Author/Illustrator Jonathan Roth: TRIPLE PLAY
“Just follow your heart and write the story that comes out of you.”
By Laura Segal Stegman
 |
| Check Out All Four Posts in July! |
This interview and the transcript have been edited for length and clarity.
LAURA SEGAL STEGMAN
Hi, everybody. I'm Laura Segal Stegman, author of the Summer of Luck trilogy, and I'm presenting four author conversations on SCBWI's blog in July.
My guest this week is incredibly talented author and illustrator Jonathan Roth, whose STEAM-themed works for kids include chapter books, graphic novels, and the true story, Almost Underwear, How a Piece of Cloth Travelled from Kitty Hawk to the Moon and Mars, which I just loved. It's a Kirkus Best Picture Book of 2024. He also teaches art to elementary school students, and he's working on Book 4 of Rover and Speck, his graphic novel series.
Hi Jonathan. So this is really an opportunity to get to know you a little. We're going to do a triple play of questions, and the first one is: what book do you wish you'd written and why?”
JONATHAN ROTH
It’s a hard question, because there's so many great books! But I was thinking of influences. My first series, Beep and Bob, has a little kid who goes to space school, and he's scared. In the back of my mind when I was writing it, I was thinking about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which imprinted on me when I was in high school. And it was meaningful that way. So of course I was thinking that I wanted to do a kid’s version. I wanted something irreverent, and funny, and strange, and space-based, and all that. I mean, not exactly. It's not at all like that, but that was my thinking at the time.
Then, after it came out, I realized that what had really imprinted on me came from further back, and that Beep, my little alien, was actually Snoopy. And that Bob, the little boy with a lot of anxiety, was kind of like Charlie Brown. So Peanuts -- that's what I started reading before I could probably even read. And for a long time, I wanted to be a cartoonist. I do graphic novels, but I'd say that if I could have anything like Peanuts, it’s probably the apex of the kind of things I'm trying to create.
LS
Well, that's cool. That's really great. Now, since you're a teacher, I'd love to hear your suggestions for people who are interested in writing chapter books or graphic novels or any kind other books for young readers. Do you have any thoughts on that?
JR
Of course, how long do we have? [chuckles] If I just had to give a couple of quick suggestions, number one is, “Go read.” Go to your bookstore, Barnes and Noble or your local indie. Read as many current kids’ books as you can, especially in your genre. If you're into picture books, read one hundred picture books. And the reason why I say “current” is there are a lot of people I've met who want to write picture books. They remember all their favorites and the classics and everything. And that's okay, but you really need a sense of what's going on today to see what's happening. Not so you can copy anything, or write to a trend, but because it's just good to know. Let's say you want to write a TV show, and the most recent TV shows you saw were “ER” and “MASH” and “I Love Lucy.” They're all classics, and I can't tell you that's not going to work, but if you haven't seen a TV show in the last twenty years, could you write and sell one to Netflix now? It's the same with kids’ books. Read a lot of current stuff.
 |
| Jonathan Roth |
The other thing I'd say is don't write to any trends. Just follow your heart and write the story that comes out of you, or the subject, or whatever you're interested in. Because they can tell if you're faking it. Just give yourself permission to write what you want to write. And that's the best we can do.
LS
Yeah, that's really great advice. When I started writing middle grade books, I was remembering my middle grade books from childhood, and I had to be given that advice too, to read current books. And now I love reading [kidlit]. There's so much in middle grade, picture books, and young adult, all kinds of things. There weren't those kinds of subjects when I was growing up. So it's really [helpful] to hear that advice.
JR
Yeah, I talk to kids about not only Peanuts but reading comic books. That's how I learned to read. But what kids have now, like graphic novels – the range is so much greater than when we were kids.
LS
Yeah, I read [one of your Rover and Speck graphic novels], and I read Pearl [by Sherri L. Smith, author, Christine Norrie, illustrator]. I never thought I would be into graphic novels, just like I thought I wouldn't be into novels in verse. But once I started reading them, I was amazed at how much good stuff there is out there.
To wrap things up, I'm going to ask you to tell us about one of the times that someone who read your work got in touch and what that meant to you.
JR
One really meaningful thing happened with my book Almost Underwear, which is a true story about how the Wright brothers went to a Dayton department store in 1903 and bought some muslin, which became the wing cloth that covered their airplane. Years later [1969], Neil Armstrong took a piece of the original Wright brothers’ [muslin] to the moon. And then, just a few years ago, another little piece went up to Mars on Ingenuity.
One of my early readers, a teacher I know, told me she’d teared up a little. (That's happened to a few other people too.) Her father was an aviator, and her son is a commercial pilot, and she let me know that people like her father and son may act very stoic, but they have big hearts, and that [they understood that] this book is essentially about commemoration. How Neil Armstrong was such a good steward of being the first person to walk on the moon that he carefully chose a part of the first airplane to show that he stood on the Wright brother's shoulders. Like we all stand on each other's shoulders, no matter what we're trying to accomplish. This teacher said my book really got to the spirit of that kind of commemoration. She said you can have a big ego, or you can just recognize what came before you. So I was kind of touched to hear that she was touched.
LS
That's lovely. I felt the same way reading that book, and I highly recommend it. Almost Underwear. It’s a provocative title!
JR
I found in my research that the kind of muslin [the Wright brothers used], just one little throwaway sentence, was commonly used to make ladies’ undergarments at the time. There's my hook! This could have been underwear, and instead it went to Mars. So there we go.
LS
That's awesome. Thank you so much. Jonathan's website has activity kits, interviews with authors, and a lot more, and you can look for links to his site and socials in the show notes. Thank you again, Jonathan.
JR
Thank you so much for interviewing me. Bye-bye.
WEBSITE: www.jonathan-roth.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/jonrothbooks
Jonathan Roth is an Earth-bound but space loving author-illustrator of fun, STEAM-themed books for kids including the chapter book series Beep and Bob (Aladdin/S&S), the graphic novel series Rover and Speck (Kids Can Press), and the amazing true story Almost Underwear: How a Piece of Cloth Traveled from Kitty Hawk to the Moon and Mars (Christy Ottaviano Books/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), which is a Kirkus Best Picture Book of 2024. He also teaches art to elementary students in Maryland.
Laura Segal Stegman is the author of Summer of L.U.C.K., Ready or Not, and The Chambered Nautilus, a middle-grade trilogy from Young Dragons Press, all with Readers' Favorite Five Star reviews. She has been a presenter/panelist at literary events including NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English), Orange County Children’s Book Festival, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ (SCBWI) SoCal Harvest Day, San Diego Writers Festival, and LitFest in the Dena. She also does school visits and such events as the STEM Teacher Summit and serves as a judge for writing competitions sponsored by Society of Young Inklings, among others. As a long-time publicity consultant, she created PR Tips for Authors, which has been presented by The Writing Barn, SCBWI, and elsewhere. Non-fiction writing credits include work in Los Angeles Times and School Library Journal’s Teen Librarian Toolbox, among others. www.LauraStegman.com
 |
Laura Segal Stegman |
