We would like to thank the Orland Park Public Library for providing a copy of this book for review.
Cheep! Cheep! By Julie Stiegemeyer,
Ills. by Carol Baicker-McKee
24 pages, ages 0 to 5
Bloomsbury, 2006
Mama Bird, Papa Bird, and Baby Bird are awakened by a “peep-peep” sound emitting from an egg. Eep! At last their littlest fluff ball has hatched! To celebrate the new chick’s arrival, the feathered family leaps, tumbles and cheep-cheep-cheeps until they’re so pooped (yawn) they snuggle up and fall fast asleep. Check out the charming 3-D collage artwork: the fluffy foursome made of clay and covered with yellow terrycloth each sport a wispy feather. The facial expressions of these precious cuddle fluffs couldn’t be cuter! Stiegemeyer’s well-chosen, one-word rhymes printed on stiff chewable cardboard pages are perfectly suited for babies and toddlers. This “soft science” book heralding the arrival of spring and new life is sure to be a hit with our youngest readers. Named Best Book of the Year by both Parenting and Nick Jr. magazines.—Review by Heidi Bee Roemer
TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF.
I am originally from Denver, Colorado, but have lived all of my adult life in the Midwest. A little over a year ago, I moved with my family to the Chicago area and love it here. I was trained to be an English teacher, and I consider myself both a writer and a teacher now. My time is fairly evenly divided between the two. My teaching has focused on English as Second Language learners over the years, and currently, I am tutoring ESL students at a local high school. My first book came out in 1999, called "Things I See in Church." It was followed by six other board books in the same series. Since then, I've worked on improving my writing craft and focus mainly on writing picture books. Currently, I have had more than twenty books published for children. I have worked with Concordia Publishing House, Bloomsbury, Dutton Children's Books, Marshall Cavendish, and most recently, Zonderkidz. My last book was "Seven Little Bunnies," released in 2010 (Marshall Cavendish). I also write curricular material as well as magazine pieces--really anything I can get my hands on.
WHERE DO YOUR IDEAS FOR NONFICTION COME FROM?
Often my work is inspired by true events from which I usually create a fictional story. "Cheep! Cheep!" is a seven-word story about a chick being hatched from an egg. The extremely spare text is paired with three-dimensional fabric and clay artwork. The inspiration of the book came from real events: I researched and watched chicks hatching. I visited a farm where there was a chick hatchery. I read books and looked online. Then I played around with rhyming words to see if I could create a story arc using one rhyming syllable throughout the book. So, the chicks "cheep," "creep," "leap," "sleep" and "peep."
Another fictional story I wrote is "Gobble Gobble Crash: A Barnyard Counting Bash" (2008, Dutton). It's about wild turkeys goofing around in the middle of the night and what the barnyard animals do to protect them from becoming a "turkey feast" for the angry farmer. Even though it's just a silly story about crazy turkeys, surprisingly, I did need to know quite a bit about turkey behaviors and habits in order for it to be somewhat authentic. Although I doubt that turkeys would really create a ruckus in the middle of the night, I did have to find out how high wild turkeys could fly, what color their feathers are, etc. This was inspired by a true-life event that happened when I lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'd never really seen wild turkeys until I lived in Pittsburgh, but they are everywhere in that city. Once, I was driving on a twisty, tree-lined road, when this giant "thing" flew over our car. We had no idea what it was because it was gone so fast. But friends of ours told us it was probably a wild turkey. After that event, I saw wild turkeys in that area and figured that must be the case. This event, paired with other experiences at that time inspired the story.
WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER THE HARDEST PART ABOUT WRITING?
The easiest part of writing is getting ideas and working with that initial spark to create something new. The hardest part is carrying that idea through the many, many stages of revision, polishing, marketing, promoting, etc. until an idea turns into a book.
WHAT IS THE STRANGEST FACT YOU HAVE LEARNED?
I always find real-life events to be wonderful launching points for stories. For example, I've been working for about three years on a story about a pig in an English sausage farm (who became the family's pet) who didn't like mud. It's a true story! The pig did not like going in the mud. So the family's sixth-grade daughter had an idea. She had mini-rain boot pencil holders that were just about pig-sized. So, she put one little wellie-boot on each of the pig's hooves, and then he went happily into the mud. Every morning from that day, he would run over to the family to get his boots on before going out in the mud. The story has seen many revisions, but I have yet to find an editor who loves it enough to publish it. I'm hoping for success with that story partly because I just love this little pig so much!
Another strange fact I learned is about the baobab tree--the tree of life in central Africa. If you've ever been to Disney's Animal Kingdom park at Disneyworld, you would have seen this tree. It's probably just a replica, but the real trees in Africa are enormous. They are very alien-looking. The branches look like roots, and the trunks are incredibly large. The strange fact I learned was that not only are these massive trees gathering places for villagers, but they also can store items, people live inside of them, and the weirdest thing is they can be resting places or graves for the dead.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR LATEST WORK.
My latest work is hard to define. Currently, I am working on about six or seven different projects--articles, curricular material, editing projects, as well as poetry and picture book revisions. My two works under contract right now are "Under the Baobab Tree," a story set in Africa where the village gathers under this huge tree. This is a story which will be published by Zondervan, I believe in 2012. Also, I am working on another book with my "Cheep" illustrator Carol Baicker-McKee. We are working on a version of "The Little Red Hen" but told with monsters. Carol creates this fabulous 3-D fabric and clay art, which will bring the little red monster and her lazy brothers to life.
IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO ADD?
Thanks for the opportunity to share some thoughts and ideas.
—Interview by Laura Crawford
This post is part of the Nonfiction Monday Round-Up hosted this week by Rasco from RIF blog.
