interview | Musings of the Monster Librarian

NPR Interviews Maureen Johnson and Meghan Cox Gurdon

It’s very late, so this is very short.

A few days ago, Meghan Cox Gurdon, the Wall Street Journal children’s book critic who authored the article “Darkness Too Visible” and YA author Maureen Johnson, who originated #YASaves in response, were interviewed by NPR. Nobody changed anybody’s mind, of course, but if you have 45 minutes or so to listen, there is a podcast available for your listening pleasure… or annoyance, depending on your feelings about darkness in YA fiction.

Enjoy!

A Look Into the Mind of Shaun Tan

In May, artist Shaun Tan won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, a sort of equivalent to winning a Nobel Prize in picture book illustration. I can see why.

Shaun Tan is an amazing illustrator. I first came across his work while reading Kelly Link’s short story collection Pretty Monsters, reviewed here, and loved his illustrations so much that I tracked down some of his other works, including Tales from Outer Suburbia and the incredible graphic novel The Arrival. If you aren’t familiar with The Arrival, you should be. There are no words.

And that is what is coolest about this interview he did for Der Spiegel. Rather than giving lengthy, wordy answers to the questions they posed, he sketched in his answers. I love this approach to interviewing an illustrator, and particularly to interviewing Shaun Tan, who expresses himself so beautifully without any exposition at all.

Congratulations, Shaun. I look forward to seeing what you come up with next.