TitleTales

Interview: Walter Dean Myers & Christopher Myers

Autumn 2009 launches Egmont USA to the world of children’s publishing. Egmont UK Ltd is one of the largest children’s book publishers in the United Kingdom.

Their first year plans include 15 titles ranging from picture books to YA. Two of these premier titles are Riot by Walter Dean Myers written in screenplay style, and Looking Like Me by Walter Dean Myers and illustrated by Christopher Myers.

Kirkus Reviews has described Walter Dean Myers as “arguably one of the most important writers of children’s books of our age.” He is a Michael L. Printz Award winner and a five-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. While in his twenties, Christopher Myers established himself as one of today’s most talented children’s book illustrators. In 1998, Christopher Myers won a Caldecott Honor for his illustrations in Harlem. The following year, he wrote and illustrated Black Cat, a book that received a Coretta Scott King Honor.

• Browse our list of featured titles by Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers

BWI: What gap in the U.S. do you hope to fill? What types of books fit your basic approach to juvenile literature?

Egmont: We believe in reader-friendly fiction for children and young adults. We like stories that are commercially focused and appeal directly to the child reader, and our first lists reflect what we think today’s readers are looking for: school stories, adventure, thrillers and romance.

As far as gaps, as a small house we can promote our authors heavily, where perhaps, at larger houses, some writers get less attention and marketing than they will at Egmont.

BWI: On the Egmont USA website, Christopher says that Egmont has a global consciousness as well as a global presence. What does this mean to the reader?

Egmont: Egmont is committed to publishing quality books for children in an environmentally conscious way. We were industry leaders in developing the PREPs program which guarantees that all our paper meets the requirements of a joint initiative with 16 of the UK’s leading publishers to use papers made from legally harvested or recycled from managed forest sources. Egmont USA is working directly with our UK office and our suppliers to make sure all of our sources and manufacturers conform to PREP standards.

BWI: That explains the global consciousness, what does this mean as global presence?

Christopher: Every child is in the end a collection of lots of children mashed together to make one singular kid. I was at an event recently in which a bunch of New York city preteens premiered their original comic books. The comics ranged in subject matter from love to ‘emo’ music, ‘cosplay’ (a phenomenon in which people dress up as their favorite video game characters) to the compositions of Eric Satie. These children, like all children, are interested in and influenced by a plethora of media, cultures, styles and art-forms. When a company like Egmont makes work that reflects this diversified and global consciousness, these children feel recognized in all of their complex, mashed-up identities. That recognition feels good, freeing even.

BWI: Walter has mentioned in previous interviews that he places a collage of cut-out pictures of his characters above his desk to get familiar with them and Christopher’s illustrations in Looking Like Me include collages with the wonderfully rhythmic words. How have you influenced each other in your endeavors? Which tends to come first, the visual work or the story? Do you think it is easier or more difficult to work together when the author and illustrator are father and son?

Walter: Christopher and I constantly share ideas, books and techniques. I’m very much influenced by his working methods and his way of viewing the world. Even when I don’t agree with how he’s doing something, I’m tempted to try it. I think all artists do this.

Christopher: I wouldn’t say that the collaboration is at all more difficult, but I would say that it is a richer experience. We can play off not only the depth of each others’ artistic production, but the depth of our knowledge of each other. When we talk in Looking Like Me about the layers of every person’s identity, we mirror the layers of identity that we embody ourselves. That’s where the richness appears. We are making work as father and son, as people who care passionately about children, as people who care about the way people think of and care for themselves.

BWI: Walter writes for many levels of readers. Does the story dictate what age it is written for, or do you adapt the story to the age group? Does the collaboration of the illustrator affect that decision? How do the editor and publishing team affect these decisions?

Walter: The editorial decisions are crucial here. A good story touches young people across a wide age spectrum. Good editorial decisions focus the story to make it particularly accessible to a particular age group. I am currently using the basic idea of Looking Like Me to write an adult short story.

Christopher: Ideally we make books that grow with the readers. I spend a lot of time in used bookstores, trawling through the aisles. I sort of pride myself in never finding any of my books there. I’d like to think that it’s because the books are growing along with their readers, that kids are discovering new things about the books as they discover new things about themselves. It’s awful to think that a book I would have produced was useful to a child at six-years-old but at seven, the kid tossed it aside.

BWI: Was there a particular reason the 1863 draft riots in New York city are the topic for Walter’s newest novel Riot? How does he research when the topic is historical or nonfiction? Whether fiction or nonfiction, does the topic of the book influence the materials Christopher uses when constructing his illustrations?

Walter: I’m afraid my answer here will be a bit boring. Simply put, I write what I know. Whatever goes on in my personal life will appear, somehow, in a book. I was raised in New York and have lived in the area where the riots took place. I am completely in love with the use of source materials such as newspapers, eyewitness accounts, letters, etc, and these are readily available for the Draft Riots. Finally, the impact of racial conflict on interracial families mirrors my personal history. Simply put, I write what I know.

Christopher: Increasingly we live in a society informed by and constructed in different types of media. In Looking Like Me, I was very conscious of trying to mimic the way that media layers images. Television and print nowadays packs as many images as it can into the smallest spaces, on TV screens a 30-second take is considered almost unbearable. Books are brilliant because you can pack all that information and material in, but still allow a viewer the time to take it all in. That’s one way I am trying to deal with the historically specific moment of today’s media format.

BWI: Do Christopher and Walter have any specific plans or ideas for more upcoming works?

Walter: We’re currently working on a book on Louis Armstrong. It’ll be a challenge to come up with something extraordinary, but we think we can pull it off if we follow our hearts.

Christopher: Yes. Always too many ideas. That’s why we’re glad there are two of us.

BWI: What would you most like a librarian to know about your books?

Christopher: Our books are tools, journeys that can be taken again and again, and upon which one will discover new things each time. Explore the book with a child or with yourself the way you imagine you would explore a rich land you haven’t visited before; eat the food, haggle at the market, then write home and tell people what you see.

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