LOCAL AUTHOR REFLECTS ON FOURTH BOOK FOR CHILDREN
On June 24, Waterloo-based author, Jennifer Harris, released The Witching Hour, a new picture book about a family of witches. This is Harris’ fourth children’s book.
Harris said her inspiration for the book was twofold.
“Like many parents, I had a child who was not the best sleeper. We all have those moments of walking around feeling a bit like a zombie when you have one of those children. So that kind of stayed with me quite deeply,” Harris said.
What brought the story to life was when the line, ‘In the witching hour, the sun slides down’ came to Harris one morning.
“I started to think about a family of witches and what they would do if they had this kind of fussy child, what kind of magic would they use to calm a baby,” Harris said.
“Because of that initial line, [it became] this very rhythmic story that had a lulling quality to it, even as things became more and more out of control,” she said.
For Harris, this is often how her creative process begins.
“It feels very organic that once I have a line that I really love, that I think would resonate with a child, create a mystery, or be a good hook, then it kind of unspools logically that there’s a story that’s going to follow from that,” Harris said.
Harris always knew she wanted to write creatively; however, it took some time to find a genre that worked best.
“I had come across this reference to a woman who had stitched a quilt of the solar system in the nineteenth century, and the idea where she wanted to use it to educate people about science,” she said.
While Harris originally considered writing an academic paper about the woman, she quickly realized that a picture book would be a more effective way to capture the attention of a larger audience.
“As soon as I thought that it clicked in my head, and the first few lines came to me, and I knew that this was the right way to tell this story,” Harris said.
Outside of writing children’s books, Harris is an English Language and Literature professor at the University of Waterloo.
Harris began teaching nineteenth-century American literature and transitioned into children’s literature courses based on increasing student interest.
“People tend to think of children’s literature as simplistic, but, in fact, it’s an incredibly sophisticated medium. Picture books aren’t that different from poetry, and then they have to do this additional work of capturing the interest of a child,” Harris said.
Harris noted a key component of her courses is working with students to understand how the books they read as children shaped how they see the world.
“Writing and reading for children is so crucial. We know that the number of books in a child’s house will predict their academic outcome. We know that the number of hours children spend reading a week directly translates to academic outcomes,” Harris said.
“Looking at the content of those books and thinking what that means for the child in terms of how they understand their world is incredibly powerful,” she said.
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