‘Home for Christmas’ author coming to Naperville
Jan Brett doesn’t do things halfway.
The 61-year-old children’s author and illustrator doesn’t go for a jog, she runs marathons. She doesn’t have a couple of chickens on her property in Norwell, Maine, she breeds and sells them.
And she doesn’t come up with a story idea on a whim. She researches and travels to the place where her many of her animal-centric books are set.
Known for her elaborately illustrated books, Brett has sold more than 37 million copies with such popular titles as “The Mitten,” “The Hat” and “Hedgie’s Surprise.”
She’ll sign books at an event sponsored by Anderson’s Bookshop from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12, at Naperville North High School, 899 N. Mill St.
She has two new releases for the holidays: “Home for Christmas,” as well as her rereleased version of “The Night Before Christmas” — this time with an accompanying DVD that features music by the Boston Pops.
One admission ticket to the book signing comes with the purchase of one of the new titles from Anderson’s Bookshop. Admission for each additional child is $2. Books are available for purchase in advance at Anderson’s or over the phone and may be available at Naperville North the day of the signing.
The Daily Herald recently spoke to Brett about her new releases and her stop in Naperville.
Q. What do children love about your books?
A. I love your question because it really gets to the core of why it makes me feel so good to go on the book tour and meet the kids.
I think our intelligence doesn’t grow as we get older. We’re born with it. Because they don’t have a huge vocabulary and they can’t read, (my books are) kind of a way they can experience books. The beautiful illustrations can take the place of that language. A child can relate to that, and I think it’s almost as if they feel a relief that they’re not being talked down to.
When I feel the best about my books is when I see a child with their pointer finger out and they’re just kind of touching the page. They’re feeling it as if it was real and they don’t have that adult habit of looking to find the most important idea and then going on to a new one. They just can revel in the experience.
Q. You don’t just write a children’s book, you illustrate it with painstaking detail.
A. I do things a little bit at a time and then they just add up. People will say you’re so patient. I’ve never described myself as patient. There are certain things you can do just a little bit at a time — and then all of a sudden you have something. And I’ve always just wanted to have something.
Q. Why do you include so much detail?
A. I like to feel like I can walk into the page. When I was a little girl, those were the books I loved. I felt like the slogan “reading takes you places.” That’s exactly what I looked for in a book — that I could open the page and just be transported to a different place, into an adventure that I could never do on my own.
I love those books and I used to promise myself I would write those kinds of books when I grew up.
Q. How many books do you have published?
A. About 35 to 40. It’s takes a year to do them. I used to do two a year, but now I just do one. I usually tell kids that it takes an hour just to do an inch. And I often will go to a foreign country to get ideas for the book and make it more authentic. I went to Sweden to do “Home for Christmas,” but I’ve also been to Africa, I’ve been to Martinique the island in the West Indies, to China, to Costa Rica.
Q. When was your first book published?
A. I was 30 when it was first published, but if you had talked to me as a first-grader or as a 15-year-old, I would have said “Oh, I’m a children’s book illustrator.” It’s just that nobody had ever bought my book or said they were going to publish it yet.
Q. How are your books chosen?
A. There are three different ways. I will write the book myself and that’s “Home for Christmas.” Or I will pick a book that is in public domain, and I will illustrate it. Or I will retell a folk tale and that would be “The Mitten.”
Q. What is your process?
A. I start with a manuscript and it has to have a turning point and an ending. I can’t just be interested in the setting or the characters because that’s a trap that is so easy to fall into. You get very involved, but then there’s no story there. It has to be based on a real story.
In the case of “Home for Christmas,” there’s a house on old stilts that I saw in Sweden that I took pictures of and I put that in the book.
It’s a building process almost, and once I get all those things assembled, then I can create this world.
Q. Tell us about “Home for Christmas.”
A. Well, I always wanted to run away when I was little. My idea of running away was to go live in my horse’s stall and have my mother bring me a grilled cheese sandwich or something.
I loved books about kids who lived with animals, like “The Jungle Book,” and I loved the story of “Romulus and Reamus” and “Julie of Wolves.”
I’ve always liked those kinds of stories. So this is like my version of it. It’s a little troll who goes off and he lives with owls and otters and a lynx and finally ends up with these moose, but by that time he’s starting to miss home. And so Christmas, to me, means home with your family.
And so at the last minute he is riding on one of the moose’s antlers and the antler falls off, as they always do in the late autumn and early winter.
Then he’s really crying because now he doesn’t have his moose family friends and he’s far away from home. And then the antler kind of slides in the snow. All the sudden it becomes a toboggan and it just takes two seconds to get down the mountain and he’s whooping and hollering and his family is way down in the valley below and they hear him and his voice echoing off all the mountains and they go and they find him and he goes home for Christmas.
So “Home for Christmas” has a wonderful, happy ending. It’s on Christmas Eve and everybody eats all the wonderful Christmas things and sings songs and they’re united together as a family.
Q. This year there’s a DVD collaboration with the Boston Pops that accompanies your previously released version of “The Night Before Christmas.” What does that add to the story?
A. It’s commissioned by John Williams, who is one of our Pops conductors, and the narrator is Jim Dale. It really evokes that feeling of, you’re in bed and it’s Christmas Eve, but you can’t go sleep. I was in a room with my sister and every little noise, we’d go “Oh, it that a reindeer hoof? Oh, is that Santa Claus trying to get down our chimney?” This music, it just brings back all these memories. It just brings you into this magical place.
I’m just really honored to be a part of it. The Boston Pops is so famous and all of the musicians are known all over the world as just the best of the best of the best of the best. I never in a million years would have thought that this would happen.
Q. What do you want people to know about your new projects?
A. It would be a great way to introduce their children to classical music. It’s so approachable and so beautiful that you could be the most learned classical music fan and still love it and still appreciate it. And you could be listening to it for the first time and never listened to it. It’s a great way to introduce children.
I would also like to invite them to my signing. I have this bus that allows me to bring lots of things to enhance the signing. I have my easel and I draw the children a picture, and I tell them how I got an idea for a book. I’m going to bring the antlers that I found in Sweden that gave me the idea for coming down the mountain as a toboggan.
I try to encourage them to write their own stories and illustrate them too, so that’s the best part. If they want to bring any of their own drawings that’s great.
I love to meet the kids and they’re all individuals and they’re all unique. It just gives me a great hope for the future when I come home having met all these teachers and kids who were interesting in knowing me.
If you go
What: Author Jan Brett book signing
When: 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12
Where: Naperville North High School, 899 N. Mill St.
Cost: Purchase of a new book, plus $2 per child
Info: (630) 355-2665 or andersonsbookshop.com