Making a Book

Left: A photo of Klint, which helped me do the illustrations. Right: An illustration of Klint hiding in the reeds, watching a heron.

Inventing the Characters

"After picking the format for the new book, it is time to invent some characters. Unless you are writing purely informational books, you usually need them. All of the books I have written so far have involved characters of some sort. Perhaps you have met Xyz the Ant or Seamore the Seahorse. Salamander Rainis the first of my books to include human characters, however.

Many of the students I speak with ask me where I got the idea for the characters in that book. First let me mention that whenever authors think about writing books - even fiction - some of their own experiences have the opportunity to creep into the stories. In this case, I decided to model the characters in Salamander Rainafter two of my cousins. During the summer of 1999, I visited my cousins Kori, Zachary and Klint in Michigan. Since I was then working on lake and pond research, I asked Klint, the youngest, to show me around the pond in his back yard. When I saw how much he loved poking around in the grasses at the edge of the water to find frogs, I decided to make him the main character. I had originally planned to make it a story about two brothers, but my editor pointed out that it would be better to include girls in the adventure too. So I wrote the book about Klint and his older sister Kori instead. I think this worked out pretty well, because it made the part when Klint tips over the canoe even funnier.

In order to get somewhat of a likeness, I had Klint's mom, who loves to take pictures, shoot a bunch of photos of Klint and send them to me."

~Kristin Joy Pratt-Serafini, author/illustrator