By the Book Reviews was happy to have a chance to chat with author Mary Ann Rodman! Here is what she had to say!
Who are your greatest influences?
My greatest writing influence is Anne Frank. I found her book (at a school book fair!)when I was about the same age she was when she began her diary. I was already writing by then (I have been writing stories as soon as I learned how to write words) But what floored me about Anne’s writing is that she died ten years before I was born, lived in what I thought of as “a foreign country”,,,yet she thought and felt the same things I did in 1965 Mississippi. Up to that point, my teachers had told me I wrote well…but the unspoken part of that sentence was always “but kids have nothing important to say” Anne Frank changed all that for me.
Out of all the books you have published, which do you think you treasure the most?
When students ask me this on school visits, I usually say that asking an author which book is their favorite is like asking our mama which child she loves best. If your mama is smart, she’ll say she loves them all the same.
On the other hand, one of the mantras we heard over and over in the Writing for Children MFA program at Vermont College was this, “If you knew you could only write one book before you died, which book would that be.” I would have o say that that book would be YANKEE GIRL, because this is an era in history that people are eager to forget.
You have lived all over the US, plus in Asia. Why did you move around so much?
Good for you! You’ve done your homework! My father was an FBI agent which meant constant moving. And even when we didn’t move physically, we somehow managed to pick a house in a “border” district…meaning that I would attend whatever school in the area had room for me. In the 12 years I went to school, I attended 11 different scho
So, because I had such a mobile childhood, my desire for my own child was that she begin school in one town, and continue to go to school with the same group of kids right through high school (that happened to my husband, who had the same friends right through graduate school!) So what happens? I marry a man who works for Kimberly Clark in the international division. My daughter started pre-school in Bangkok, Thailand, kindergarten and first grade in Mississippi. We have been in the Atlanta area since 2001, and if I have anything to say about it, we will stay here until she is out of high school. She is attending an excellent magnet arts school, and she is a terrific artist. (Her goal is to become an illustrator for my picture books so, as she says “the royalties can stay in the family!”
Of all the places you have lived, which did you like the most?
For anyone who has read YANKEE GIRL, you may be surprised that I consider Mississippi home Why? I certainly am not considered a “native” although I moved there when I was ten. (I felt better when I learned that Eudora Welty, who lived a few books from my elementary school, was also called a Yankee, even though she was born in Jackson, Mississippi, because her PARENTS were from Ohio!). I love Mississippi the way you love your relatives. Yeah, there’s stuff you wish they wouldn’t do or say, but they have their good points, too. They have a great respect for their artists and storytellers, and a sense of history (although sometimes it’s it to the point where you swear people think its still 1863.). But I am happy to be even the tiniest part of a tradition that includes Eudora Welty, Willie Morris, William Faulkner, Ellen Gilchrist, Ellen Douglas, Stark Young, Margaret Alexander, Richard Wright…I could go on and on.
What inspired you to write “Jimmy’s stars”?
have always loved the WWII period, mainly because my parents met as Navy codebreakers, and my mom had some great stories to tell about this time (my father, the FBI agent, never had a lot to say, other than to confirm that my mother had her story straight.) My mother’s two youngest sisters were the only two left at home (out of eight children) by this time. My youngest aunt (who is the model for Ellie, with a lot my mother’s spunk mixed in) often told me how lonely she felt at that time. Her father died when she was ten, and so her youngest brother Jim, was her father figure. The were very close and she was devastated when he joined the Merchant Marine at age seventeen. They had such a precious friendship that is rare among siblings.
My second inspiration came when I found a cache of letters that my mom, grandmother, and siblings wrote each other during WWII. Considering that each of them wrote each other at least once a week (sometimes more) that’s a bunch of letters. In addition, for some reason, my Uncle Jim’s shipboard diary was included in this treasure trove.
What struck me about these letters is that although they sometimes told of what I call Big History (Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, D-Day, the invasion of Salerno) mixed in with these events that are in history books, were the more mundane items of life. For instance, one aunt wrote about VJ-Day “I guess the way is over. There were a lot of folks carrying on in Times Square. I went home and washed my hair.” or “We are being followed by a couple of German subs. I am reading Steinbeck’s THE MOON IS DOWN. It’s a lot better than the movie was.” When my father was transferred to Hawaii close to the end of the war, my mother’s letters were full of Monopoly tournaments, working at the PX, playing miniature golf. In other words, nations and leaders rise and fall, but people still have to wash their hair read books, go to the movies, have fun
*Interview questions written by Meagan Anderson and Sharon Choi
Check back tomorrow for the rest of our interview with Mary Ann as well as links to some other great sites that have been talking about her and “Jimmy’s Stars”!
