I wrote Who’s Hiding in This Book? Meet Ten Famous Authors to promote the positive message that anyone can become a great author, and to introduce young children to a range of classic authors. It was a challenge to choose just ten!
I started selecting authors the way I do for the courses I teach at Boston University, trying to include well-known classics as well as trying to expand the notion of “classic authors” beyond the white male canon of literature.
I wanted to include writers with interesting, inspiring lives. Taha Hussein’s imagination and curiosity carried him from Egypt to Paris and back. Zitkála-Ša was not only an accomplished writer; she was a talented violinist.
I aim to expose children to a mix of different kinds of writing, including novels, poetry, essays, short stories, and memoir. I include Virginia Woolf’s book Flush, for example, which is a biography of a dog!
Finally—and this was the trickiest part!—each author had to have some fun action scenes that could be illustrated in a way that would come alive to children. I tried to find ways to include elements that would capture children’s interest and then draw them into learning about classic authors. You will notice many animals (such as a whale, a fox, and a cocker spaniel) and moving vehicles (such as horse-drawn carriages, wagons, and bicycles) throughout the book.
Of course, I couldn’t fit all my favorite authors into one book. I’ll just have to write another book!
