(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to The Bookmark.

I'm Christine Brown, your host.

Today, my guests are Sheri Phillabaum and Roy Ellzey, authors of "Who Loves the Dark" and "The Legend of the Fire Stag".

Thank you so much both for being here today.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thanks for inviting us.

- I'm especially excited about these 'cause these are our first children's books to be featured on the show.

- Wonderful.

- So, breaking new ground here.

So, thank you for coming.

To start, why don't you tell us how you got started writing for children?

- Okay.

Well, I have worked with children for many, many years.

I've had a 25 year career working with children.

And so, I was always telling stories, making up stories in that venue.

And so, it was just, you know, natural to come up with a story.

And then, my husband has a very strong interest in astronomy and the dark skies are super important related to astronomy.

And so, those two things just came together.

- Yeah, as a matter of fact, what happened was, we both volunteered a lot at this place called UBarU Camp and Retreat Center which happens to be a certified Dark Sky Park certified by the International Dark Sky Association.

And with the final stages of it being qualifying for the certification, the IDA, one of their top officers was giving a presentation at UBarU and Sheri and I were there.

And so, we heard that and it was pretty impressive.

And she made a few comments, didn't say anything else.

So, we went home and, a couple days later, she comes in and drops this little story on my desk and said, what do you think of this?

And I read it and I thought, oh, that's pretty good, I think.

So, we sent it to the IDA, International Dark Sky, in Tucson to let them use it in their outreach to kids in the educational program.

And they liked it and they had it on their website for about a year.

And then they called up one day and they said, you know, this is a really good story.

They said, what you guys need to do is find an illustrator and turn it into a book.

I said, okay, well do you have an illustrator?

They said, oh no, you'll have to do that.

So, then I told Sheri about it, she was still working full time, I had retired.

So, she said, well look, I haven't got time to fool with this.

If this is gonna be a book, you have to find the illustrator and you have to find the publisher.

So, I said, okay.

So, I contacted somebody at the Riverside Nature Center in Kerrville and asked her about illustrators, 'cause they had some other children's books there.

She gave us two names.

And the one that really seemed to resonate with Sheri was Liz Painter, who's the one we actually using in both books.

So, then we started looking for the publisher and A&M Press popped up, and we had some background with A&M, so we checked there, and they had these consortium of publishers.

So, Shearer Publishing was the one that we thought would be a good match for the book.

We showed her the story, they liked it, showed up some illustrations that Liz had done, and then there it was.

- That's wonderful.

And I hope everybody is familiar with our consortium.

We've had several consortium authors on.

But I think there really a strength because, you know, A&M Press, we can't publish in every genre, in every variety, but by having these consortium publishers, they're kind of our partners.

And so, if somebody comes to us and says they have a great idea for a children's book, we have to say, well, we don't do that, but we have great partners who can.

So, kind of keep it in the family in that way.

And then I get to have you here talking about the wonderful books.

(Sheri and Roy laughing) So, I know you both have had some experience writing for adults in the past.

Was that hard to transition into writing for children?

- Well, not for me because, as I said, I've been writing children's stories informally.

You know, but as part of my job telling little stories based on whatever lesson of the day it might be.

And sometimes I would go and find stories, but sometimes you have something specific that you wanna say and there really isn't a story out there.

And so, one has to write one's own story then.

So, yeah, it's different, but it wasn't a particular transition on my part.

- Excellent.

To go further on that, I think, it's not, from my experience, it's not necessarily hard to explain something to a child, but it's hard to do well.

(all laughing) So, what's your methodology or what are your tips or your tricks for breaking down difficult concepts for children to understand?

- Well, one of the things is that if you work with children a lot and talk to children a lot, you get a sense.

So, "Who Loves the Dark" is aimed towards, like, lower elementary level.

And if you've talked to those children a lot and interacted with them a lot, it kind of comes naturally.

So you don't necessarily need, I mean, I've had courses in childhood development and what stage are they at?

But children are so different at every stage.

I'm not even sure that would be particularly helpful.

And I will say that, in the editing process, there was more than one place where the editor at Shearer suggested, because yes, I have a PhD in English literature, and so, sometimes my vocabulary might stray a little.

(all laughing) And I think it is good, also, to stretch that vocabulary for children.

But there were, yeah, two or three places where they suggested different wording.

I was like, yes, yes, I suppose that would probably be better.

- It's probably a fine line.

- Yes, yes.

- Because you wanna challenge them.

And I remember as a kid, I was in the dictionary days, I'd have to go look up a word in the dictionary.

I don't think they do that anymore.

But you wanna both speak to them in a way they understand, but challenge them as well.

- Yeah, so just a sprinkling of maybe more higher level words.

- Wonderful.

What's your writing process like?

Especially when you're collaborating.

I don't know if that would be really easy to work with someone or maybe really hard sometimes.

- So, yeah, I'm very introverted, so my tendency is to write it, give it to someone else, let them.

So, there's not a lot of give and take, I'm afraid, in my process.

- Well, of course, the first book, I didn't have anything to do with the story.

Now, in the second book, that was a different thing altogether.

I'm a pretty good storyteller and I have worked with kids.

You know, she mentioned I like astronomy and do that.

And so, one of the things I've done is getting involved in star parties.

And we'd used to do, in fact, I used to do star parties for the kids at summer camp up at UBarU.

So, you have to get used to talking to the younger kids.

So, these camps were age-tiered, elementary, middle school, high school.

But we did star parties for each group.

So, you learn to have a little bit of experience communicating with them and so forth and so on.

But, in terms of what we would do, like in the the second book, I would write some things and show it to Sheri, let her clean it up a little bit.

(all laughing) - And so, even though both of our names are on Fire Stag, it is really Roy's story and I'm more of the the editor cleaner upper person (all laughing) before it goes to the publisher.

- Was the star book, the "Who Loves the Dark", that was your first children's book, correct?

When you were starting to write it, were there any books or other children's authors that were inspirational to you or that you tried to model yourself after?

- So, that's the thing.

There really weren't that many on this topic.

And most of my influence is actually not more contemporary authors, but fairy tales and the classic folk tales and things like that.

- I think you get a little bit of fairy tale-esque in that book.

So, let's talk about "Who Loves the Dark".

Tell us how, you've told us a little bit about how that started, and now I know it's approved by the Dark Sky.

So, that's wonderful.

We've got official approval there.

But tell us more about the book.

- Okay.

So, well, dark skies are very important, and something that not a lot of people in general, much less children, understand about how important it is that at nighttime things should be dark.

And so, the word, the phrase, light pollution, is not in the book but I wanted to convey this idea that there are so many plants and animals that need the dark.

They need the dark time to be dark.

So, just like humans need, you know, we're active in the daytime and you know what happens when people are living at the North Pole.

The word is diurnal for creatures that live in the daylight.

You know, if we diurnal creatures go somewhere where there's perpetual night, you know, it messes us up.

We get seasonal effective disorder and all sorts of bad things.

And so, we have the same sort of thing in the natural world where human-made light is really creating a lot of problems for wildlife because their internal rhythms are messed up.

So, just one example is bats.

They find their food by echolocation and they're used to doing that in the dark and just concentrating on the sound.

And when you introduce light when it's supposed to be dark, it disorients them and they have a difficult time feeding.

And that happens with a lot of creatures.

And one of the main examples in the book is the sea turtles because when the baby sea turtles hatch, they follow the light reflected off of the water to get to the sea.

And if there's a situation where there's hotels and lights in other places, they'll hatch out of their shells and not know which way to go.

And baby sea turtles have been found in all sorts of places that they shouldn't be, including campfires on the beach that people haven't put out.

They've found baby sea turtles in there.

And just one little anecdote, I was planning on going to one of these sea turtle releases and I actually did not go, but I was looking at the instructions for people and they say do not wear white because light from the moon or whatever will reflect on your white and the sea turtles might go around and look at you and or try to follow you.

(all laughing) So, if you go to a hatchling release and you wear white, they'll tell you to stand in the back where you won't distract the turtles.

- I guess that goes to show just how sensitive and how, you know, all light, every light makes a difference.

So, we should all turn off our porch lights or something.

(all laughing) You mentioned the UBarU Ranch is certified as a Dark Sky Park.

Are there other places you can recommend or mention that people can go to see a true dark sky?

- Oh yeah, Enchanted Rock.

That's near Fredericksburg.

You know, Enchanted Rock is a Dark Sky Park.

In fact, they got their certification right before we got ours.

So, in fact, in the Texas Highways, they had an article about that.

And I'm on the board at UBarU and one of the other board members called me up and said, you know, we are really dark too.

Why don't you see if we can get certified?

So, I called the IDA and I told them about it and it turned out that the guy that was in charge of these programs had a PhD in astronomy from UT Austin, you know, right?

But he was about to come visit friends in Austin.

And he said, well, IDA's headquarters in Tucson, Arizona, he said, why don't I come down and check out UBarU when I visit my friends?

So, he came down and he's the one that gave the presentation that inspired her to write the book.

But, when he was there, he was very impressed with it.

And he said, oh yeah, we've gotta do this.

But we had to agree to do a whole lot of things because, at the time, well, for a good while, it was the very first Dark Sky Park in the country on privately owned land.

All the others on state and national parks.

So, we and the board had to make concessions about that we promised to do stuff and we wrote it in the bylaws and la da da da da.

And then, they had to change things a little bit to admit us but we were the very first one.

There's one other one now, but it's really kind of quasi-private because it had been part of a public park.

But, anyway, that's.

- And also mention Llano River, Llano River State Park.

- Yeah, right.

Most of, a lot of the state parks now in Texas are Dark Sky Parks.

- I imagine you go to the website, the Dark Sky website, and find something close to you.

- Yeah, they have a lot of them.

- It's important, I think we should all try to experience.

- Oh, yes.

- Well, obviously, Big Bend.

- Yes, of course.

- You know.

- That's number one.

- That's big.

- There's another anecdote that I will mention that I had read that in Los Angeles, a decade or so ago, there was a power outage downtown and several people called the local 911 to report a strange, mysterious silvery glow in the sky.

(all laughing) They had never seen the Milky Way and they didn't know what it was.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- So, yeah, it's important.

We should all experience that if we can.

I think it's such an interesting topic for a children's book because fear of the dark can be such a, maybe, I don't know statistics, but it seems like it would be one of the most popular childhood fears.

How do you go about tackling that sometimes very deep seated phobia?

- Well, basically I think just through the story, because the main character is afraid of the dark.

And I can relate to that because, as a child, I was afraid of the dark in my own house because you don't know what's, you know, in the corners.

And so, in the story, the child is lost in the dark, in the dark woods, and meets these various nocturnal creatures who tell him all about how wonderful the darkness is for them and how much they need it.

And then, by the end, the child has realized how important darkness is and decides that he actually likes it.

- I wanna talk more about the owl.

Why did you choose him to be your main guide for the child?

- Oh, I guess she's nocturnal (all laughing) and she's very wise and that's pretty much it.

- It's also maybe a more approachable, less scary.

Owls can be kind of scary I guess, but.

- I have a stuffed owl so I can use the that.

- Oh sure, sure.

- My Harry Potter stuffed owl.

- And then, also the bat, which I think could be scarier.

- Oh yes.

- Of course the child in the book is much more afraid of the bat.

But bats are so important to our ecosystem.

- I know.

And so, like the bat says, you know, if I weren't here, I don't want to bite you, but if I were not here, there are a lot of bugs that would be biting you if I weren't taking care of those.

- That's all you need to tell child Christine, is that the bugs will go away if the bats are here and she'd say, yay bats.

(all laughing) - Right.

- Right.

- Let's also talk about the Fire Stag.

Where did, let me switch it out, where did the inspiration for this book come from?

- Well, the thing happened, we'd mentioned about the UBarU and camps and things.

Our son, Clifton, went to summer camp at UbarU from the time he was nine years old, which was the first year that he was eligible, until he graduated from high school.

And so, while he was in high school, at some point, he took this photograph.

And don't ask me what prompted him to do it, how it came about, he just went down, there's a fire circle where the kids tell stories at night, he went down a little early and he took this, it's an actual photograph, it hasn't been changed at all, but if you look at the photograph, it looks like a stag rising up out the fire.

And when we showed it to people, everybody would say the same thing.

That's amazing.

So, I was up there one morning and I took a walk.

And, across this field, I saw a large, magnificent stag across this clearing.

And I went back, and I had seen deer up there a lot, 'cause anywhere in the hill country you're gonna run across deer, but I'd never seen anything like that.

I'd never seen a male deer that big with a big rack of antlers 'cause the hunters usually catch them long before that.

And I never saw him again.

But anyway, after I got back, I was thinking about that stag and this photograph.

So, I created the legend of what happened.

You know, why that stag ended up in the fire.

And it basically had to do with the fact that there was long ago there was this wonderful, magnificent stag who was very, very wise and looked after all the other animals on this land around him.

And not only his own herd, but the other little animals as well.

And he helped protect them.

And, of course, the hunters heard about this and they kept trying to capture or shoot the stag, but he always managed to avoid them.

So, the legend says that two groups of hunters worked together with fire and they decided they'd light a fire.

And one group would be downwind so he wouldn't smell 'em and that they'd start to fire.

And as the stag ran down, by the time he saw the hunters, it was too late.

Well, so rather than he, before he ran downwind, when he got the other animal safely you know, away from the fire and when he saw 'em, it was too late.

So, rather than be captured or shot the stag turned and run straight into the fire.

Well, after the fire died down, there was nothing found.

Just the stories about the old stag.

And then, the legend was that if people came to that land and their hearts were tuned to the land and the animals, that if a person was really true, that the stag would rise out of the campfire to greet them to his land.

Well, that was the legend.

So, after the first book was doing fairly well, I had been sort of managing the project.

So, I showed the legend and the photograph to A&M Press and Shearer Publishing.

And they said, well we really like the legend and it's a great photograph, but it's too short for the first thing.

And they said, second, we'd like a backstory.

We'd like to know how it was that the kid came to take the photograph.

So, that's when we put a head together a bit.

We said, okay, some of the best stories are the ones that are built on experience.

So, we have a son named Clifton who took the photograph.

So, we went and we kind of modeled the story of the kid from our own son when he went to summer camp each summer.

But we made up all these, of course, these adventures he had, his encounters with the animals.

And we had him take the photograph the night before he bridged out.

Well, of course, he actually took it a year or two before that.

But we had it on the night before he was to bridge out, which meant he couldn't go back to camp he would've been too old, that he goes down to the fire and that's when he fulfills the legend.

So, anyway, that's how that came about.

- So much of this story seems to be, you know, both stories, I guess, are about a connection with the land, right?

- Right.

- So important for children, especially, to have a connection with nature.

Can you talk about why it's important to you?

- Well, I was a camp counselor at UBarU for many years.

And, yeah, it was a transformative experience for a lot of children.

Some children are very used to being outdoors and in nature.

And, for some children, it was a very new experience.

And, you know, we get so out of touch with the rhythms of nature in our urban and suburban life.

I mean, I know myself, I don't really know which fruits and vegetables are in season.

I just go and buy whatever's in the grocery store.

And I think a lot of the children today are even less in touch with the seasons and nature.

And it's really wonderful for them in all sorts of ways, psychologically, emotionally.

And it's probably good for the planet to have people who have learned to experience or appreciate what that is.

So, it benefits everybody.

- I would agree.

I was a very bookish child, but I did go to camp and I think experience, I never had a cardinal show me the way or anything, (all laughing) but, you know, those experiences were, as you say, transformative and important.

And they build a lot.

Learning how to do things outside and build things and start a fire and all that stuff is just so important to development.

- Well, I grew up in a small town in Mississippi and we lived on the outskirts.

So, you know, we were more in touch with the nature anyway.

And it turned out that our house was right next to my grandparents and my grandfather had retired.

And what he would do, he used to take me into the woods to track animals.

Not to shoot them, but just to watch them.

And so, and like when it would snow we would take seed and things for, you know, to feed them and so forth.

But, anyway, he just taught me to appreciate animals.

And I'm sure that stuck with me most of my life.

But I went to also, I went to summer camp too and I was in the Boy Scouts and that sort of thing.

- Well, your appreciation for animals certainly does come through with the book.

(all laughing) There's lots of critters in there.

For kids who would like critters, I think that would be a great book.

I wanna make sure we take time to highlight the illustrations.

You mentioned you had the same illustrator.

She's done beautiful work.

Can you tell us about her work and how it's like working with her?

- Well, you really found her.

- Well, the thing is, Liz Painter has a degree in biology from Texas A&M right here in College Station.

And so, she specializes in drawing wildlife.

And, I mean, to work with her was just a pleasure.

Because when we found her, she's an easy person to work with to start with.

But she researches these animals.

I know when we were doing the Fire Stag, she asked me to give her some illustrations or pictures of stags so she could work with that.

And I sent her two of 'em.

She said, oh no, no, that won't do, those are European deer.

(all laughing) We wanna see American stags.

So, but anyway, she really knew that animal.

She started the dimensions and so you'll find that her drawings are really quite accurate.

Even the ones that are stylized in the first book.

You know, they're really very true to scale and everything.

But she really did the work.

But just a terrific job.

- Well, I'm glad to know, I wouldn't have known European deer from American.

(all laughing) but I'm glad to know that her A&M degree made sure that we've got accurate deer to a location.

(all laughing) - That's right, you do.

That deer's really in there right to scale.

- To go back to the animals in the second book, how did you choose which, I guess you had more options 'cause it's a daytime book, not a nighttime book.

How did you choose?

- Although, I will insert that so many species are nocturnal more than you would expect.

- Well, you know, it was, like I said, I kind of got pretty good storyteller.

But one of the things that happened in there, and this goes back to turtles again.

We started this storyline before our son actually went to, the boy actually goes to camp.

The year before, and this was the thing we actually did too, we had all gone up to UBarU and just rented a cottage there for a weekend.

And we were out doing various sundry things.

But what I put in there, Sheri you like the turtles, so I had an act of kindness that the boy does.

He finds a turtle that's turned over, lying on his back and can't get up.

So, he goes over and rights the turtle away so he can scamper off and so forth.

And after this happens, way in the distance, he gets a glimpse of a stag.

And so, that was how that came about.

The cardinal was the obvious thing, you know, to guide him back when he got lost.

And then, the fact that the other animals weren't afraid of him.

And I use just typical animals in the hill country, you know, jack rabbits, deer, raccoons.

(all laughing) - Things that you would hopefully be familiar with.

- Right, you bet.

- If we're even, I mean, most of Texas probably, children can see and hopefully are familiar with.

- Sure.

- With all those animals.

Well, unfortunately, we are running a little short on time.

So, in our final, like, three or four minutes, can you, what do you want the takeaway, what do we hope our audience learns and takes away from both of these books?

- Well, there are several things for each.

Reading is great.

So, read to your children.

And also take them out into nature, both during the daytime and during the nighttime.

- Sure.

- And, you know, try to make sure that they have that experience.

- We hope in the first book, you know, we hope that this teaches children to appreciate and understand why we need natural dark skies.

And in the second book, one of the reviewers of the original manuscript, a fellow named Rick Bass, really picked up on it.

It shows the interconnectedness of, you know, of all things.

You know, that humans and animals are connected to the so called interdependent web of life, so to speak.

And that's a theme that's in there.

We're all part of this, so need to take care of them too.

- Absolutely.

I think, if I can go back to what you said about taking children outdoors at night, that is probably something we don't think about.

But I actually have very, very fond memories of my mom taking us out to look at a lunar eclipse.

You know, it's special thing to stay up late and look at the sky.

And I would hope that this book would inspire parents to do that with their children if they can.

- And a night hike.

That's one of the most fun things to do at camp is a night hike.

- Yes.

- So yeah, your assignments are go to camp, go out at night.

- You're right.

- Meet some animal friends, all that.

- Use a red flashlight.

(all laughing) - Yes, yes.

Don't wear white shirts at the beach when the sea turtles are there.

Well, thank you both so much for being here.

I really appreciate, I've enjoyed talking to you.

- Well, thank you.

- I hope we inspire some kids out there to pick up these books and learn more.

That is all the time we have for today.

Thank you so much for joining us.

The books again, were "Who Loves the Dark" and "The Legend of the Fire Stag".

I'm Christine Brown, your host, and I will see you again soon.

(upbeat music)