By Deborah Sosin
I wasn’t planning to study picture-book writing when I went back to graduate school in 2013 to get my MFA in creative writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I’d always written creative nonfiction—essays, memoir, and cultural commentary.
But students were required to do an interdisciplinary project in a different genre each semester. I randomly signed up to work with a mentor to write a picture book.
I didn’t know where to start, so I followed the old advice, “Write what you know.” I had an idea to write something about the power of meditation in my own life. I’ve been practicing since college (over 50 years!) and have found it transformative. Usually, not always, something happens to me during meditation: a softening, a deepening, a letting go. And, often, a connection to, as I say in the book, “an even quieter place”—even softer, even deeper.
How to translate that experience into a story for children, though? Would anyone even get it, or was it too abstract? I thought about a child growing up in a busy, noisy house (not unlike mine) who wishes she could find “breathing room”—a place just for herself to be quiet and breathe.
It wasn’t long until my vision morphed into a larger story about a city girl named Charlotte, named after my father’s mother, who died when I was eight. Charlotte is bothered by all the noise around her and doesn’t know what to do. While taking her dog, Otto, for a walk, she gets out of breath (so does Otto!). In noticing her breath, she discovers a quiet place inside herself—and then the even quieter place—she can go wherever she is, whenever she wants.
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Charlotte and the Quiet Place
View this book2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award – Gold Winner 2016 Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) – Silver Medal Winner 2015 National Parenting Publications (NPPA) – Bronze Award Winner Charlotte…
Within six months, I submitted my manuscript to Parallax. About four months later, I got an offer saying, “We think Charlotte has a home here!” After another six months, Sara Woolley, a fabulous artist from Brooklyn, NY, came on board and the team rolled toward the big launch in September 2015.
What a thrill to have my book out in the world! I could never have anticipated what happened next—we won several major awards, including the 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Gold Award, the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards Silver (IPPY), and the 2015 National Parenting Publications Bronze!
I began giving talks and interviews and doing school visits, sharing Charlotte and Otto and the benefits of mindfulness with children in the Northeast and throughout the US, and I received notes from people around the world—the UK, Australia, Ireland, India.
What I heard over and over is that children not only enjoy the opportunity to slow down and breathe while reading the book, but that they continue the practice on their own—and that their parents and teachers join in, too.
Mindfulness lessons are part of many school programs now, and it’s especially meaningful to me that teachers and librarians invite Charlotte to share and teach and model what it’s like to find our quiet place inside.
It’s hard to believe Charlotte and the Quiet Place is ten now! I was 61 when it came out (late bloomer, anyone?). Now, in an increasingly busy and stressful and often scary world where things sometimes feel out of control and unpredictable, Charlotte’s message is more important than ever. I’m proud of my story and endlessly grateful to Sara Woolley for her beautiful art and to the Parallax Press team for believing in it.
