Author of hit Wonder returns with new graphic novel
Credit to Author: Dana Gee| Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 18:04:19 +0000
Author R.J. Palacio has a staggering 16 million in book sales around the globe. Her titles have been published into 50 languages. Her most famous book, Wonder — which was made into a movie starring Julia Roberts and Vancouver’s own Jacob Tremblay — has been a bestseller for seven years.
A pro illustrator and graphic designer before becoming an author, Palacio has dug into that past to create something new — her first graphic novel.
White Bird: A Wonder Story tells the story of the Grandmére, the grandmother of Wonder character Julian, as a Jewish girl living in Nazi-occupied France.
Fans of Palacio can meet the author Oct. 17 at a book launch at Vancouver Kidsbooks.
White Bird by R.J. Palacio. Photo: Courtesy Penguin Random House
Q: Who is White Bird: A Wonder Story for?
A: White Bird’s primary audience is kids ages eight and up. But, like Wonder, it’s an all-age read too. Grandparents can enjoy it as much as their grandkids. It can be read by the whole family.
Q: What were the unique challenges (versus novel writing) for this type of storytelling?
A: In historical fiction, you have to do a lot of research to be able to convey, with words, how things looked and sounded and felt. That research becomes even more intense when you also have to visually represent these things, because it applies to all the details you might not need to describe when using words alone. For instance, let’s say in a novel someone “opens a barn door.” You don’t need to add anything more than that, really, because the reader has an idea of what a barn door looks like and describing it in detail doesn’t serve a purpose. You can’t get away with that in a graphic novel. Even if that barn door is completely inconsequential to the scene, you have to know what it looks like so you can visually represent it, which means suddenly you’re researching what barn doors looked like in a certain region of France in 1943. So when you’re drawing historical fiction, you have to research every one of those details to make sure they’re all represented correctly — and that’s a lot of details. In many ways, it’s like making a movie and you’re the set designer, the costume designer, the lighting director and the prop master all rolled into one. I found myself doing deep dives into the nitty-gritty of history at a pictorial level to a degree that I probably wouldn’t have needed if I were writing a novel. Another difference between the two formats is the approach to dialogue. In a prose novel, you can take as much time as you need in a scene in which characters talk. The dialogue used in a graphic novel, however, has to be much more condensed because it has to all fit into a defined space within a few scenes or it starts to overwhelm the art. So you learn to use fewer words to convey complex thoughts and feelings.
R.J. Palacio returns to the world of Wonder — the hit novel and movie — for her latest offering, a graphic novel. Told by the Grandmere to Julian, her grandson, the story is about how a Jewish girl’s life is turned upside down by the occupying Nazis. Photo credit: Random House Canada
Q: How important is it to you to now publish a story set during the Nazi’s occupation of France?
A: I started writing White Bird in January 2017, shortly after Trump first called for a “Muslim ban.” I couldn’t help but note, with great alarm, that words like that, along with other words being thrown around — “deportations” and “roundups” and “infestation” — were becoming increasingly mainstream and normalized in the zeitgeist. Those words have been used before, as we know, as part of the slow buildup of events in Europe that made it possible for millions of people to look away as millions of other people were murdered. The Holocaust started with, among other things, xenophobia and hyper-nationalism and the passive acceptance of intolerance by far too many people. I became very concerned that kids, especially, were hearing these words being thrown around without the historical context by which to judge them and understand why they’re dangerous. Kids might not truly comprehend why so many people had a visceral reaction to seeing American-born Nazis marching openly in the streets of Charlottesville (Va.), for instance — unless they understand the horror of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s and ’40s. And many kids, perhaps most kids — unless the Holocaust is taught at home — really don’t have awareness of it. It’s not usually taught in schools until seventh or eighth grade, if then. In fact, a recent study showed that almost two-thirds of American millennials had never heard of Auschwitz. So to me, White Bird is a way of introducing the Holocaust in an age-appropriate way to fourth- and fifth-graders. It’s important that we teach history so kids know what happened, so they grow up knowing they can never let it happen again. As Primo Levi said, “It happened, therefore it can happen again.” Every generation needs to stay vigilant, needs to be able to recognize anti-Semitism, the stages of genocide and the descent of societies into totalitarianism, so they can fight it and stop it in its tracks.
Q: Why did you want to bring back Julian’s grandmother, Grandmère?
A: When I first introduced Grandmère’s story in “The Julian Chapter,” a section of Auggie & Me, I got a lot of feedback from teachers saying that it had been a perfect introduction to the Holocaust for their fourth- and fifth-graders. So I thought, for the reasons I just explained, that going back to that story and telling it in detail was a good idea. There was enough of a connection to Wonder that it would be interesting for fans of that book. It was a continuation of Julian’s story too, as he evolves and grows as a character. But ultimately, it was a way to tell a story that takes place in a time when being kind, standing up for what was right, helping your fellow human beings, could literally cost you your life.
Q: Were you surprised by the huge success of Wonder? Why do you think it struck a chord?
A: I was very surprised. I honestly didn’t think more than a handful of people, including my friends and family, would ever read the book. I had a full-time job when I wrote it, and never told anyone I was working on it. I didn’t even tell my boss I had written it until a few weeks before it was going to be published, because I honestly thought that they’d never find out. I never imagined it would sell, or end up on the New York Times bestseller list, and still be on the list seven years later. It’s truly unbelievable to me. As to why it struck a chord: I think maybe its message of kindness just hit at the right time. Maybe people wanted to hear about kindness, about good people doing their best in the world.
Q: When you were a kid, was there a book that inspired you or made you think a little deeper about the world and people around you?
A: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was the first book — and I think I was in the third or fourth grade when I read it — that got me thinking deeply about the consequences of my actions. I was also taken with the idea that we are defined by what we do, not how we present ourselves.
Q: You’re coming to Vancouver to launch a book at Kidsbooks. What is it like to be in a crowd of readers?
A: I love being in a crowd of readers — especially young readers, as they have the best energy in the world. I also really love Vancouver! My family and I spent some time there for the filming of the movie Wonder and had a great time. The people were so nice and friendly, and the city is gorgeous! So I’m thrilled to be coming back.
Q: What do you hear most from fans?
A: I would say the thing I hear absolutely the most from fans is that Wonder inspired them to want to be kinder to other people. I have to admit, if that ended up being my only legacy in this world, I’d be fine with it. It’s a good one.