Ask the Author: Samuel Otten
Answered Questions (4)
Samuel Otten
I'm playing around with a possible sequel to MISSING LETTERS: AN ALPHABET. This one would be MOVING LETTERS: A WORD GAME.
Samuel Otten
When I have a hint of writer's block, I like to go back to the outlining phase. Sometimes I'll just outline a section, not the whole work, and I'll also give myself permission to create maybe three entirely different outlines. Usually by doing that, it dislodges some ideas and gets me going again.
Samuel Otten
What I enjoy about writing is sharing ideas with other people and getting feedback. It's fun to play around with ideas, bounce them off other people, and see what jumps out. For MISSING LETTERS, I ran all the word pairs by my kids and my partner. I wanted to see how they reacted to the sounds of the words but also to the ideas for the accompanying illustrations. I also took some of the ideas to my work colleagues, who are experts in children's literacy, and of course collaborating with Leon to fine tune the illustrations. He brought so many clever ideas to the illustrations.
Samuel Otten
As an educator, I've long known about the importance of not only showing kids examples of a concept but also letting them think about non-examples. And in many cases the non-examples (what makes something NOT a triangle? what would be a story that DOESN'T have an ending?) are more interesting than the regular examples.
I had the idea to apply this to letters when I was with my kids in the kitchen one day. They enjoy LEGOs and I said that without the O, LEGOs would just be legs. This became a fun way to emphasize the importance and the phonetics of letters -- by taking them away. So I started working on examples for each letter and then I collaborated with Leon Thomas, a skillful student at Mizzou where I worked. His illustrations really brought the whole idea to life.
I had the idea to apply this to letters when I was with my kids in the kitchen one day. They enjoy LEGOs and I said that without the O, LEGOs would just be legs. This became a fun way to emphasize the importance and the phonetics of letters -- by taking them away. So I started working on examples for each letter and then I collaborated with Leon Thomas, a skillful student at Mizzou where I worked. His illustrations really brought the whole idea to life.
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