Sometimes they write back

connecting with our personal superstars

You know that moment when Elf sees “Santa?”

I recently sent an email to Keiko Kasza, an author/illustrator I’ve admired since my kids were little. She’s like Santa to me, this mystical person who writes and illustrates books I’ve loved for decades. Some of my favorite illustrations of all time are found in her books. Like this one from The Wolf’s Chicken Stew, when the big bad hungry wolf comes to take his prize, a fattened chicken, but instead gets mobbed by her little chicks who have greatly enjoyed the pancakes, donuts and cake he made to plump up their mother.

Is there a better image for the word “sheepish?” Or how about this adorable, stripey-legged, pudgy-cheeked chick from A Mother for Choco, who “wished he had a mother, but who could his mother be?”

There is a sweetness to Kasza’s work. The way she can tell a moving, satisfying story in so few words is brilliant. That’s why her books are so likely to appear on my monthly themed book lists. While checking out her website for my last post, I spied the words “email Keiko Kasza,” and clicked it, assuming I’d be sent to some sort of contact form. I was sent directly to email.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. What would I say to this author I’d been admiring for almost thirty years? I started typing kermit-fast .

I thanked her for her generosity, told her she was a superstar in our house, and told her about my wolf voice, inspired by The Wolf’s Chicken Stew (here it on my IG here). When the hungry wolf leaves food on a chicken’s doorstep to fatten her up for his stew, he says, “Eat well my pretty chicken! Get nice and fat for my stew.” When my kids were little, I’d tuck them into bed and say, in my best wolf voice, a slightly edited refrain. “Sleep well my pretty chickens! Get nice and fat for my stew!”

On her website, Keiko says that her goal, “is not to create a hundred books, but to create one really good book that will be kept on the bookshelves for generations.” I love that goal. Quality over quantity. The keys clacked as I told Keiko she’d achieved the generational goal in our house. My kids and now my grandson love her books. My grandson is a big fan of Nana’s wolf voice.

I finished the email. I read it and revised and edited like it was my current work in progress, getting it ready to send to an editor. And then I hit send. The next day, I got an email back and totally went into Elf mode when he hears Santa is coming.

This was no canned response. Keiko thanked me for my email and shared a little about her life. She was pregnant when she wrote The Wolf’s Chicken Stew, which was her first to be published in the US (she’d published five picture books in her home country, Japan, before then). She wondered which would come first, the baby or finishing the illustrations. The book won, and that baby is now 39 years old(!)

I knew she was a “real person” before her response, but hearing from her was a reminder that being a “real person” means we can connect, we may have things in common, we can learn from each other. And connecting is one of my biggest joys in life. One of my favorite part of being a writer is connecting with readers, and I should have realized what is true for me could also be true for Keiko Kasza. So write to your personal superstars and heroes. Throw out the first line of connection and see where it takes you. I’d love to know who your heroes are-share in the comments!

And if you enjoy my Substack, please share with friends. Like I said, I love to connect.

Be well my pretty chickens! Get nice and fat for my stew.

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My name is Meredith Davis, and I’m an award winning writer of middle grade books, a former indie bookseller, founder of the Austin chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts with an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Find teaching resources and author visit information on my website at www.meredithldavis.com. Mother to three, Nana to one and counting TWO, I live with my husband and a crazy doodle in Austin, Texas.