When I was a kid, my whole family used to watch “The French Chef,” Julia Child’s cooking show on TV. She was enthusiastic, skillful, funny and confident, and I looked up to her in more ways than one – because she was over six feet tall! Best of all, she loved to cook and eat, just like me.
Years later, I met Julia when I designed the flower arrangements for her 80th birthday party. It was a dinner party for 300 people, and there were lots of flowers. At the end of the evening, she was presented with a birthday gift I’d made for her: a gigantic whisk, four feet long, decorated with flowers and pearls. With a mischievous grin, she slung it over her shoulder. It was so exciting to meet one of my heroes and find out she was just as wonderful in person as she was on TV.
Ever since, I’ve wanted to write a children’s book about Julia, something playful and funny, like her. Then I read about her first cat, Minette, who lived with Julia and her husband Paul in their creaky old apartment in Paris. Julia and Paul adored Minette, who liked to hunt mice and play with a Brussels sprout tied to a string. Julia even cooked up special meals for her beloved pussycat – scrumptious things like fish head stew. But who wants fish head stew when there are mice to eat?
I gathered the ingredients of this tasty story from books about Julia, and from her letters and memoirs. Then Amy Bates added the perfect herbs and spices with her beautiful illustrations, and together we cooked up a special dish just for you. We hope you enjoy Minette’s Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and Her Cat.Bon appétit!
I was born in New York City and lived in the Bronx with my parents and my older brother, Matthew, until I was 7. Our apartment was across the street from a big park, and Matthew and I spent a lot of time in the playground. When I was very small my favorite spot was the sandbox. When I got bigger I’d swing on the swings and climb the jungle gym. In the summer there was a wading pool, and in the winter, a sleigh-riding hill. Sometimes kids would spread their comic books out on the ground, and you’d stand behind a line and toss a penny. If your penny landed on the comic book, it was yours.
My mom was a music teacher, and I was always singing and dancing around the house. I wanted to be a ballerina, but until I started ballet lessons I didn’t realize what hard work it was. I didn’t mind—I just loved to dance! Matthew and I took piano lessons, too. But we never liked to practice.
My father was a physicist who worked in a research lab full of mysterious vapors, exotically-shaped test tubes, strange instruments, and glowing screens. In the meeting room was a giant blackboard covered in mathematical symbols and Greek letters. When I visited the lab, I liked to think that someday Daddy would win a Nobel prize. But really, the most fun thing about visiting the lab was getting to spin around and around on the office chairs.
In second grade my father got a one-year job teaching at a university, and we moved to Berkeley, California. To get there, we drove across the country, camping the whole way. We planned the trip for months, studying travel brochures and tracing our route on maps. I’ve loved maps and traveling ever since. And I loved my school in Berkeley. We had a ten-minute recess every single hour!
When our year in Berkeley was over we moved back to New York, and my parents soon found a house in Hastings-on-Hudson, a small town on the Hudson River just north of New York City. I spent the rest of my childhood there. Though I haven’t lived there in many years, it will always be my home town.
What kind of student were you?
I was a good student. My favorite subjects were English, Social Studies, Music and Drama. I was good at math and science, too. The only class I ever failed was typing. I didn’t try very hard because I thought if I was good at typing I might have to become a secretary, and I didn’t want to be a secretary. I wanted to be a dancer, or perhaps an art historian. I didn’t know that someday I’d be a writer and would be typing all day long!
Did you play an instrument? Which one(s)?
In fifth grade, the orchestra teacher came to our class and talked to us about the different instruments. He asked if I’d like to play the string bass, and I said, “Yes.” A string bass is a very large instrument, and neither of us knew that I was going to be only 5’2″ tall when I was full-grown. I played string bass in the orchestra and jazz band all through junior and senior high school, but always on a 3/4-size instrument. I could never reach the top of the strings on a full-size bass.
Did you have a nickname and if so what is it? Is there a story behind your nickname?
My family has always called me Susy, but none of them knows how to spell it. There are just too many variations—Susy, Susie, Suzy, Suzi. When I was eighteen I decided I was a grownup and started asking people to call me by my full name, Susanna. My mother named me after the heroine of her favorite opera, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.
If you weren’t a writer, what would you like to be?
A beach bum. With a snorkel.
What advice do you have for aspiring young readers and writers?
Read and write as much as you can, and don’t be discouraged if at first your reading and writing aren’t as good as you want them to be. It takes lots of practice, time and patience to be really good at anything. Just keep working, and don’t compare yourself to others or worry about how good you are. Curiosity and imagination will carry you a long way.
Do you have a special place where you write your books?
Our house has an extra bedroom, which my husband Gary and I use as an office. We call it “the library,” which makes it sound very grand. In reality, it’s a small, crowded room with two desks, two bookcases, two filing cabinets, and tons of books, art, family photos, plants, and tchotchkes. It’s in desperate need of a paint job. Our cat, Chloe, thinks it’s her room.
Download a copy of “What’s Your Story, Susanna?” HERE.
Be sure to follow Susanna’s blog tour book giveaway (more info HERE) and stop by tomorrow to read a letter from Susanna to her readers!
Susanna Reich’s delightful Minette’s Feast, illustrated by Amy Bates, celebrates the rich personal life and culinary passion of Julia Child, an incredible individual who was the first woman to be inducted to the culinary Hall of Fame. Julia was known for her love of fine French food and her casual, unassuming way of cooking it. She once said, “I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.”
To learn more about the life and times of Julia Child click HERE to view a video biography of this personable chef.
Click HERE to access a website produced by the PBS commemorating Julia Child’s inspirational culinary career.
Lastly, click HERE to watch a delightful YouTube video of an aged Julia Child baking French Bread with Danielle Forestier. Don’t you wish we could smell the amazing scent of homemade French bread through the screen? Yum.
Be sure to follow Susanna’s blog tour book giveaway (more info HERE) and stop by next week to read an interview with Susanna!
The stories about the lives of real people are fascinating to many young readers. They like to find out who famous people were as children and how they grew up to do the things they became famous for. Or learn about the lives of people they’ve never heard of but who are a part of their history. All kinds of people are showing up in biographies being published today: artists and dancers, politicians and sports figures, the colorful and the quiet, the famous and the not-so-famous.
This month, we kick off our theme of Biography with author Susanna Reich and her delightful new picture book Minette’s Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and Her Cat. With charming illustrations by Amy Bates, Minette’s Feast centers around the story of Child’s cat during the years she lived in Paris and first became interested in cooking. While her name may not be one that children immediately recognize, they’ll be enticed by the story of her persnickety cat as surely as their parents were enticed by her cooking. With lyrical, playful text, Reich, who met Julia Child in the early 1990s, has done great credit to Child’s fame and unique story in this enchanting book.
Be sure to follow Susanna’s blog tour book giveaway (more info HERE) and stop by next week to read an interview with Susanna!
COWBOYS by David L. Harrison and illustrated by Dan Burr, give readers a close look at the tough experience of being a cowboy on the long cattle drives from Texas to Kansas. We follow a variety of wranglers from bunk house to “big-city”Abilene. Starting in 1866, over 40,000 cowpunchers signed on to ride cattle-drive trails, such as Chisholm Trail, working day and night for several months, making less than a dollar a day! Unfortunately only a few poems and pictures in this collection reflect that most of these cowpunchers were young and either newly-freed slaves, Mexicans or Native Americans. But this book is an engaging and informative unfolding of poems with a punch – some rough and tough, others just plain funny. Pictures and verse show these wild-west cowboys were often “on a journey of my own figuring how it feels to be free.” (Boyds Mills Press, 2012)
Eleanor, the main character, may be already eight but having her beloved babysitter, Bibi, move away – far away – is much harder than any of the grown-ups realize. Julie Sternberg has captured the feelings of how “little events” feel mighty big when second grade is looming. An Amulet/Abrams (2011) realistic fiction in verse.
“Do not commit your poems to pages alone. Sing them, I pray you.” Virgil, that Roman poet-performer of two thousand years ago who is “still in print!”
Yes, sing these poems and play catch with words. Everyone has fun. Engage all your students with whamming, singing, foot-stamping poetry JAM! This little book doesn’t cost much and is filled with simple ideas that introduce performance poetry in the classroom, at the beach or in your living room. Instructions are easy. Poems included are short, silly and high-energy.
Uncover another side to beloved American poet Emily Dickinson in this charming picture book about two best friends. With her sister, Vinnie, attending school in a different town and her brother away at college, Emily’s dad notices his daughter’s sadness and brings home a puppy. With a companion by her side, Emily feels encouraged to explore the world outside her back door. And thanks to the author’s creative magic and words from Emily’s own poems and letters, the readers are swept up in their journey. Like Emily’s poetry, the illustrations transport us to another time and place. For ages 5 on up.
With the success of the television show DANCING WITH THE STARS many of us were first introduced to the tango, salsa, and samba dances in our homes. But in the book UNDER THE MAMBO MOON by Julia Durango, illustrated by Fabricio VandenBroeck (Charlesbridge, 2011), Durango takes our knowledge of Latin American culture to new heights and readers will be tap, tap, tapping their feet.
On summer nights, Marisol helps out Papi at his music store and meets customers connected with the neighborhood. Her story frames the book while each character comes to life under Durango’s rhythmic poems. VandenBroeck’s illustrations rotate between black and white and full-color acrylics. A book to be savored with each read. For ages 8 to 12.
As Durango does in many of her books, she likes to leave special messages to the important people in her life. Click HERE to find out who the recipients were!
Today is POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY. What are some of your favorites? Please share titles/ links in the comments! Here’s a link to one of mine: “To Look at Anything” by John Moffitt.
