Interview with Nikki Grimes | Sound Authors Radio

October 30, 2008

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. It’s my great pleasure to welcome Nikki Grimes to the show. She’s authored many, many children’s books. Her latest book is Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope. She is the winner of the Corretta Scott King Literary Award; she’s been on the New York Times Bestseller List with this book. Welcome to the show.

Nikki Grimes: Thank you so much.

Dr. Kent: Tell me about what this book means to you.

Nikki Grimes: Well I was happy to have the opportunity to write it. As often happens when writing a book and researching it, I made lots of discoveries in the process. I knew very little about Senator Obama when I began but I got very excited about his candidacy the more I learned about him so that was a great thing.

Dr. Kent: The book itself is so beautiful. Illustrated by Brian Collier and the two of you are both award winning children’s author and illustrators. What does it mean to write a book about a political character in political season?

Nikki Grimes: Well that’s been a bit of a challenge. I hadn’t realized it never having done this before, chosen a political person to write a biography of and certainly not during the political season. It’s been really crazy because the book has been positive as some sort of primer on the electoral process for the young set, which it is not and dealt with as a political football which has been a bit disheartening and I can say, “No, no, no, this is a biography.” Because that’s what it is, it’s a biography and so yeah it’s been a bit crazy actually.

Dr. Kent: He’s such a fascinating character. His life story and then lets talk about you focus on his name, which has been such again like under scrutiny, it’s been in focus in the media. His name was Barry growing up. Talk about his change of name from Barry to Barack.

Nikki Grimes: It was a very personal decision. I mean, Barry was sort of just a nickname and when he went through a long period of time really of asking himself who he was and trying to deal with his own personal identity and realized he needed to just stake a claim for himself. He took that name as part of that process of becoming his own person of stepping away from anybody’s expectations or ideas of who he was and just claiming, well this is who I am, Barack is my name and I’m going to make it mean what I want it to. I think that was a big part of that. This is his way of naming himself and claiming who he was.

Dr. Kent: What I love about this book is at the bottom there’s this little dialogue going on about the book itself and this is not a very frequent thing used in children’s book. You’ve framed his story with a character who’s reading the story, a character who’s following along with you; David, right?

Nikki Grimes: Yes. It’s a story within a story and I chose that format because we’re writing about someone who is an adult and usually in children’s books the main character is a child. I wanted to make sure the young readers would be able to resonate with his story. So in addition to pulling out those aspects of his own childhood. I wanted to have that young perspective throughout the book. What this all must look like from a child’s eye view. That is my job as a children’s author, to always be thinking about the child’s eye view and this allowed me to do that.

Dr. Kent: So tell me the book itself is gorgeous of course and really stunning but now politically as a children’s author you are as my first guest on the show talked about, you’re a member of this national children’s book and literacy alliance. You are an African American woman; what does it feel like to be writing a book that is in the middle of this political fray and honestly its beautiful and does have impact on children in that way.

Nikki Grimes: Well thank you. I was honored just from the point of view of this is history making. I grew up at a time prior to the voting rights act and so the very possibility of an African American running for presidency on a major party ticket was not even thinkable in my generation. So to not only witness it but to be even in a small way attached to it is pretty phenomenal. I feel definitely graced to be involved with that whole process.

Dr. Kent: You’ve written so many books. What books are you working on now?

Nikki Grimes: I have a new young adult novel which I just completed, I have a new chapter book series which will launch next year and I have some work with historical novels which I’m going to research on Harriett Tubbman and Susan B. Anthony so lots of irons in the fire.

Dr. Kent: At the beginning of writing; it’s really a gift to write for children. When people pick up the book they think oh, there’s not many words here but it’s a real gift to be able to speak to children especially about a topic that’s not easy to read about, like politics. What started you out as a writer? What kind of advice did you get?

Nikki Grimes: Oh lots of advice. From my father just to develop a writer’s eye and ear at a very early age to just really take in everything that goes on around me. I’m just constantly editing; I don’t even think about it anymore. From picking up dialogue heard at a restaurant at another table to really just honing in on conversations when I have them so I can be truly in the moment and just filing those things away; dialects and dialogues in the environment in which I stand sort of things so that when I come to the page those things come forward as I need them to when I’m creating a scene or creating dialogue or fleshing out characters.

And it’s a question of practice. I mean the two things I say to young people who want to know what it takes to be a writer and you have to read, read, read and write, write, write. You can’t be a writer without first of all being a good reader and taking from all of the beautiful works of literature of the past in terms of lessons. And of course in order to write you have to practice because writing is a muscle that has to be exercised and there’s no way to just suddenly be there you have to work to get to that place and that takes a lot of practice. So read, read, read and write, write, write.

Dr. Kent: It’s been a wonderful show today because my last guest David Mendell is a biographer of Obama; he’s got a great biography. He said when he spoke with Barack Obama about his speaking ability he said practice, practice, practice. So I guess its read, read, read, write, write, write and practice, practice, practice.

Nikki Grimes: That’s right.

Dr. Kent: I’m running out of time here so I want to go back to Barack Obama. What do you feel like in this silly season? This back and forth bordering on hysterics in some of the campaign meetings. What do you feel like the American people are going through right now?

Nikki Grimes: It’s difficult and I think we’re all just one out from the campaign, the length of it and we’re on so much turmoil in terms of our financial situation. It’s not the best place in America on the whole. The drama just sort of adds to it. I think we all just want to focus on the important issues, the issues that are going to touch our lives, that are touching our lives now and will be the issues after Election Day. If we can just stay focused on that we’ll be okay.

Dr. Kent: It’s been a real honor speaking with Nikki Grimes. Her website is nikkigrimes.com. There’s some great stuff on there and if I had children I’d certainly buy all 50 books that you’ve written. The latest book is called Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope. Its gorgeous and the story inside will surprise children and adults. When I read the book I was surprised how personal and how wonderfully soulful the story itself is. It’s not just a political posturing book, this is a book about the story of a person and it’s beautiful.

Nikki Grimes: Thank you so much.

Dr. Kent: It’s been an honor speaking with Nikki Grimes and on the show earlier today, the biographer David Mendell and of course Mary Brigid Barrett talking to us about Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out. Have a safe week; we’ll see you the next time.

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