Heidi Henneman

How does an author go from writing about a little French girl in the city to telling tales about young lambs in the country? According to John Bemelmans Marciano, author of the new children’s book Delilah, the stretch from skyscrapers to cornfields isn’t that far.

Marciano, as it turns out, knows about both worlds. His art studio, a converted 100-year-old country department store in Three Bridges, New Jersey, sits across the street from the horse farm where he grew up. Three Bridges is a town, the author points out, where every road is named after the farmer who lived there. Yet less than an hour away bustles the big city of Manhattan.

While the city in this case, Paris provided a backdrop for one of Marciano’s previous titles (Madeline Says Merci: The Always-Be-Polite Book), it wasn’t the inspiration for it. Marciano just happens to be the grandson of the beloved children’s author Ludwig Bemelmans, creator of the adorable character Madeline. In launching his own career as a children’s book author, Marciano paid homage to the grandfather he never knew with the acclaimed tribute Bemelmans: The Life and Art of Madeline’s Creator.

“My grandmother’s living room was devoted to my grandfather’s work,” says Marciano. “The idea [of his first book] was to have a vehicle for all of his works.” Not only was the elder Bemelmans a children’s book author, he also wrote novels and screenplays and was a very successful painter. While rummaging through his grandfather’s things, Marciano came across a full manuscript for a Madeline story with sketches of what the drawings were supposed to look like. Using this unfinished text, he illustrated Madeline Says Merci, a worthy addition to the series his grandfather began.

An accomplished artist in his own right, Marciano started drawing comics at the age of five. Later, as an art history major in college, he wanted to be a painter but also enjoyed writing. “I realized that children’s books are the perfect marriage of art and text,” says Marciano, “and for me it seemed like such a natural thing to do.” So where did the idea for his new character, Delilah the lamb, come from? The headlines, of all places. An article in a news magazine about Dolly, the sheep who had been cloned, got Marciano thinking. “The original idea was centered around what a clone might think,” says Marciano. “What if you’re an individual and everyone else is the same?” In the book, Delilah is the only lamb who doesn’t grow up in a factory farm environment. Instead, as a baby she is placed on a farm with Red, a farmer who treats young Delilah as if she is human. She eats at the table, sleeps inside the house and helps Red do his chores. And she is very happy that is, until the other sheep arrive.

Because she isn’t like them, the other sheep don’t accept Delilah. They eat grass, sleep outdoors and lie around all day. Although Delilah tries to do the things that they do, she is miserable. So, too, is Red the farmer. He can no longer tell Delilah apart from the rest of the sheep. It is not until Delilah regains her individuality that both she and Red can again be content. “I wanted to express the idea that love and friendship can make you happy,” says Marciano. “But just as important, you need to be yourself.” Delilah may be Marciano’s first original character, but don’t expect her to be his last. For his next project, he is heading back to the city and hopes to create an interesting storyline for his new characters. “As with Delilah, I want the story to be thought-provoking for not only the kids, but also for the parents as they read along,” he explains. With the many ideas he has for future books, it shouldn’t be difficult for him to reach that goal. Heidi Henneman writes from New York City.

Get ready for more adventures with Hoeye's mouse hero.

Take 14 letters from the alphabet, arrange them into an unrecognizable word in 60 seconds, and what have you got? Hermux Tantamoq, the main character of two and soon to be three hit children's books: Time Stops for No Mouse and The Sands of Time.

Author Michael Hoeye, who had taught seminars on creativity but had never written an actual book before, unwittingly discovered the world of Hermux Tantamoq and friends one summer morning at a breakfast cafe in Portland, Oregon. Hoeye and his wife Martha had just picked up an old board game called Anagrams—similar to Scrabble—at a garage sale. While waiting for their food, they drew letters and challenged each other to make up names. Hoeye had just drawn X and Q—two difficult letters to work with—when the idea of Hermux Tantamoq popped into his head. Hoeye saw Hermux as an ordinary but likable mouse who was a watchmaker.

"It was a wonderful moment," recalls Hoeye. "I thought someday, I'd like to write about this character." That someday presented itself two years later when Hoeye's wife, an art and textile buyer, left for Southeast Asia on a two-month business trip. "I wanted to e-mail her every day," says Hoeye, "but after the first day, I realized that just telling her about the weather or what was going on at home was going to be really boring." So Hoeye revived his old friend Hermux and started writing email messages about the tiny watchmaker's life and adventures, creating an entire world around him. Within a week, Hoeye had written nearly 10 chapters, each sent off to his wife as an email.

Meanwhile in Southeast Asia, Martha was reading the stories and sharing them with people in her hotel. "Everyone wanted to know what was going to happen next," remembers Hoeye, "and suddenly I realized I was writing a serial."

By the time Martha had returned from Asia, Time Stops for No Mouse was nearly a third of the way finished, and Hoeye was already scheduled to do a bookstore reading. "I had compiled some of the chapters and passed them around to friends and family," says Hoeye. "One of my friends just happened to work in a bookstore and invited me to come in."

Soon, his originally spiral-bound book was being distributed across the country in paperback, and Hoeye knew it was time to explore more about Hermux. "For the second book, I wanted to focus on history," says Hoeye, "specifically on the concept of how we continually pose answers religiously, scientifically, philosophically yet no one ever agrees."

In The Sands of Time, Hermux's adventures lead him to explore the origins of language, technology and history. In the book, Hermux sets off on an adventure to find a hidden temple that once was ruled by a fabled animal called a cat. The mission is cloaked in scandal and intrigue, because in Hermux's world, cats are myths and terrible, scary ones at that. But don't mistake Hoeye's sojourn into thought-provoking ideas as a lecture on archaeology; this book is every bit as exciting, entertaining and entangled as the first.

And Hoeye's characters continue to engage, delight and surprise throughout their many adventures as well. In fact, according to Hoeye, all of their personalities and idiosyncrasies are inspired by ordinary people. "The bad aspects are taken from people I know, and the good from people I'd like to know," claims Hoeye. "I think it's important to love your villains," he adds, "because without them, you have no story."

Now that Time Stops for No Mouse has been published in 22 languages around the world and The Sands of Time is set to follow suit, it's time for Hoeye to invent more escapades for his wee watchmaker. "I am not sure how many books about Hermux I'll write," admits Hoeye, who is in the midst of writing his third book. "I guess it'll just depend on how many good stories I can imagine for him."

But if Hoeye's adeptness at creating characters from Anagram tiles is any proof of the depth of his imagination, we are sure to be reading about Hermux for a long time to come.

Heidi Henneman writes from San Francisco.

"Call me Uncle Brian," says best-selling author Brian Jacques. Indeed, thanks to the familiarity and ease he exudes during a call to his home in England, it’s hard not to think of him as family—a favorite uncle telling tall tales over Sunday dinner. Jacques’ salty, strong Liverpool accent lends an added effect. He could easily be mistaken for a buccaneer or one of the many seadogs in his adventure books.

Though he isn’t a buccaneer (at the moment anyway), the best-selling author of the Redwall stories and Castaways of the Flying Dutchman, knows much about the high seas. He shares that knowledge in his latest thrilling adventure, The Angel’s Command.

The second book in his Castaways saga, The Angel’s Command follows the eternally youthful Ben and his dog Ned as they travel the world—at an angel’s command—in search of those who need their help. In the first book, Ben and Ned were saved from a cursed pirate ship by the same angel. The Angel’s Command finds the dynamic duo sailing the high seas years later, befriending buccaneers, fighting pirates and narrowly escaping monsters of the deep.

But The Angel’s Command is not just a high-seas adventure. The second half of the book, and perhaps the most intriguing and thrilling portion of the tale, finds Ben and Ned in the mountains of Spain, where they become entangled with a gypsy girl and a murderous tribe of mountain dwellers. Ben and Ned prove that good always wins out over evil as they traverse the hills and vales of the Pyrenees on a quest to save the kidnapped grandson of a Spanish nobleman. Through imprisonment in a dank dungeon, several avalanches, and a face-to-face meeting with evil, the young boy and his dog prove themselves again and again.

Jacques himself is no stranger to adventure. The Liverpool native has experienced more in his lifetime than most of us dream of. "I’ve been around the block a few times," he admits, "but there’s no place like home at the finish." From merchant marine to poet to comedian to folk singer, this author has seen it all—and he has plenty of stories to share.

Jacques’ days as a longshoreman on the quays of Liverpool gave him the inspiration for the Castaways saga. "I have always had a love for the sea," says the author, who grew up hearing ships’ foghorns in the night as they passed in the harbor. "Living away from the sea would drive me crackers."

Jacques is currently working on several books, including a collection of ghost stories entitled Liver Jack and Other Curious Laughs. Although he’s become an international celebrity, fame does not seem to have affected him. During a stop in Boston on a recent book tour, he came across an 11-year-old boy being fitted for a suit in a formalwear shop. The salesman was prodding and poking him. "He looked like he was about to throw up," recalls Jacques.

The ever-thoughtful author went up to the boy, winked at him and said, "That suit looks really smart on you, mate." The boy immediately blushed. A bit later, as Jacques was leaving the store, the boy ran up to him and said, "You look like my favorite author, Brian Jackways." It turned out the boy was a big fan and was planning to attend Jacques’ book-signing the next day. As a special treat, the author suggested that when the boy arrived at the bookstore, he shout out, "Hey Uncle Brian," so that Jacques would recognize him, and he wouldn’t have to wait in line for the author’s autograph.

Uncle Brian suggested the same for me. And I might just take him up on that offer.

Heidi Henneman writes from San Francisco.

Author photo by David Jacques, M.A.

Ann Brashares has taken the teen world by storm. A former editor, last fall she broke out from behind the scenes with her first novel, the surprise bestseller The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. This year, she returns with another book for savvy young readers, a smart sequel to her first book called The Second Summer of the Sisterhood.

With her newest title, Brashares again takes us into the hearts and minds of four teenage girlfriends, Tibby, Carmen, Lena and Bridget, whose mothers met at a prenatal aerobics class while they were still in the womb. "When I thought about when these girls become friends, it was never early enough," says the author. "I wanted a totally unquestioned relationship to one another, like siblings." And Brashares has indeed created a sisterhood with these girls a set of siblings like no other: one is Greek, one Latino, one blonde and one somewhat nondescript. While the author does hint a little at the ethnicity and background of each of her characters, she leaves much to the imagination.

"I wanted to indicate that there is variety and a general openness among the girls," she explains. "It’s a colorful picture, but not specifically drawn."

More important than their backgrounds, though, are their friendships. Realistically enough, each girl has her own quirks, and she is loved by the others in the group for them. Brashares expertly captures the essence of true girl power through these characters, but she is also able to express the emotions and difficulties that almost every teenager goes through. Brashares’ first book centered on a "magic" pair of jeans (any pair of pants that can fit perfectly on four unique teenage bodies has to have special powers). The girls pass these jeans along to each other throughout the summer and find romance, friendship and strength by wearing them. As each of the "sisters" takes her turn with the pants, she finds that the summer isn’t filled with all the happiness she had hoped it would be: Tibby has to learn the hard way who her real friends and family are; Carmen jealously destroys her mother’s new relationship; Bridget faces the truth about her mother’s death; and Lena deals with an unexpected pregnancy.

Indeed, the first passing of the pants proves to be bad magic rather than the good omen that the girls had envisioned. But as the pants and the summer move on, the girls come to realize that it’s not the pants that help them survive their traumas and see them through their joyous moments, but the closeness and comfort of their strong, lasting friendships. "I think of the pants as pulling them into the plots of their lives," says Brashares, "and there needed to be a challenge, something difficult in their lives." Compared to the first book, the second is a bit more daunting. The challenges the four mates face are somewhat more adult in nature: restoring faith in friends and family, dealing with a single parent’s romantic life, coming face-to-face with death.

"The girls are aging with each book and will continue to do so," says Brashares. "I felt that they were more mature and capable of dealing with some weightier issues." Brashares’ books aren’t just how-to guides to surviving the curve balls of the teenage years. They are a peek into the lives of everyday people who have their own personalities, styles, histories and dreams. Love, friendship, commitment and honesty are important elements here, and Brashares combines them all flawlessly.

So what’s next for the Sisterhood? "I’m not sure where it’s all going," admits Brashares, "but it’s going somewhere." At the very least, we’ll see another summer of trials, tribulations and triumphs from the girls, and we may possibly see a glimpse of their colorful faces on the big screen. But time will tell with all of that. Until then, remember: Pants=love. Love your pals. Love yourself.

Heidi Henneman writes from San Francisco.