Caroline Starr Rose

award-winning picture book and middle-grade author

Classroom Connections: What Goes Up by Wen Baragrey

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age range: 8-12 years
genre: contemporary fiction
Wen’s website

A quirky, heartwarming story of family and friendship. –Kirkus Reviews

With warmth and whimsy, What Goes Up explores the security of friendship, the permanence of family, and the comfort that comes from learning the place you belong. –Caroline Starr Rose, author of May B.

Please tell us about your book.

What Goes Up is about Robyn Tinkerbell Goodfellow, a girl who is surrounded by some very eccentric people in the quirky small town of Calliope. When she learns that a satellite has failed and will be crashing back down to earth soon, she believes that it will land on her house, with good reason. Everything from trees and kites to toys and sky divers has landed on her roof, earning it the nickname the Magnet Roof. Before the satellite squashes her and her home, Robyn needs to find her long-lost father so that he can either save her, or rename her so people won’t laugh when they hear she’s been tragically squashed.

Robyn is the sort of heroine with a can-do attitude, even when “can-don’t” might be a better idea. Her adventures lead her to meet some interesting people in some unexpected places. But will they lead her to the truth?

I hope that What Goes Up will provide both laughter and some thoughtful moments for its readers.

What inspired you to write this story?

What Goes Up came from thinking about things that frightened me when I was Robyn’s age. The most memorable for me was when the Skylab satellite fell back to earth. From the moment I heard about it, I just knew it was going to land on my house. I wrote a will and even gave some of my things to my friends so they might remember me after my tragic demise. I’m not sure I got much of it back, come to think of it! But at that age, things like statistics and logic didn’t matter much to me. My world was getting bigger, and that made me feel smaller and more vulnerable. That felt like a very middle grade sort of thing to write about.

Wen, you aren’t going to believe this, but I just Googled Skylab and realized it’s the exact same satellite I worried about falling on me when I was a girl in Saudi Arabia! I wonder how many kids around the world felt the same? 

Oh, Caroline isn’t that awesome?! I bet there were a LOT of us! It was so scary, and when you’re a kid it feels like the whole world is centered on YOU, so how could a falling satellite possibly land anywhere else? 🙂 It sure left an impression on me.

Could you share with readers how you conducted your research or share a few interesting tidbits you learned while researching? 

Most of my research, other than the details about falling satellites, involved learning more about albinism. I have a few visually impaired friends and acquaintances with albinism who were a great help, especially one who did a sensitivity reading for me. As someone with a disability myself, I wanted to write Robyn as a person who happens to have albinism, rather than the other way around.

What are some special challenges associated with writing a setting you’re not familiar with? 

The biggest challenge I had when it came to the setting was making sure it felt American enough, since I’m a New Zealander. While I might write “rubbish” instead of “trash”, “torch” instead of flashlight, and “jandals” instead of “flip-flops”, it turns out that small towns, eccentric folks, and people in general are the same wherever you go. I made up the town of Calliope and the idea of it being a small town trying to hold on to its individuality when surrounded by a big city. It surprised me to discover that there are a few places in the world in the same position!

What topics does your book touch upon that would make it a perfect fit for the classroom?

I think one of the themes in What Goes Up that means a lot to me is acceptance. The people of Calliope are an eccentric bunch, with Robyn’s own family and even her home being a good example of that. That doesn’t mean Robyn hasn’t faced down her own set of challenges when it comes to being accepted, but she deals with those in humorous and creative ways. Robyn is the sort of girl who accepts others and herself in equal measure, and I think some of her difficulties pose some good discussion points.

Through her adventures, for better or worse, Robyn learns what it means to be a good friend, that facing down your difficulties is a lot easier if you have someone beside you, and that family isn’t just who you’re related to, but who is there for you, too.

Thank you for having me, Caroline, and for your wonderful blurb for What Goes Up!

It was my pleasure. Your readers are in for a treat.

2018 Handsprings Writing Conference — Join Us!

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I’ve donated these goodies for the Handsprings Silent Auction.

Are you a writer or illustrator who lives in New Mexico? Are you a teacher, librarian, or parent simply interested in learning more about the inner workings of children’s literature? Please consider attending the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ Handsprings Conference October 26+27 at the Bosque Retreat Center in ABQ.

Faculty includes Patrick Collins, Creative Director, Henry Holt Books for Young Readers; Lara Perkins, Agent, Andrea Brown Literary Agency; Sara Sargent, Executive Editor, HarperCollins Children’s Books; and authors Chris Eboch, Shirley Duke, and Caroline Starr Rose (that would be me!).

Click through to learn more about Handsprings. We’d love to see you there!

In Your Shoes: An Interview with Donna Gephart

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A unique and compelling novel from a master storyteller. —School Library Journal, starred review

Please tell us about your book.

I love this book. It was so hard to write, though. For a long time, I couldn’t figure out how to put all these ideas I had into one cohesive book. It took a couple years and a multiple attempts, but I finally created a novel in which a neurotic, bowling-obsessed boy connects with a sad, writing-obsessed girl and forges a meaningful friendship that includes all the colorful people in their lives. It’s loosely based on the Cinderella story, and has a story within a story, which was a ton of fun to write.

Do your books generally begin with a character, an idea you’d like to explore, or the beginnings of a plot? How did In Your Shoes begin for you?

A friend talked to me about her bowling-obsessed, nerdy sons and husband. The stories she told were funny and heart-warming. “I have to write about this someday,” I told my friend, because I was recalling the part bowling played in my childhood and beyond. I let that idea simmer along with some others I wanted to explore — a girl with a compulsion to write in order to make sense of her world, a fairy tale written by the character that mirrors what’s happening in the actual novel and a smart, science-y, snarky narrator that pops in from time to time with fascinating facts and bits of wisdom. I always feel like it’s a bit of literary magic that somehow these cool disparate ideas form into a cohesive, engaging whole.

Words like tenderness, heart, humor, and compassion are often used to describe your books. What is it you hope your writing conveys to young readers?

I have a singular goal when I write for young people: that reading my books makes them feel less alone in this world.

Miles is a worrier. Amy is a writer. What do these characters have in common?

They both have big hearts and the capacity to be caring, supportive friends when most needed. Each of them has suffered loss . . . and spends the entirety of the story navigating their way through.

Let’s talk about your beautiful Christopher Silas Neal cover. We’ve got a bowling shoe, a polka dot tennis shoe, a barefoot Miles looking up to Amy, and a barefoot Amy lost in a book. How does it capture In Your Shoes?

How lucky that Christopher Silas Neal created such a perfect cover for In Your Shoes. The reader might wonder why Miles is looking at Amy like that and why Amy seems miles away (pardon the pun). And what is she writing in that book? The cover is an ideal invitation for the reader to open the book and begin looking for answers to their questions.

Racing Around the World: Two Lady Journalists, 75 Days

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For over a year I’ve been sitting on this news, and now I can come right out and tell you: I have a picture book coming out Fall 2019, my second with Albert Whitman. It’s called RACING AROUND THE WORLD: TWO LADY JOURNALISTS, 75 DAYS and is about Nellie Bly’s famous circumnavigational trip. 

I grew up with a book about the one-of-a-kind, trailblazing journalist, Nellie Bly. In January 2017, I thought I’d try my hand at writing my own book about her. There are a number of children’s books about Nellie — she’s just that compelling. But only a couple focused exclusively on her race, and none mentioned her competitor, Elizabeth Bisland. It was only in reading a fascinating book called Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman that I found out about Elizabeth and knew this was the story I wanted to tell. (Even Nellie spent most of her trip unaware of Elizabeth!) 

When I told my editor, Wendy, about the idea for the book, she told me she’d also grown up with a Nellie book, she’d also recently read Goodman’s book, and a great-great uncle of hers had taken a similar (though less famous) trip. She summed up her interest in one capitalized word: INTRIGUED.

Here’s the official deal from Publisher’s Weekly:

Wendy McClure at Albert Whitman & Company has acquired world rights to Caroline Starr Rose’s picture book RACING AROUND THE WORLD: TWO LADY JOURNALISTS, 75 DAYS, the true story of Nellie Bly, who in 1889 set out across the Atlantic on a journey around the world that she hoped to complete in less than 80 days, and her rival, Elizabeth Bisland, who embarked on a competing westward trip the very same day.  Alexandra Bye will illustrate; publication is planned for fall 2019. Tracey Adams at Adams Literary represented the author and Emily Coggins at Astound represented the illustrator.

This book has been an adventure and a joy to write. I’ve always adored Nellie, but it’s Elizabeth I relate to in her hunger for travel and the beauty she found in the world. These women were remarkable. I can’t wait to share their story with you!

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