JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I've always been amazed by my friend Gail Donovan; not because she's a terrific author - I have lots of friends who are terrific authors - but because she writes for kids between second and fifth grade. I don't recall being that age, and I don't particularly want to recall my kids being those ages (it seemed like an endless stream of wrinkled school work and birthday parties.)
How do you write from the viewpoints of little kids? I've asked her. Today, she explains how: by tapping into her own life. And she's brought a special treat - she's giving away three Advance Reader Copies of Sparrow Being Sparrow! All you need to do is leave a comment sharing a moment from your first job.
My daughter came home from her
first job working the concession stand at a minor league baseball stadium—hot,
smelly work done in very close quarters—and complained, “I am literally breathing
air that was in someone else’s mouth ten seconds ago.”
Little did I know that in a few years, that would be a valid complaint. But this was 2013, pre-pandemic, so I just said, “Your first job isn’t supposed to be your dream job. You’re learning the value of a dollar, and why you should go to college.”
I don’t know why I thought I had anything to teach my kids about the value of a dollar. I had always dreamed of being a writer, and though my father didn’t discourage this he counseled, “have a trade you can fall back on.” Reflecting on this wisdom, I set off for art school to learn how to be a potter. Feel free to laugh.
My first job, like my daughter’s, had been in the food services industry. Friendly’s. Picture late ’70s suburban Connecticut, blue-and-white polyester houndstooth uniforms. I waited tables, washed dishes, and took turns on “the make,” where ice cream sundaes were concocted and cones were scooped. I was soon warned that I was cutting into profits by making the cones and sundaes too big, and after repeated warnings was told, “Donovan, you’re off the make.”
Now you know that the first line of my book jacket bio, “Gail Donovan was fired from her first job for making the sundaes too big” is, in the words of David Sedaris, “true-ish.” I wasn’t fired fired, but I was forbidden to pick up a Friendly’s ice cream scoop. My editor liked the line, though, saying it sounded like Sparrow, the main character of my new book. And it does.
Sparrow is a lively, compassionate kid who would definitely make you an oversized sundae if she could. And when the neighborhood cat lady falls and breaks her hip and her seven cats need homes, who’s on the job? Sparrow. That’s just Sparrow Being Sparrow.
Ages 7-11
Sparrow loves to dance and leap around. She loves cats. She
has a million questions about the world, and she’s not afraid to ask them. But
she’s just moved to a new town and a new school, and her busy parents have no
time for her to get “carried away.” Suddenly, she feels totally out of place.
Sparrow’s favorite thing in all this newness is her neighbor, Mrs. LaRose, who has seven cats and always has cookies and lemonade to share. But after Mrs. LaRose falls and breaks her hip, she decides to move into assisted living—where the cats aren’t allowed! Sparrow has to help.
Determined to find new homes for all of Mrs. LaRose’s cats, Sparrow forgets about her own troubles—but the cats just might be the key to Sparrow finding a home for herself in this town, too.
Gail Donovan was fired from her first job in an ice cream shop for making the sundaes too big. She now works in a library and writes middle grade novels, including Sparrow Being Sparrow, the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award winner Finchosaurus, and In Memory of Gorfman T. Frog, named to the New York Public Library’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing list. She has also written for the Rainbow Fish & Friends picture book series based on the bestselling work of Marcus Pfister. Donovan lives on the coast of Maine, where she jumps in the ocean all year round. She has shared her home with a dozen birds, a few dogs, a rat, and a cat named Cookie. Visit her at GailDonovan.com.
