Juliette MacIver is the author of the children's picture book Duck Goes Meow. Her many other books include That's Not a Hippopotamus!. She lives in New Zealand.
Q: What inspired you to write Duck Goes Meow?
A: Well, my publisher, Scholastic New Zealand in the case of this book, had been repeatedly asking me to write something simple, as they felt that most of the manuscripts I was sending them at that time were a bit too complex for the intended age group – mostly in terms of language, wordplay and length of story.
I was complaining about this brief to a good friend of mine, 'Ana Coffey, because I like writing complicated stories with rich vocabulary. With heavy sarcasm, 'Ana said, "Maybe you should just write something like Duck Goes… Meow." Hilarious! How we laughed!
But some of the most brilliant ideas, it turns out, first appear as a throwaway facetious comment intended as a joke. So I wrote Duck Goes Meow. And of my 26 published titles to date, it has been my best-selling book.
Q: What do you think Carla Martell’s illustrations add to the story?
A: For a picture book, the illustrations are a matter of make or break. The whole genre is such a complex interplay between the text and the visuals. I feel that Carla’s illustrations are the perfect match for this story – deceptively simple, bold, full of character, movement and delightful humour. I could not have asked for better!
Q: The Kirkus Review of the book says, “The animal characters burst from the pages with lively, cheeky personalities, and endearing Duck’s qualities come through in the adorable, thick-lined illustrations. The conclusion is satisfying, and the book’s theme of inclusion makes it a lovely selection to bring to the attention of adoptive families.” What do you think of that description?
A: Curiously, I don’t know if adoptive families ever occurred to me as the obvious parallel for this story – I was just literally thinking about a duck (although of course, anthropomorphic) who was raised in a cat family, and saw himself as a cat (although others clearly did not).
It seems blind of me not to have recognised this as an analogy for adoptive families, but I honestly don’t think I did until a friend mentioned she’d bought the book for her sister who was adopting a child from Thailand. So I was surprised and delighted to discover this interpretation.
And the rest of the review is just lovely!
Q: How did you first get interested in writing children’s picture books?
A: For me, playing with words has always been the most frolicsome fun. I find words utterly compelling; magical, almost mystical. I love rhyme in particular: the rhythm and sounds of the language, the challenge of expressing precisely what you want to say in natural-sounding language with perfect scansion and rhyme.
My father and his mother before him were similarly fascinated with words, and they both wrote rhyming verse too, so it’s something of a family bent. My father in particular had a prodigious talent. His verse was witty and lyrical and utterly brilliant.
So picture books seemed the obvious choice of genre for someone fascinated with rhyme. I began writing when the third of my four children was newborn, and then pretty much fitted it in around the many demands of a busy household.
With picture books I mostly work by inspiration: have an idea, seize a pen and some blank paper, become absorbed. Come to, cold and uncomfortable on the living-room floor.
Now though, the kids are growing up and I have more time, so I have been writing more long form, which is a totally different story, so to speak. I have discovered a good amount of discipline is required, and there’s a huge deal of struggle involved.
But I do still revel in the total absorption that writing offers, regardless of the genre I’m working in. I find it exhilarating.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: For the most part I have been working on the first book of a middle-grade fantasy series, which I hope will one day comprise a total of seven books. But this first book is taking me a long time to get right. . .
In between drafts, I tend to write a swag of picture books in one hit, refining and polishing them, then firing them off to my publishers. I have five, which I think is perhaps a bit unusual?
In Aotearoa New Zealand, where I live, I am published with Scholastic, Allen & Unwin, and Gecko Press (now an imprint of Lerner USA), and in Australia, with Walker Books and HarperCollins. So circulating my manuscripts around my publishers takes quite a bit of admin time!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: A few Duck Goes Meow facts:
It won the Best Picture Book award at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults in 2023 (it was my second title to win this award – the first was That’s Not a Hippopotamus!, published by Gecko Press and illustrated by Sarah Davis).
Duck Goes Meow has been translated into Dutch (and they printed 30,000 board book copies in Belgium!), and German, Hebrew, and Flemish Sign Language.
There is also a sequel: How to Be a Cat. In October, the third and final Duck adventure will be released, titled Duck’s New Words. My daughter wanted to call it Polyglot Duck, which is a much funnier and more apt title, but, well, I guess you could argue it doesn’t quite fit with the “keep it simple” brief.
At any rate, I am very much hoping Kane Miller will pick up these two sequels, so they will soon be available in the US too!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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