Fresh Voices: Q&A with Rukhsana Khan, author of Rabia’s Eid!

"Rahmalia’s bright and cheery illustrations beautifully capture the cultural aspects of Eid." —School Library Journal

What inspired you to write Rabia’s Eid?

I wanted to see if I could explore this new genre of early reader books with an Eid story that says something new. I remember my learning to read journey. Back then the books were very limited! I never saw anyone in them that looked like me or celebrated Eid!

Right now, there are a plethora of lovely Eid books out there and I wondered if I could come at it from a new perspective. I think this is the first early-to-read book about the subject.

Click here to watch a Youtube video for Rabia’s Eid.

What was the most difficult part about writing the book? What part was the easiest?

What was the most difficult? The format! With easy readers you can’t overwhelm the reader with too much text. There are all kinds of specifications that I wasn’t aware of. And fitting a story within those line breaks etc. was challenging. It’s really given me an even greater respect for these types of books!

What part was the easiest?

Remembering how a little girl like Rabia would experience Ramadan!

What element of the story do you identify with the most and why?

The moment I identify most with is when Rabia’s father asks Rabia to put the ‘Fitr’ (the mandatory charity of feeding one poor person for each person in your family) in the box, she looks out at the crowd and realizes all of them gave enough to feed a poor person for the day. That was the moment that I realized it, too.

I’ve been going to Eid prayer for over fifty years, and I witnessed thousands of people gathered. It never occurred to me that our very presence meant thousands of poor people had been fed. The focus was always on the end of the month of fasting, but that’s not what the holiday is called! In fact, Eid ul Fitr is the first day of the month AFTER Ramadan, Shawwal. And it’s called Eid ul Fitr because of that mandatory charity we give.

What do you want kids today to take away from this story?

I want them to know there’s a time for fun stuff (the henna and pretty dresses) and there’s a time to do good stuff (give charity to help others). The best times in our life do both!

What are you currently reading?

I am currently reading about the idea of pride and honor in the antebellum South.

If you could share one aspect of being an observant Muslim with young children, what would it be?

When I first started practicing Islam it looked like it would be so hard. I find Islam to be simple and easy. If you pray five times a day, fast for one month in a year, help feed the poor, dress modestly, be honest and nice to people—God will love you and you’ll go to heaven.

The Fresh Voices series is in coordination with the RHCB DEI Book Club committee.

Heatwave Q&A

In conversation with LAUREN REDNISS, creator of HEATWAVE

You are the artist and author of several award-winning books for adults, plus the picture book Time Capsule. How does working on picture books differ from your other work Is your process different?
My books for adults are a bit unconventional—they’re works of journalism, woven through with full-color artwork. When I’m working on those books, I usually spend about three or four years reporting and writing before I begin any artwork. With a children’s book, I also write the text first, but it goes a lot more quickly! Most of my time is spent developing the images, which tell much of the story. It’s fun to have the balance of my time tip toward making artwork, which is my first love.

The color palette of Heatwave is limited to scorching reds and soothing blues. Was this an artistic choice you always planned on, or did the idea come to you as the story evolved?
The idea for the book began with the color. Most of the time, images in books act as windows into another world; I wanted to try and take that a step further, to see if I could make the book itself, as an object, convey a physical sensation—in this case, the feeling of being very hot! I thought, if I saturate EVERYTHING in red, make each page feel like it is actually radiating heat, that would give the experience a wonderful, visceral intensity, even before reading the text or looking at the drawings. The introduction of the color blue came later as I thought about creating a narrative arc for the story.

On its surface, this is a story about a single, scorchingly hot day, but it’s also a subtle nod to climate change. What do you hope readers will take away from this story?
Yes, the book is meant to be read in the context of climate change, and it’s meant to open the door to conversations. Since the book is for young readers, I wanted caregivers to have the flexibility of addressing the subject in a way that feels age-appropriate and not overwhelming. Today’s children will be living in a warmer world, with all the complexities that implies. This is part of their reality. It’s also true that young people have been leading the way in climate activism. The book is for those young activists-to-be.

Featuring sparse text, Heatwave lets the artwork tell the story. What was your process for creating the images?
The images are drawn with pencil—very old school, nothing fancy at all! I created the color separations digitally, replicating a traditional silkscreen process. My son is the model for the boy in the story. There are a lot of silly outtakes from when he was posing and we’d just end up goofing around. Maybe those will make it into another book!

Click on the image below to download the pdf!

Heatwave By Lauren Redniss

A picture book from an award-winning artist that uses vibrant reds and blues to stunningly evoke the intensity of a heatwave and the refreshing relief that comes with an unexpected downpour of a cooling rain.

Sweltering. Sweating. It’s 100 degrees… even in the shade.
Games are canceled, temperatures reach record highs. The sun is hot.

Finally, a wind picks up. One rain drop. Then another. A downpour. The sun sets and the moon rises, Relief at last.

Heatwave is a book that vividly evokes a universal feeling--when the air is so hot and heavy you can barely move, when the sun is so bright your eyes play tricks on you. Renowned artist, writer and MacArthur genuis grant recipient, Lauren Redniss’s choice to use just two vibrant and contrasting colors in her artwork and spare text makes for a bold and interesting exploration of extreme weather. Even the book itself is saturated in red as if the book itself is burning up.

Author Q&A: Jeanne DuPrau, author of Project F

Jeanne DuPrau Q&A

Project F By Jeanne DuPrau

From the bestselling author of The City of Ember comes a post-apocalyptic story set hundreds of years in the future, where life is simple and modern conveniences are a thing of the past until a boy enchanted by technology is forced to choose between doing the right thing for his community and pursuing his dreams of adventure.

WELCOME TO THE FUTURE.

There are no cars, planes, television, or smart phones. Climate change wreaked havoc on Earth hundreds of years ago, and now people live a simpler life.

Then thirteen-year-old Keith uncovers a secret. It’s a mysterious mission known only as Project F. It’s advanced, it’s scientific, and it’s going to change the world. It’s exactly the kind of adventure Keith has always longed to be a part of.

And what is adventure without a little danger, right? But how much danger is Keith willing to risk? For himself? For his family? For his community? For the entire world…?

Jeanne DuPrau's The City of Ember was an instant hit when it arrived on bookshelves. It has become a modern classic beloved by readers selling hundreds of thousands of copies a year! In her latest novel, she explores timely questions about the Earth and our use of its resources. A bold novel, Project F asks how much you are willing to risk to save the future.

Jeanne DuPrau

"What could be more interesting than thinking of mysterious happenings, finding the answers to intriguing questions, and making up new worlds?"--Jeanne DuPrau

Jeanne DuPrau has been a teacher, an editor, and a technical writer. The People of Sparks is her second novel and the sequel to the highly acclaimed The City of Ember. Ms. DuPrau lives in Menlo Park, California, where she keeps a big garden and a small dog.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“When did you decide to be a writer?” people often ask me. Well, it was like this:

At about age 6, I wrote my first book, or at least the first book of mine that survives to the present day. It’s called “Frosty the Snowman.” It’s five pages long, illustrated with red and green crayon, and bound with loops of yarn.

My next extant work dates, I think, from the seventh grade. It’s a collection of stories handwritten on lined newsprint. One is about a merry-go-round that mysteriously flies off into the air. Another is about a girl who mysteriously disappears while ice skating. A third is about a seashell that mysteriously opens a door to an underwater world. It’s not hard to deduce that mysterious happenings were what I loved best at the time–a wardrobe door leading to Narnia, a rabbit hole leading to Wonderland, a nanny who flew away when the wind changed.

A year or two later, I started reading Dickens. I loved the world of Dickens’s novels, full of colorful characters and wildly complicated plots. I decided to write Dickensian stories myself. To prepare for this, I put together notebooks with headings on each page for character names, settings, plot ideas, and beginning sentences. I wrote pages and pages of great names (Ophelia Gordonswaithe, Hester Hollyhock), lists of settings (an insane asylum, a deserted railway station), and beginning sentences (“A sharp laugh broke the heavy silence”). I didn’t actually write very many stories, though. I think I wrote three or four, but only one of them went all the way to the end. The rest petered out after a couple of pages–or a couple of paragraphs.

But I kept at it. All through school, I wrote and wrote. Some of this writing my teachers assigned–book reports, college essays, my senior thesis. Some I assigned myself–stories, poems, journals, letters. After I graduated from college (an English major, of course), I did several different kinds of work, but they all involved writing and reading in one way or another. I taught high school English (and started a creative writing club for my students). I worked as an editor in educational publishing companies (and wrote stories for reading textbooks). I worked for a computer company (and wrote about how to use computers).

At the same time, after work, on weekends, whenever I could fit it in, I was doing my own writing. I wrote about people I knew, experiences I’d had, books I’d read, ideas that had occurred to me. I started sending these pieces of writing out into the world, and quite often they were published. I wrote a book, and then another book. The more I wrote, the more things I thought of to write about.

So the answer to the question, “When did you decide to be a writer?” is: Never. I never decided anything–I just wrote and kept on writing, because writing was what I liked to do. What could be more interesting than thinking of mysterious happenings, finding the answers to intriguing questions, and making up new worlds? Writers have a great job. I’m glad to be one.

Carl Hiaasen Q&A

Wrecker By Carl Hiaasen

Wrecker needs to deal with smugglers, grave robbers, and pooping iguanas—just as soon as he finishes Zoom school. Another wild adventure in Carl Hiaasen's Florida, now in paperback!

Valdez Jones VIII calls himself Wrecker because his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather salvaged shipwrecks for a living.

So is it destiny, irony, or just bad luck when Wrecker comes across a speedboat that has run hard aground on a sand flat? The men in the boat don't want Wrecker to call for help—in fact, they'll pay him to forget he ever saw them.

Wrecker would be happy to forget, but he keeps seeing these men all over Key West—at the marina, in the cemetery, even right outside his own door. And now they want more than his silence—they want a lookout.

He'll have to dive deep into their shady dealings to figure out a way to escape this tangled net. . . .

Carl Hiaasen

CARL HIAASEN was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of fourteen previous novels, including the bestsellers Squeeze Me, Razor Girl, Bad Monkey, Star Island, Nature Girl, Skinny Dip, Sick Puppy, and Lucky You, and six bestselling children’s books, Hoot, Flush, Scat, Chomp, Skink, and Squirm. His most recent work of nonfiction is Assume the Worst.

carlhiaasen.com

CARL HIAASEN is available for select readings and lectures. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at speakers@penguinrandomhouse.com or visit prhspeakers.com.

Harlem at Four

New from a New York Times bestselling author and a critically acclaimed illustrator!

Go behind the scenes with picture book creators Michaela Goade (REMEMBER), Eric Rohmann (MINE!), Frank Morrison (HARLEM AT FOUR), and Rudy Gutierrez (WINDOW FISHING).

A Stunning and Powerful Picture Book Told In Two Parts

Meet Harlem: the girl and the neighborhood. Part one follows the adventures of a little girl named Harlem and her single father as they go on a museum “playdate” with painters Romare Bearden and Jean-Michel Basquiat, listen to John Coltrane records, and conduct science experiments in their apartment (“The volcano erupts /Red lava on Valentine’s Day!”).

Part two takes us back to the fourth year of the twentieth century in Harlem’s neighborhood. Here, we are introduced to Philip A. Payton Jr., aka Papa Payton, whose Afro-American Realty Company gave birth to the Black housing explosion, helping to start America’s Great Black Migration. Because of Papa Peyton, Black families—like Harlem and her father a century later—could move to Harlem and thrive and flourish.

This is a unique, absolutely gorgeous picture book by New York Times bestselling author Michael Datcher and illustrated by Frank Morris, the Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist weaves together the lives of a modern Black family and a historically Black neighborhood in New York City.

Learn More

Creator Q&A