middle School student.

Tomorrow, she’ll be with fourth graders, talking about A Wish In The Dark, which is on their reading list for the Battle of the Books, and with sixth graders talking about her graphic novels Tryout and Squad, which Gordon sixth graders have been devouring, as well A Wish In The Dark, which brings together “aspects of identity, geography, sustainability, resource allocation and issues of power and oppression within societal and governmental institutions both locally and globally” - much like the sixth grade humanities and science curricula do!
 

Tuesday will also include a meeting with the seventh grade, who have just begun novels of their own. After spending the fall studying the elements of novels and outlining stories of their own, they have started their first drafts. In the months ahead, they will revise and rewrite based on feedback from a number of readers, and publish in the late spring. But before all that, they’ll spend an afternoon with Ms. Soontornvat, talking over the inspiration and the hard work that goes into novel writing.

Christina Soontornvat is Gordon’s the nineteenth annual Karla Harry Visiting Author. Soontornvat’s visit overlaps with the annual GCA Book Fair, which is December 9th to December 11th. Learn more about the Book Fair at www.gordonschool.org/bookfair.

 

An eighth grader interviews Christina Soontornvat

The newspaper sat down with Karla Harry Visiting Author Christina Soontarvat author of A Wish in The Dark, All Thirteen, Tryout, and many many other novels and picture books. Thank you so much to Christina Soontarvat for giving the newspaper some time for this interview. 

You mentioned in your talk with Middle School that you got a degree in mechanical engineering, but now you are an incredibly successful author. Did you ever consider writing as a career? What led you to pursue it?

I didn't really plan on it. I thought I was just going to be writing on the side. My first book was just a small story I made up for my nieces, and it slowly grew into this book that I then published, but I never thought, “Oh, this would be my career.” I didn’t know what I was getting into, but I’m very happy I did.

You have many books out, in varying genres. How is it switching back and forth from a picture book to a novel, or from fiction to nonfiction? What is some advice for aspiring writers, and Gordon's very own seventh graders who are now writing novels? 

I write a lot of different types of things, and I am usually working on multiple projects at once, so yeah, I do have to switch back and forth, and it takes a while to get used to. I really rely on music. When I’m working on a new book, I create a playlist of songs, and when I put that playlist I really get into the zone for my new book. It's really a mind trick.

As far as advice for aspiring novelists, I’d say that if you can write a little bit every day, just write consistently, you will be more successful in the end. It's better to just write a little bit every day than not write all week and then sit down and try to write for five hours. Think of it like sports. If you don’t step onto a basketball court for months, then try to play a game, you're really going to hurt yourself. It's the same with writing. 
 

One of your main writing genres is fantasy, but your fantasy books have such a unique and creative world, and distinctive creatures and characters that inhibit them. With so many fantasy books out there, how do you stay creative and not fall into the “classic” characteristics of fantasy? 

When I make a world feel unique, it helps that a lot of my fantasy is based on Thai-inspired worlds, and there is not a lot of fantasy written like that. You can occasionally get in these fantasy tropes with the same creatures or “rules." I really, really try not to do that, not to write anything that's already out there. I think about Thai mythology and the landscape. I've been there so many times. As well as customs, I make all of my characters take off their shoes when they walk into a house, and this instantly clicks to me as “Thai.” 

When working on a fantasy book, really any book I usually know the ending before I even start writing. The big dramatic closing scene, then work backwards from there. That helps a lot! If you start a story and don’t know where it goes, you will run into problems along the way. 

Tryout is your graphic novel tween semi memoir, that many many love and enjoy. How was the process of writing and remembering everything? After writing about your childhood, do you ever write about your daughters? 

When writing Tryout, it was a little hard to remember what was happening, so I would call my old friends and just discuss what was happening. Sometimes I had to make things up to recall things that just blanked my mind. Certain memories were actually a little painful to uncover, even if it sounds silly and was a little unexpected, but overall, it was really fun. I definitely pull in parts of my kids into my stories. Jokes, things they have done. They are my biggest influence. 
 

When you met with Middle School you talked about All Thirteen, the true story of how a Thai boys soccer team got flooded into a cave during monsoon season and how they were rescued and all returned alive and well thanks to over 7000 people from all around the world. When writing this, how was writing nonfiction different from fiction? Did you use any mentor texts? What was it like interviewing the rescuers and parents? 

So first, the mentor texts for All Thirteen: I'm a huge fan of Steve Shankin. He writes nonfiction that feels like a novel, it's very exciting to read, and so gripping you cannot put it down. That's what I wanted All Thirteen to feel like. 

I had never interviewed anyone before, so I actually had to call a family friend who's a journalist and ask how to interview people, how to ask questions, what questions to ask, how to write them down, etc. I had no idea. That was incredibly emotional; the parents were still very emotional; they didn’t know if their kids would live. I was getting emotional listening to them. 

Of course, everything was getting translated to me, my dad was translating, and he would get a little emotional, and you don’t have to speak the same language to see what they were feeling. 

I didn’t get to talk to the team, but I did talk to the rescuers. One of the things they were thinking of using to get the boys out was that they were going to search for another way into the cave, maybe a smaller hole somewhere else. They really looked, scouts were all over the mountain trying to find alternate entrances. Another thing they were going to try to do was drill a hole through the top and pull the boys out, but that didn’t work, and would disrupt the mountain. They really did not want to use the method they did because of the danger. 

As far as the research, the thing I learned the most is that books are the best resource to find things. I found a lot of inaccuracies on the internet, as opposed to the books, which are edited and so many people look at a book to really make it factual. A very interesting process. One really special thing was that a few years later, after writing it, I took a trip to Thailand and gave signed copies to volunteers and rescuers and the families to celebrate them. 
 

Thank you so much for this amazing opportunity and interview! The Gordon School will cherish your books for many years to come.