Loretta Garbutt is the author of the new children's picture book Wake Up, Little Pin!. Her other books include Jeffrey Loves Blue. Also an animation voice performer, she lives in Toronto.
Q: What inspired you to write Wake Up, Little Pin!?
A: Little Pin was born out of many walks in a forest valley near my home. I found a lot of comfort walking along dirt pathways, noticing all the many different tree species, trunk sizes and bark feels.
Looking up into their canopies, I could find the larger trees that soaked in more sunshine and closer to the ground, the smaller ones, a nursery of saplings, that had to fight for it. It was a meditative experience and nature held me in its grasp.
At this time, I was reading lots of tree lit; adult books based in science and kid lit nature books. Need I say that I had a little tree obsession? I was fascinated by the work of fungi and how their underground networks of threads send water and sugars to neighbouring trees – how they share nutrients from mother trees to other trees.
On one of my walks, I wondered, what would happen if a mother tree had trouble waking her sapling after a hard winter? Sometimes these young trees just don’t survive. Would the surrounding forest step in to help?
The outline of the story came quickly and I chose a pin oak tree for my hero. Pin oaks are expressive, dark green in summer and brilliant red in fall. They’re more slender and graceful than other oaks.
Any oak would have worked for this story since they are most valuable trees, but I love the sound of its name, Pin Oak. It just worked. And Little Pin seemed suited to a picture book for kids.
Q: What do you think Marianne Ferrer’s illustrations add to the book?
A: Marianne’s colour pallet and gorgeous water colour art is soft and expressive, just like the coming of spring. Marianne added warmth and lushness to the story.
The lovely details she added to each spread, such as the underground fungi threads, the sly look of the porcupine and the peeping vole, all capture the richness and playfulness of her work. Marianne has mixed science with beauty, a lovely combination. She gave the science some weight and kept it light at the same time.
There’s a suggestive hint of emotion between Mother Pin and Little Pin but it’s child-like and within the natural movement of trees so they aren’t overly personified.
All in all, Marianne had a real feel for this story and I believe she put her heart into it.
Q: The School Library Journal review of the book says, “This essential work will inspire children to learn more and appreciate the interwoven connections of, literally, everything on Earth.” What do you think of that description, and what do you hope kids take away from the book?
A: The review really excited me because the reviewer got to the heart of the story. That felt great.
We are all connected as humans within families and communities; we’re shaped by our social environments. Our brains are wired for connection. It’s the same with trees and plants that need to connect for survival.
Humans and nature are both part of cycles. We use the earth’s resources to survive. Trees clean the air that we breathe and do much more. We’re part of this entire ecosystem and can’t survive without each other.
I think and hope that when children understand these connections and our part in the entire cycle, they’ll have more empathy for our earth and how we use its resources.
Q: How did you research Wake Up, Little Pin! and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: Research was like opening a door to nature. It was a rabbit hole or vole den of fascinating information.
I began with Peter Wohlleben’s book The Secret Life of Trees then soaked up his kids’ book, Can You Hear the Trees Talking?. I read many other nature-themed picture books to learn and corroborate the facts I wanted to share.
I was blown away by Dr. Diana Beresford Kroeger, scientist and author of To Speak for the Trees and her many other publications. These books fed me.
I emailed Diana Kroeger and she agreed to read the early manuscript! Diana made fantastic suggestions and corrected some of my facts. She has become such a mentor and supporter and I'm really grateful for that.
My editor at Owlkids books, Stacey Roderick, worked tirelessly to help me connect the words to the science. I would have been lost without her. No one writes a book alone.
Some of the fun discoveries: mushrooms are the fruit of fungal networks - one tree can absorb up to 10 lbs. of air pollution in a single year. If an oak tree can live for up to 600-800 years, that’s a lot of carbon dioxide/pollution pulled from the earth. I spent a year researching and constantly thinking, wow, that’s fascinating.
My favourite quote during research – “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.”
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on final edits for Baba’s Tiny Kitchen (Owlkids books/27), which is a story about the warmth of my grandmother’s Ukrainian family. Ha, I guess I like similar themes.
Where I Belong (Tundra/27), is another Ukrainian-themed story about “fitting in.”
I’m also working on a middle grade novel with a writing partner. This is fun and a real learning curve to be writing long form narrative!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I’m an animation voice performer. I’ve worked on exciting shows such as Sailor Moon where I played a lot of the evil daemons, so much fun! I worked on a wonderful preschool show called Max and Ruby, playing Bunny Scout Valerie.
I have two fantastic writing critique groups and all in all, I feel hugely grateful to be a kidlit author.
Thank you, Deborah, for asking these excellent questions and for your interest in Wake Up, Little Pin!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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