Interview with Jeanie Ransom | Sound Authors Radio
November 16, 2008
Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. Today is the first day of summer and what do kids do in the summer? Hopefully they’re reading! I know a lot of kids are planted in front of the TV but we all wish that they were all reading these wonderful books. My next guest on the show, her name is Jeanie Ransom. She has a fantastic children’s book put out by Peachtree Publishers called What Do Parents Do When You’re Not Home and its hysterical, it’s built on a great premise, something we all wonder about. So welcome to the show Jeanie Ransom.
Jeanie Ransom: Well thank you very much it’s nice to be here great to be talking to you from lovely Ireland over here. It’s very green at the moment.
Dr. Kent: Tell me a little bit about where did this come out of? Did you have children? Did you think as a child what are your parents doing when you’re not at home?
Jeanie Ransom: Actually I have three boys and they give me some really good material and like many of my books the idea came out of something my one son said. He said why are you something about when they went to stay with grandma and grandpa what are you doing when we’re not here? It’s going to be so boring with us not here so that’s where it started from. The young boy in the story imagines what mom and dad are going to be doing when they are at grandma and grandpas, which it’s all G-rated of course.
Dr. Kent: The funny part of the title of course is that any one of us who reads the title starts laughing hysterically because we have a special secret that our children really don’t know, right?
Jeanie Ransom: Yes that is true.
Dr. Kent: And that’s part of like you’re building a myth just like the story. I really love it. Tell me a little about your children’s books. This isn’t the only one you’ve written, you’ve written several; a story about divorce. You tend to write things that are very useful for children. Talk a little about that.
Jeanie Ransom: Yeah, I have. I tend to write humor books and then since I’m a counselor I also write self help books for kids. So it’s kind of a mix between funny books and practical books. So a little humor and a little just regular everyday serious topics that kids have to deal with, like divorce as you were saying.
Dr. Kent: When did you first start doing the children’s books?
Jeanie Ransom: I’ve been writing for a very long time. But so much for kids, you know a lot of people start writing for kids and I started thinking oh, I can write a children’s book and I did and that’s when I started my standards as a writer or whatever and reading those books over and over somehow I could write one of these. It’s got to be really easy and I found out its not real easy. You can write them but to get it published is pretty hard in the children’s market.
Dr. Kent: One of the fascinating things about the children’s market for me is that books have to have wonderful text and rich text but the book really won’t sell without a good illustrator. How did you find an illustrator that could express your ideas?
Jeanie Ransom: Well I’m very fortunate. I can’t draw; I am advanced at stick figures so my publisher finds the illustrator for me and I get three different publishers and was just very fortunate that they’ve found someone that clicked with the text. You kind of just let the illustrator go and do their job and hope that its going to be the very best it can be so I’ve gotten very lucky.
Dr. Kent: Talk a little about, you’re also a counselor, you visit schools, and you think about children’s book publishing in a different way than many children’s authors do. This is something where it gives you an opportunity to get into a child’s world. So talk a little about that.
Jeanie Ransom: You’re right; I’m a counselor as well so I visit schools a lot of children’s authors do visit schools but I think that working with kids therapeutically, you do get into their world and you want to write about things that matter to them and help them. It’s kind of my goal. Like the divorce book.
I wasn’t a counselor before I wrote it, I just knew that I couldn’t find a book that I liked for my niece because my sister was getting divorced. I looked and looked but I couldn’t find something that was simple and dealt with the feelings that kids go through so I wrote the book and it’s been a really good one. So if I can help one kid with my books, that’s what it’s all about for me.
Dr. Kent: Talk about in this world, it’s so funny. I watch the TV and see these ads that have books that talk to your children for you and then they’ve got children’s video games that are supposed to be good for mind development and I can’t help thinking that one of the best things for my childhood were these children’s books, what’s your opinion on that.
Jeanie Ransom: I agree. Growing up that was the best thing. In the summer you would go to the library, fill up a bag with books and you go home and read them and go back in a week and fill it up again. That’s the way I grew up and my husbands a reader. My kids are readers and in fact we’re on vacation now and we all visited the book store at least once to get some more books. I think if parents are reading they set a good example for their kids. I know there’s so many distractions like the computer and video games like you said and all those kind of things. We’re missing something.
Dr. Kent: What do you do when you go into a school and there are kids that are used to having video games and here you’re a children’s author. What is it, are they excited? Are they stimulated?
Jeanie Ransom: Yeah they are very excited because they get to see if they know about authors, they learn about illustrators and it doesn’t matter really if you’re a famous author or just an every day author. Just the fact that you wrote a book; there’s something magical about that to them. Even in this as we say jaded video game society. The kids really get excited especially because at school they’ve been learning how to read and write so they kind of understand the whole process. But to see someone that’s actually done it. That’s big stuff and it can make a really big impact on them.
Dr. Kent: Tell me about all your books. You’ve got; I Don’t Want To Talk About It, Grandma U, Don’t Squeal Unless It’s a Big Deal, and that’s a book about tattletales; but tell me about all of those books.
Jeanie Ransom: Okay, well the first one was a divorce book; I Don’t Want to Talk About It and its been a story about divorce for young kids and it goes through all the different feelings that children feel when their parents are separating and getting a divorce. I wrote that before I was a counselor and before I even went back to school to get my degree in counseling. It was kind of instinctive and now many years later I am a counselor working with divorced kids and their parents so it’s kind of an interesting full circle on that one.
Then my second book Grandma U came about again from one of the questions one of my sons asked as I was driving around in the car. Driving around in the car you get some great discussions between parents and kids and he said, “Mom, how come grandma knows so much. She knows everything.” I said I don’t know maybe she went to school and of course she went to school. And I said well what if she went to a grandma school to learn how to be a grandma and answer all those questions. So Grandma U is actually Grandma University. It’s a school where grandmas go to learn how to be modern grandmas so that’s where that one came out of.
Then let’s see, what’s the next one. Don’t Squeal Unless It’s a Big Deal; a book about tattletales and that grew out of my experience as a school counselor and year after year the teachers coming to me and going please come in and talk about tattling because its just such a problem with kindergarten on up to second or third grade. So I wrote that book and it’s been a really good book too. School counselors tell me how they use it in the classrooms so I’m real pleased with that one. What Do Parents Do When You’re Not Home is the fourth one and we’ve already talked about that one. Then I have a fifth book coming out next spring. That’s a fiction book mystery, What Really Happens At Home.
Dr. Kent: What do you have planned for the future? I have only fifteen seconds left. It’s been a pleasure speaking to you and we can find you on jeanieransom. What’s your next plan?
Jeanie Ransom: Well the next book is a picture book mystery so I’m going to hopefully just keep writing and selling picture books, visiting schools and hopefully bringing joy and help to kids everywhere.
Dr. Kent: Well it’s been a real honor speaking with Jeanie Ransom. I love the book What Do Parents Do When You’re Not At Home and all the others as well. We’ll visit you on the web and thank you so much for being on.
Jeanie Ransom: Well thank you.
Dr. Kent: Thank you for tuning into Sound Authors this week. I had four guests on the show. Jeanie Ransom, Raymond Benson, Mac Morin and Susan Benjamin. Thanks to all of them and thanks to Sound Authors, the people behind the scenes, I appreciate all their work. We’ll see you next week. Be safe.
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