Melinda Long used to play pirate. She buried her mom’s earrings and drew a pirate map to find them!
Although the inspiration for How I Became A Pirate came from Long’s childhood pirate games, the seed for the story came from a conversation she had in Barnes & Noble with an acquaintance who mentioned that pirate books were hard to find. Long based Jeremy Jacob, the main character, on her childhood self. “It’s my voice,” she says, “and I really love him.” But illustrator David Shannon created another of Long’s favorite characters—the pirate with two eye patches. “He’s always lifting one up to see. I just think he’s hilarious. He’s perfectly visual and is all [Shannon’s] creation.” In Long’s third pirate book still in production, she had to think of a compelling reason for the pirates to return for their treasure; consequently, she researched what might have happened to their ship that would have required an expensive repair [excerpted from my Melinda Long profile].
You also might be interested in
Award-winning nonfiction author Kelly Milner Halls uses memories from her[...]
My conversation with Aaron Zenz’s three children was a rare treat![...]
One day a friend foisted a stray dog on Susan[...]
Author Visits
Post Categories:
Blog Archive
Top Posts
Recent Comments
-
I love this series of books!
-
Raven Howell on LitLinks: Did you know goats can teach children about homonyms? Absolutely love this piece you wrote! Thanks for sharing your…
-
Annie Lynn on LitLinks: 3 easy ways to use animals to introduce onomatopoeia Wonderful idea to link sounds and musical instruments to nature…
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with me.