In-depth Written Interview

Tomie dePaola, interviewed in his New London, New Hampshire studio on May 22, 2015.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: Your artistic and literary contributions to the canon of children's literature are widely respected and deeply beloved. Many of your books have won prestigious awards including Newbery and Caldecott Honors, and in 2011 you received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for your exceptional body of work. As a prolific creator of children's books, your name is familiar to readers everywhere—yet its pronunciation is not.

TOMIE DEPAOLA: My name has been mispronounced and misspelled all my life, and I'm eighty years old. I was named Thomas, but I've never been called Thomas. I was called Tomie from as far back as I can remember. Tomie is spelled T-o-m-i-e, which was the spelling I got as a child from my mother. She liked the way it looked with one M, but it's still pronounced as if it were spelled T-o-m-m-y.

Even though there's an A before the O in my last name, it is not pronounced dee-pay-oh-la. If you think of Paola as being spelled P-o-w-l-a, that's how you pronounce the Pao part. dePaola is an Italian name. Paola is the town where my grandfather came from, and the d-e before Paola means, from the family of Paola. I've never visited Paola, but I know a lot about it, and it's supposed to be very beautiful. It's in Calabria, the toe of Italy's boot.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: Your family has roots in both Italy and Ireland.

TOMIE DEPAOLA: I'm half Irish and half Italian. I was named after both my grandfathers: Thomas for the Irish grandfather and Anthony for the Italian grandfather. I was born in a small, industrial city in the center of Connecticut called Meriden. We lived very close to my Irish grandparents when I was growing up, so I saw them every week. My grandfather Thomas owned a grocery store, where he was also a wonderful butcher. He cut up meat and chickens, and ground hamburger, and did all sorts of things that were fun and fascinating to a young person. He's in some of my books, of course.

My Italian grandmother lived three hours away by car in Fall River, Massachusetts, and I was really in awe of her. She was very stern when I was a little boy, and I allude to our relationship in my book called The Baby Sister. When my grandmother came to visit at the time my mother went to the hospital to have my sister, we didn't get along too well because she had different ways of cooking. For a five-year-old, that was kind of tough. But I said to her at the end of her visit, "Okay Nana, let's be friends." And she called me her friend from then on.

As I grew up, I was lucky enough to hear her stories about what it was like when she brought her children to America all by herself. Grandfather Anthony was already here waiting for her. It was a very adventurous undertaking, and she wasn't the least bit afraid.

And, as it turns out, she really was a great cook. One thing I'll never forget about her is that in her house, you didn't get a meatball with your spaghetti until you had a job. My brother got a meatball before me because he had a paper route. When I was fourteen and got my first job, that's when I got my first meatball from my grandmother.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: Did you have any idea, as a young person, that you'd go on to write and illustrate books?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: When I was four years old, my father's sister and brother and my cousin Theresa came to visit. At one point, I was standing with them and my older brother, Joseph, who was nicknamed Buddy, and they asked Buddy what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said, "I want to be Buck Rogers and Dick Tracy and Flash Gordon." And I said to myself, fine. He wants to be a comic book, because those were comic-book characters.

And then I piped up and said, "I know what I'm going to be when I grow up." I didn't say I knew what I wanted to be. I said I knew what I was going to be. And they patted me on the head and said, "Yes, yes, yes," and I told them, "I'm going to be an artist when I grow up. And I'm going to write stories and draw pictures for books, and I'm going to sing and tap dance on the stage." And you know what? Now that I'm an old man, I can proudly say I've done all those things, and I even get paid for them.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: Are there influences in your very young life you can point to that led you, at four years old, to claim you would eventually be an author, an illustrator, and tap dance on stage?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: Looking back, I think there are several obvious reasons for those early aspirations. First, I had these glamorous twin cousins who were both students at Pratt Institute in New York City. They'd come to visit us in the summers, and they were always drawing pictures. One time I even sat with the two of them and used my crayons to color a yellow tulip as they were doing a watercolor painting of the flower. I started to draw everything, everywhere, and I was very good. My drawings didn't look like other children's drawings. They looked more realistic.

I wanted to write stories and draw pictures for books, in particular, because my mother read aloud to me every single night as far back as I can remember, and the books she read had beautiful pictures tipped in. I loved drawing, and I wanted to tell stories because I loved hearing them.

It was my mother's influence, too, which led me to want to sing and tap dance on the stage. My mother loved the movies, and when I was little, she'd take me to them during the day when the prices were cheaper. I fell in love with the little girl named Shirley Temple who sang and danced and wore costumes on the silver screen. At five years old, I started tap dancing lessons with Miss Leah at Miss Leah's Dancing School.

I just have had a glorious life because I did everything I've ever wanted to do. I draw pictures. I'm an artist. I write stories for books, and I sing and tap dance on the stage.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: Your mother read to you and introduced you to dancing through Shirley Temple movies. Were your parents supportive of your artistic endeavors and dreams?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: The wonderful thing for me is that, when I told my parents I wanted to write and draw and dance, they believed me. Now, my father was a barber. And my mother was a housewife. They weren't entertainers or artists, themselves, but they and my grandparents were very supportive of my ambitions.

One year after the Second World War ended, and I was about eleven years old, I got an amazing Christmas gift. Under the tree there were art supplies, art supplies, art supplies. There were books on how to draw, watercolor sets, an oil paint set, pastels, and a real easel. And then my parents did something that I tell parents today is essential to supporting a young artist: in addition to art supplies, give your kids a special place to work. My parents gave me half of our attic to use alone as my studio. I set up my paints and I set up my easel. Their giving me that space told me they really believed in me and supported me.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: You eventually attended Pratt Institute, just like your cousins who helped inspire your interest in art years before.

TOMIE DEPAOLA: When I graduated from high school and was accepted at Pratt, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I couldn't believe it: every day, eight hours a day, five days a week, all I studied was art. Well, of course there were a few other classes in there, which was fine because I got to read books and write as well. But really, for four years, I just worked and worked and worked at my art every day. I learned to draw and paint and design. And I learned how to look at pictures. I learned how to spend time at museums and be happy. I learned that there was so much more to learn.

I knew by the time I graduated from Pratt that my main objective was to become a children's book illustrator. I was a very good painter, and my painting teacher said I could paint for a living, but I specifically wanted to do books for children.

I didn't get my first book to illustrate until I was thirty years old, so for about nine years I made my living by painting and doing church commissions—things like murals and church decorations. I enjoyed it. And finally, I got my first book.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: In 1989, you published The Art Lesson, a story based on encouragement you received from a special teacher.

TOMIE DEPAOLA: The Art Lesson is about a real event in my life and it's almost completely autobiographical. My editor at the time encouraged me to write it because she always liked it when I told her stories about my childhood. I never thought my childhood was so interesting that other people would want to hear stories about it, but my editor did, and I ended up writing and illustrating many books based on things that actually happened to me.

When I was growing up, we didn't get art lessons until second grade, so from kindergarten through first grade, I was just waiting for the day when I would finally get an art lesson from the teacher who came to school every couple of months. Finally, one day, she arrived, and I brought in my own Crayola crayons, which I had gotten for my birthday just a few days before. My regular teacher didn't like that very much, but as I tell and illustrate in the book, the art teacher was wonderful to me, and really, she helped start me off on my career.

The illustration I had the most fun drawing in that story was the picture of Mrs. Bowers coming down the hallway with her box of big colored chalks in her hand, and her colorful hair combs and her dangly earrings, and the blue smock over her dress. She just looked like a real artist to me, and I said to myself that day, oh, finally, I'm going to get my art lesson.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: 26 Fairmount Avenue won a Newbery Honor and is the first in a series of autobiographical novels you wrote and illustrated. After publishing so many picture books, what prompted you to write a novel?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: I got a letter. It was that simple. I got a letter from a fan, asking if I'd write him a chapter book. I thought that sounded like a good idea. But I had never written a chapter book before, and I got scared. So I'd write a little bit, and then I'd put it away. I'd write a little bit more, and I'd put it away. Finally, I got brave enough to call my editor and tell her I was working on a chapter book.

There was dead silence at the other end of the phone. Then she said, "That sounds very nice. How interesting." And then she asked, "Why are you working on a chapter book?" I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking, he writes and illustrates picture books. Why isn't he happy with that? Why is he trying to do something new? I didn't even tell her that a fan had asked me if I would write a chapter book.

But I sent her what I had written, and I waited and waited for her phone call. I was sure she was going to say no, it was no good; I should stick to my picture books, stick to what I know. But instead she said, "Tomie, keep going. Don't worry about anything. Just keep going. I'll organize it. I'll help you with it. Just keep going. Just keep writing."

And you know what? I did, and the book won a Newbery Honor, so it gave me the courage to keep on writing the 26 Fairmount Avenue series. I'm so proud of it, and I'm so proud that I can share with readers what it was like when I was a child a long, long time ago.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: One of the wonderful things about your autobiographical books is that you make your personal stories and history so accessible to readers. What is it like to write autobiographically?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: My autobiographical writing happened sort of by accident. I was talking to an editor who asked me about my life, and I started telling her a little bit about my early childhood experiences with my grandmother and my great-grandmother.

A lot of people don't have great-grandmothers. I did, but she was a very old lady; she was ninety-four years old when I actually started communicating with her, and I was only four years old. But we became the best of friends. I called her Nana Upstairs because she was upstairs in bed being taken care of by my grandmother, who was usually downstairs. So I called my grandmother Nana Downstairs. This editor thought the story was charming and told me to write it down. In the end, she felt it was more of a magazine article, but the manuscript struck a chord with another editor who also had known her great-grandmother too, and she wanted to publish it.

Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs was the first book I did that was autobiographical. And I'll tell you, it's a very frightening thing to do a story about yourself. If you write a story about a bunny rabbit, critics and readers can say, "Oh, that was a very interesting or uninteresting bunny rabbit." But if you tell your own story, you run the risk of readers saying, "That's not a very interesting life." I was panicked about Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs because I didn't know what kind of reception the book was going to have.

But I discovered I didn't have to worry. People reacted very wonderfully and positively toward the story, and I got many, many letters, which said things like, "Oh, that sounded like my relationship with my grandmother." That connection gave me courage to continue telling my own stories.

It's an interesting process to write about your own life, especially since I was born in 1934. That was a long, long time ago for young people today, but I'm fascinated that children are very interested in, quote, history. And of course, if you lived the history yourself, it's very easy to explain to today's young readers. And I hope that resonance will continue after I'm gone, that my books will still be interesting to young people.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: Strega Nona won a Caldecott Honor in 1976, which means you're celebrating her fortieth anniversary this year. That book was the first of an enormously popular series about her, and you have a wonderful story of how it came to be.

TOMIE DEPAOLA: Strega Nona is one of my favorite characters, and a lot of young people ask me how she came to be. Back then I was teaching at a college, and we had to go to meetings all the time. I really hated those meetings, so I always brought a doodle pad with me. I've always doodled, and sometimes I get my best ideas from it.

So I was doodling during a meeting, and found myself drawing Punchinello, who is an Italian clown character. I drew his profile—the big nose, big chin, and so on. All of a sudden, a little kerchief appeared on Punchinello's head, and I thought, Oh, isn't she cute? Her name is Strega Nona.

I don't know where that name came from, but that's what I named her, and it means grandma witch. I put the little picture on my wall above my drawing table, and thought maybe I'd be able to do a book about this cute, tiny grandma witch with her fat little rear end and her chubby little face.

Within a couple of months, my editor asked me to retell my favorite folktale. My favorite tale was The Porridge Pot, but nobody knew what porridge was anymore. Everyone was eating Fruit Loops instead of oatmeal. But, I thought, if I changed porridge to pasta, I could set the story in Italy, and I could use Strega Nona as a character. Well, was that a lucky decision for me, because everybody loved Strega Nona when I finished the book. And I've got secret to tell you: she built my swimming pool.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: Do you have a favorite illustration in Strega Nona?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: When I look through the pictures in that book, the one I always stop and laugh at is the illustration where Big Anthony is sitting on the top of a pot that's moving with the pasta right out the door. I love that picture still. And I guess my second-favorite is where Strega Nona is blowing the three kisses to stop the pasta from covering the whole village. Those illustrations still make me laugh no matter how many hundreds, maybe even thousands, of times I've looked at that book.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: What has made you return to the Strega Nona character again and again, and what's next for her?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: I never set out to do a series, but every once in a while it's as if Strega Nona whispers in my ear and that gets me going. When people start asking me, "Are you doing another Strega Nona? Are you doing another Strega Nona?" I always say that I have to wait until she tells me a new story because that's really how I feel about it. This fall, in 2015, which is a celebration of the fortieth year of Strega Nona being published, we're doing a big treasury that compiles six of the books in one volume, plus some additional material I've created. I've included some recipes, I've included a map of Strega Nona's village, and I've written the words and illustrated a lullaby with beautiful, original music composed by a friend of mine named Will Ogmundson. The volume will include a CD, and Will's lullaby is recorded there by some wonderful singers. I also tell the book Her Story on the CD, as well. So it's a really nice celebration of Strega Nona. And Merrymakers is celebrating, too, by reissuing the Strega Nona doll they created many years ago. I hope readers will all celebrate Strega Nona with a big dish of pasta.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: When you were first starting out as an artist, you took on commissions from churches, and over the years you've illustrated many religious and spiritual books, particularly about the saints. What drew you to these men and women?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: I was brought up as a Catholic, and in the Catholic Church there are a lot of wonderful stories about saints that are very exciting. So I started writing about some of the saints whom I particularly liked. The saints I've chosen have always been interesting, like the Lady of Guadalupe or Pasquale, the kitchen saint. They're saints who are so memorable that even people who are not necessarily Catholic, or not necessarily religious, know their stories. When it comes to illustrating these people, I've tried to make them look strong, like the early art of Giotto and Fra Angelico.

I like to do books that have a spiritual aspect to them, as well books that are funny, or serious, or maybe sad. And of course, I love to retell and illustrate classic tales.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: Please talk about your folk tales.

TOMIE DEPAOLA: I love folk tales. I actually love them more than fairy tales, which I didn't care for as a child. The only fairy tale I really liked was Rapunzel, I think because it had a dark side to it. So the tales I enjoyed most were always folk tales.

One thing I've always appreciated about folk tales is that they have kernels of truth in them when it comes to humanity and human foibles. And I love retelling them because, as wonderful as they are, I think some of the oldest tales are written in a way that young people don't always respond to. So I don't modernize them as much as retell them, and that process, of course, makes me feel like a genuine storyteller. That's when I imagine my readers are all sitting around me at a burning campfire, and I'm wearing a robe and saying, "Now, I have a tale for you today." I'm going to continue to do folk tales as long as I can because I truly cherish them.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: One of your most well known folktales is The Legend of the Bluebonnet. How did that book come to be?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: I was visiting in Texas once, and a terrific school librarian came up to me and she said, "I love your books. Would you ever consider writing about our state flower? It's a wonderful folk tale." I said I'd never heard of it, and she took it upon herself to make sure I knew all about Texas's state flower, the bluebonnet, and she sent me several versions of the legend. It just captured my imagination.

In the story, there is a sacrifice. A young Comanche girl, who is an orphan, sacrifices her most prized possession in the fire, and out of the ashes come these beautiful blue flowers. So I took the tale and made it my own, but in a way that still held true to original tale.

The Legend of the Bluebonnet is one of the books I'm proudest of. The art was a little bit different for me; I took a step forward with it. Also, I had to do a lot of research about the folk tale and the flower. Fortunately, I was able to consult the real thing, thanks to that wonderful librarian. The state flower of Texas is protected by law, but she was able to get permission from the state department there to send me some bluebonnets so I could see what they looked like in person.

Still, when I was scheduled to go to Texas in the spring to promote the book when it was published, I was kind of nervous, because I'd never actually seen entire hills covered in bluebonnets. But when I arrived and took them in, I was glad and relieved, because my art looked like the real thing.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: How did your artistic style and process evolve?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: My style developed over time. It's like my handwriting. I think it just happens that way with people who are serious about their art. My artist cousins told me when I was a kid that the two most important things to being a real artist were to practice, practice, practice; and to not copy. I've certainly been influenced by well-known artists like Giotto, by Fra Angelico, by Ben Shahn. But my overall style has come from within myself.

One thing I'll say about my style, which you could probably guess, is that I love color. One of the things I loved the most in art school was the color class, which had us mixing color, taking two colors and getting as many colors as we could by combining them, and so on.

I've used different media in my art; it's all really a matter of what's appropriate. I've done a book in collage, which is pasted paper, and I've used colored inks. I avoid pastel because it's too dusty and it makes me sneeze too much. I happen to prefer acrylics, and I use concentrated acrylics so I can thin them way down. I also like acrylics because they're permanent, and unlike watercolors, they don't lift up. Lifting up means that if another color is put on top of it, the original color lifts up and the result is muddy. With acrylics, I can build up color layer by layer, and it's more permanent.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: Your most recent book, Look and Be Grateful, is a simple message awash with vibrant color.

TOMIE DEPAOLA: Look and Be Grateful is kind of like a little poem or a little prayer, and it's about gratitude, and noticing the gifts of each day. It's very, very simple, and it's a story that came to me, for the first time in my career as a children's book writer and illustrator, in a sudden flash. I saw the whole thing in an instant, and I then I sat down and wrote and illustrated it. I sent it to my editor and said, "I did this. You don't have to publish it, but I did it, and I wanted you to see it." And when my publisher said they liked it and would publish it, I was so pleased. That doesn't happen very often because usually a book is a long, hard process.

To create the illustrations I used transparent acrylics, ink, and tea-stained paper. For me, the picture that still catches my eye the most is the page of the little boy standing and gazing out at the reader with his blue eyes and his red hair and his tan skin. I still get little chills from that illustration.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: What do you enjoy doing when you're not writing and illustrating a book?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: I've always continued to enjoy painting. In my long lifetime, as I like to tell people, I've spent sixty years as a professional artist, fifty years as a children's book illustrator, and forty years as Strega Nona's keeper. But I've always shown my personal work at a gallery, too.

There are only a handful of people who know me only as a painter. I wouldn't really say I wear two hats, but there is a difference between making art for books and stand-alone paintings. When I'm doing a book, there are words I have to illustrate. I have to be faithful to those words. I know that that book is going to be published, which means it's going to be put out to the public, and people are going to read it—especially young people. So I have an obligation as an artist and a writer to make sure that book is as good as I can make it. I do it for my readers. Of course, I do it for myself, too, because I don't want to embarrass myself in front of my readers.

But when I'm making a painting, if it happens to be put in a gallery and someone else likes it and buys it, great. If not, I have still accomplished something meaningful for myself. That's the difference for me.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: What do you do when you get stuck?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: People talk about writer's block. They don't ever talk about artist's block, but it happens, and it's really a toughie. I've been in this profession for fifty-plus years, and it still happens to me. In fact, it happened to me just a little while ago.

When it strikes, I'll sit there and stare at the blank paper. Then I try to ignore it and maybe go do something else, like paint the house or rearrange the furniture. But in the end, I just have to barrel through the block. And eventually, it will break. Of course, I'm not the least bit ashamed to ask for help if I'm in an especially tough spot. I learned to do that a long time ago. That's what the editor and the art director at the publishing house are for. Or I ask my friends.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: What do you like to tell children?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: There are two things I like to tell children. One is to read, read, read, read—if you can read, you can find out anything about everything, and everything about anything. Also, if the child is an artist, I tell them what my cousins told me: practice, practice, practice, and don't copy. The second thing I like to tell children is to be themselves. That is very hard, especially in this day and age when children are just bombarded. I had a very quiet childhood compared to children today.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: You speak to lots of teachers and librarians. What do you like to tell them?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: I like answering questions about whatever people want to know about me. And I pride myself on telling as much of the truth as possible. I love to tell true stories about myself, and I want people to know that I'm funny, but that I can also be serious. And I always love talking to people who use my books or who have experienced my books in some way. That is a great, great joy.

Also, I like to share a tip with teachers, and it's based on something that happened to me when I was a child. We had a wonderful fifth grade teacher who would read aloud to us every day. I know teachers don't often have time to read aloud with everything else they're required to do nowadays, but if you do have the time, it's a wonderful thing. And if you do read-alouds, make sure the kids also get a chance to pick what they want to hear. Parents often say to me, "I'm so tired of reading that book over and over again." And I say, "Well, your child is comfortable with it because it's familiar—but don't forget, your child is also getting more and more and more out of that book with every reading." So do guide your children's reading, but also give them a chance to pick out what they want to read. There's a wisdom and truth to their selections.

TEACHINGBOOKS.NET: There are elements of great love and positivity and compassion and humor in your books. How do you infuse your work wi th these sentiments?

TOMIE DEPAOLA: People sometimes tell me that I'm a compassionate person, and I'm very happy to hear that. There is always a danger to being a Pollyanna, and only seeing the positive side, and I think some people don't think I have a full, rounded life because I don't dwell on negative things. But I was just brought up that way.

I don't necessarily practice any exact religion, but I am, frankly, quite a spiritual person, and I've believed strongly in treating other people the way you want them to treat you ever since I first read those words as a young person. I've really tried to do that in my life, and as a result, it's not difficult for me to put myself in other people's shoes. Compassion is a very important thing in this world, and I try to live compassionately and continue to develop my compassion, even as I get older.

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