who doesn't love a good inspirational story?

I'm still reeling a week later from my amazing experiences at the National Book Festival, and I wanted to share some parts of my interview with children's author Craig Hatkoff. I had a couple questions lined up for him, but we ended up just chatting for about a half hour about the many experiences that led to the creation of his nonfiction books for children. Craig was seriously beyond friendly and approachable, and I very much enjoyed listening to him so passionately describe the stories behind his amazing books. Before we met at the Festival, Craig's terrific publicist sent us several of his books along with the stuffed animal counterparts, which are now the kids' beloved snuggle companions. I feel quite fortunate to have been made aware of these incredible stories.

Since I wasn't very familiar with his work before arranging for the interview, I read up a bit about Craig online, and seeing as my only frame of reference for him was as a children's author, I was quite surprise by what I found in his Wikipedia entry. (Not many children's authors that I know of hang out with the Hollywood elite and go around starting film festivals with their wives and Robert De Niro, for one thing.) This newfound information begged the question, what in the world led him to writing children's books? That turned out to be the only official question that I asked, since the answers led down the path of speaking about how each of his books came to be. Unfortunately, some of my audio recording is garbled, so I've posted here some snippets of our conversation.

Me: "Reading about your background on Wikipedia, I'm really interested in knowing how you decided to delve into children's literature?"

Craig Hatkoff, successful investor, philanthropist and author: "It's not really a linear answer. If I go all the way back to maybe kindergarten to 5th grade, I just had this fascination with children's books. I didn't know how they were made, and I thought you had to be invited to make one. I always loved picture books, and I thought at some time in my life, wouldn't it be great to be a children's author? I always thought it would be a great thing to someday write a children's book. I was a banker, I was in finances, but it didn't really feel like I was doing something for society. There wasn't really a product, it was just a profession."

"When my daughter had to have her tonsils out when she was 5, we tried to find books to use as a tool to tell her what it would be like, but there wasn't really anything out there. Madeline had her appendix out. Curious George swallowed a puzzle piece. Then they had what I called the 'Army Manuals'- here's the scalpel, here's what it will be. There wasn't anything really authentic to the experience. So what we ended up doing was to keep a journal of the whole process. She loved to draw, so she was drawing pictures, and I'd write down what she was worried about. We made this kind of journal, so it wasn't really great literature, but it was a tool, and it helped her a lot. We ended up turning it into a book, Good-Bye Tonsils!"

Craig talked about how his daughter Isabella saw a picture of a baby hippo and a giant tortoise together in a newspaper and insisted that they needed to learn more about this incredible story that came to the world's attention after the tsunami in the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004. This truly unbelievable story became the first of five nonfiction amazing animal books that he has collaborated on with his daughters Isabella, and later Juliana: Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship. In his words, "The message is simple- if they can get along, why can't we? Anything is possible. They are literally the odd couple. And when I saw the picture of them together, that was the 'goosebumps moment.' From a personal standpoint, Kenya was a long trip, so I went myself, almost 18 months later [after the book]. When I actually first met Owen and Mzee, having seen the footage, having lived with the story, seeing the photographs, knowing everyone involved-- it was great, I couldn't believe it. You get the goosebumps. This is a GREAT story. So, we did it as an ebook, and then Scholastic said that they really thought it should be a regular book, and after some changes to style and formatting, the rest was history. So, Owen & Mzee was a tool to deal with traumas and tragedies, but it reached so many people on whatever level, whether it was political or it was emotional."

Next came a follow-up book, Owen & Mzee: The Language of Friendship, continuing the story of this inspirational friendship a year and a half later. I've personally been completely enchanted by this story, and both books include awe-inspiring photos. As Craig said, "I think what it underscored for me, was that animals are a great entry point for difficult subjects. With Owen and Mzee, the first book made you think, if they could get along, why can't we, and the second book was all about how do you communicate with someone, because they made up their own language."

After those two successful books, the next book was titled Knut: How One Little Polar Bear Captivated the World. Craig explained, "And then Knut came along, and this was a different subject- global warming. We saw him on the cover of Vanity Fair for the Green Issue with Leo DiCaprio, and because my wife is in the movie business and she had made a movie with Leo, we've known him for a while. So the girls were like, "Okay, there's Leo, but who's the bear?!" So, they weren't that interested in Leo DiCaprio, but they really liked the bear. So, for that one, it passed the goosebumps test. People magazine called Knut 'the cutest animal ever.' The story was really interesting, and it provided an opportunity to address global warming in a fairly balanced way. We try and keep things very factual and not too opinionated. So we were able to talk to kids and it was really special. We had a launch party, and I remember that we're signing some books and this little boy comes up to me and says, "My grandfather's trying to save the polar bears, too." So I say, "Who's your grandfather?" and he says, "My grandfather's Al Gore." We realized that this little furry ball of white cotton just really spoke to kids."

The fourth book relates a story from the Democratic Republic of Congo in Looking for Miza: The True Story of The Mountain Gorilla Family Who Rescued One of Their Own. Craig tells, "The next book really took us in a different direction. We'd been through the Asian Tsunami, and we talked about global warming, but this had to deal with a whole different thing, and this one is for slightly older kids. I remember reading an article in the paper about something called the Gorilla Massacres back in 2006, and I didn't know that much about gorillas. There was just this horrible incident, and it was hard to imagine how to turn this really important story into a children's book. We didn't know what the story was going to be, but we started working on it, because we knew it was an important story."

The latest collaboration that Craig, Isabella and Juliana have released is Winter's Tail: How One Little Dolphin Learned to Swim Again, a book that JAM has really connected with for the story, and one whose pictures completely engage Red and Pudge as I tell them an abbreviated version. Craig describes, "I love the story about Winter, because this is about disabilities and life challenges. Having just gone down to meet Winter w/Isabella, it's just magical. Everybody who's come in contact with this little dolphin is touched."

To sum it all up, Craig says, "So now, we have a little collection. We're working with schools to create curriculums using the five books. These are stories of adaptability, of resilience, of perseverance, and the books act as the tools to discuss these ideas. These are real animals with real traumas, real tragedies or situations, and they persevere. I like to use the analogy-- my grandfather was a mason, my father was a carpenter, and they used their tools to create. We're creating a different set of tools for children to use."

I sincerely cannot emphasize enough how beautiful these books are, and the amazing stories are told with a sense of compassion and caring that obviously stems from Craig Hatkoff's deep interest in sharing them with the world's children. Each book also has a corresponding website filled with photos, facts and interactive games about Owen & Mzee, Knut, Miza and Winter.

Thank you so much to Craig Hatkoff, and his wonderful publicist Charisse, for taking time out of his insanely busy National Book Festival schedule to chat and share all the background information about these books that are truly fantastic additions to any child's library.


Feeling inspired and grateful,