Check This Out: You’ll Always Be My Chickadee

On the blog today is the marvelous Kate Hosford, who is here to talk about her latest picture book, You’ll Always Be My Chickadee, illustrated by Sarah Gonzales and published by Chronicle Books on April 30. Today! Kate is represented by Victoria Wells Arms.

El Space: You’ve written a lot of picture books. What was the inspiration behind You’ll Always Be My Chickadee?
Kate: Hi L. Marie! Thank you for having me on El Space today! I wrote this story in 2020, during the first summer of the pandemic when we moved to Vermont to be closer to my parents. At first, I thought that I would write a story about fairies and Vermont wildflowers, but eventually it morphed into a story about a mother expressing her steadfast love to her child during a day of outdoor exploration. The book is in rhyme with a refrain at the end of each stanza. As the two of them travel through the backyard/ garden/ forest, etc., the mother proclaims her love through nature metaphors: you’ll always be my chickadee/sugar beet/evergreen… these things are all related to places around my childhood home in Vermont. There is even a cameo appearance from the Belted Galloways, who were special striped cows in the pasture next to our house.

When Sarah Gonzales saw the manuscript, it reminded her of her childhood near the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada. So perhaps the book takes place in a magical Vermont/Alberta hybrid space. I love the way Sarah made the illustrations so full of love, light, and dynamic movement.

Illustrations by Sarah Gonzales

El Space: Did your parents read aloud to you? If so, what books were favorites? What did you read aloud to your kids?
Kate: My parents did read out loud to me. My mother was a pre-school and elementary school teacher and is also a huge reader. Some of my favorite picture books are below. I especially loved Alexander and the Magic Mouse written by Martha Sanders and illustrated by Phillippe Fix. As soon as I could read on my own, I hardly wanted to do anything else! Once I even read through a fire alarm at school.

When our sons were young, we read some of the same books to them that I had read as a child, as well as others we discovered together. They ran the gamut from the wordless picture book, Tuesday by David Wiesner, to the tongue twister, Fox in Sox by Dr. Seuss. There were also some hilarious evenings spent acting out Shel Silverstein poems such as “Sarah, Cynthia, Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out.”

El Space: What do you want children who hear You’ll Always Be My Chickadee or read it to take away afterward?
Kate: When I wrote this story during the pandemic, my main goal was to let children know that even in an uncertain world, someone loves them unconditionally. I hope they will enjoy the nature metaphors and understand that there are lots of different ways to say, “I will always love you.” Perhaps they will also learn something new about nature; if they know what a Belted Galloway or a sugar beet is by the end of the book, so much the better!

El Space: What advice do you have for would-be authors who would like to write a picture book for young children?
Kate: I think it’s important to read widely and know what’s out there already. Reading will also allow the cadences of many different books to live in your head. For all books, the rhythm of speech is important, and perhaps this is especially true when writing for the very young. Then it’s a matter of finding a subject matter that really resonates with you. It doesn’t have to be something from your own life as long as there is a strong emotional connection there.

It’s also important to learn what to leave out of a picture book. If you take a picture book you like and type out the text, it may appear quite spare. That’s because the illustrations are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Much of the description that you might include for a non-illustrated book will not appear here. This is vital for the book’s success; if the manuscript does not leave enough room for the illustrations to breathe, they will start to merely mirror the text and become redundant.

In terms of expectations, it usually takes many years to get a story published. Even now, for every book I publish, I have many more stories that have been rejected. This is to be expected. But all of those rejected stories are necessary to make you a better writer. It’s also important to establish some kind of regular writing routine. If you show up at your desk on a regular basis, your muse will show up too.

El Space: What are you working on now?
Kate: I am presently doing a post-graduate semester with writer, editor, and teacher Shelley Tanaka at Vermont College of Fine Arts where I did my MFA. I am working on a middle grade novel about ballet and an early reader series. It’s nice to stretch myself in different ways. One of my new goals is to become as funny as I can!

Thanks again, L. Marie! It’s so much fun to be on El Space!

El Space: Thank you! 😊😊😊

You can find Kate at her website, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

You’ll find You’ll Always Be My Chickadee at Barnes and Noble, Indiebound, Books of Wonder, Target, Amazon, and your local independent bookstore.

One of you will find You’ll Always Be My Chickadee in your mailbox or tablet. Comment below to be entered in the drawing. The winner will be announced next week.

Belted Galloway cows photo by Kate’s dad, Charlie Hosford. Author photo by Roberto Falck. All other photos courtesy of Kate Hosford. Illustrations by Sarah Gonzales.