Ep. 74 - Danica Novgorodoff: She Illustrates the Point
If you are a book lover, you are probably also a library lover. Those two things just go together, like peanut butter and jelly or Sherlock and Watson. Some book lovers not only visit their local libraries all the time, but they also visit libraries when they travel. Carrie, for example, checked out Maison de la litterature in Quebec City when she visited several years ago. It is cool to see what libraries in other places look and feel like.
Closer to home, there is a membership library in Cincinnati Ohio that would be well worth a stop if you find yourself in the Queen City. Our guest this week, Amy Hunter, is the programs and marketing manager at The Mercantile Library, one of only about 18 surviving membership libraries around the country. She gives a crash course in membership libraries that were invented by Benjamin Franklin before the rise of public libraries at the turn of the 20th century.
Amy talks to us about the unique history of the Mercantile library including some of the interesting rules that were imposed back at its inception in 1835, about the wide variety of speakers they have hosted from Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1800s all the way to Margaret Atwood just a few years ago, and why many people consider the Mercantile a “steampunk” fantasy in library form.
Books Mentioned in this Episode:
1- Charlotte's Web/Stuart Little by E. B. White
2- Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
3- Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
4- Sweet Taste of Liberty by W. Caleb McDaniel
5- Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
6- Heavy by Kiese Lemon
7- Silver Sparrow/American Marriage by Tayari Jones
8- TigerLand by Will Haygood
9- The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
10- Perestroika in Paris by Jane Smiley
11- Meet Me at the Museum: A Novel by Ann Youngson
12- The Ghosts of Eden Park by Karen AbbottOur guest this week, Danica Novgorodoff, is a writer, graphic novelist, and illustrator who has written 3 of her own graphic novels but her work has received some extra special attention recently. She is the illustrator of the new graphic novel edition of Jason Reynolds’ award winning young adult novel Long Way Down. She believes she was chosen for the book partly because of her special use of watercolors as a medium for graphic art, which gives the work an ephemeral feel.
Besides this project, she is also in the process of writing a graphic novel on climate change, several children’s books, as well as essays and illustrating a cookbook with a James Beard award winning cookbook author. And did I mention she has a 3 year old and a one year old? As well as working at home during a pandemic? We need to give this artist and mother a medal... or at least a glass of wine and an hour to herself.
Danica talks to us about what steps she takes to adapt a book into a graphic novel, how becoming a mother totally changed her thoughts on how to write and illustrate a good children’s book, and how the pandemic hastened her family’s move away from Brooklyn back to some of her roots in Kentucky.
Books Mentioned in this Episode:
1- Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
2- My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
3- Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
4- Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
5- Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
6- Long Way Down (graphic novel) by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff
7- A Late Freeze by Danica Novgorodoff
8- The Undertaking of Lily Chen by Danica Novgorodoff
9- Refresh, Refresh by Danica Novgorodoff
10- Slow Storm by Danica Novgorodoff
11- Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
12- What I Hate from A to Z by Roz Chast
13- The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humbolt's New World by Andrew Wulf
14- The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humbolt and the Shaping of America by Laura Dassow Walls
15- Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
16- Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier