Meet the Author: Kirsten Ealand

By Lauren Spencer

Kirsten Ealand is a children’s book author from the Northern Rivers of New South Wales. Working part-time as a library assistant, Kirsten shares her love for books and reading with her community. It’s clear from her two picture books, Like a Gannet and The Big Backyard Plan, that they were written from the heart. Lauren Spencer sat down with Kirsten to discuss The Big Backyard Plan and other books that have impressed her.

Thank you, Kirsten, for talking with StoryLinks.

The Big Backyard Plan is about community and breaking down social barriers to build connections. How important is community for you, and in what ways do you make these kinds of connections in your everyday life? Community is very important to me. I live on a multiple occupancy title, which is essentially a rural land share. We have ten shares, each with its own individual ownership, and we all look after our own, but we share a single property. That was one of the inspirations for the book. We see a lot of our neighbours and have meetings to organise things and do things together. I love that about where we live. I buy pretty much everything in my local town. I believe it’s important to look after your community. If you want a strong community, thriving community, everybody needs to put back in. I love going shopping in my street, I know everyone in all the shops, and I really enjoy that.

You mentioned that your first book, Like a Gannet, stemmed from a personal childhood experience. Are there any personal anecdotes in The Big Backyard Plan? I first had the idea when I was a kid. I lived in Sydney on the Northern Beaches. We had quite a big backyard, and I had a trampoline. I spent a lot of time jumping on the trampoline, and I remember clearly thinking, I see all the other backyards and hardly anyone is ever out in them. Everyone had the same sort of things that we had in our backyard, so it seemed wasteful that we all didn’t use our backyards very much, but we all had our own… trampoline or our own washing line, or whipper snippers. I remember thinking, why couldn’t we share all those things and have a bigger backyard? Ever since I had that idea, I have always wanted to write it into a book.

Both Like a Gannet and The Big Backyard Plan reinforce empowering children and their voices. In this busy world of adult life, how do you tap into the voice of your inner child? I think I have quite a strong inner child. I still tap into that childhood, joyful, sort of feeling quite often. It’s quite easy for me to tap into that. I meditate, so that helps to quieten the mind. I just think I’m drawn to that, as I quite like kids, and I enjoy their company. When I do story time, I talk to the kids and connect with them. They are just really in the moment; they’re there, they’re excited about things, and I like that.

In your book The Big Backyard Plan, I found myself discovering tiny details on every page. How did you collaborate with Laura Stitzel on creating this world and how the story evolves? In my manuscript, I had an illustration note saying how I envisaged children of different ages in different family groupings. I tried to put that in the text that there were multiple generations living in one family, and different cultures, like Azumi being Japanese. My publisher got me to include a little character sketch of each child that they were going to show the illustrator. When Laura got it, she just ran with that idea. She put in the two-dad family and a single-mum family. I just love the way she tried to include lots of different people. That was important for the story. Laura went above and beyond what I could have hoped for; all the little details are just so beautiful. Laura tried to progress the story as she went through.

There is a teenage boy, who she imagined cooked his first meal, because the little kids were happy, and his mum had more time to tend to him. Towards the end, the older boy is there, patting the chickens, and he’s really included. I didn’t just want the shared backyard to be a good idea for the kids. I wanted it to show how everybody benefited. I wanted the grandparents, teenage son, and other family members to all get something from their sharing.

I loved how The Big Backyard Plan has reflections on sustainability, especially from the child’s perspective. How did you overcome writing about themes like sustainability and the environment without losing the essence of the story? I didn’t add the themes in; they were there from the beginning. My original idea as a child was that the way we lived didn’t feel sustainable. So, it was sort of an in-built essence from the original story. Sustainability and looking after the environment are important to me in all aspects of my life. From where I shop, what I buy, and the transport I’m using. It didn’t feel like an add-on to me, just an integral part of the story. I think it’s good for kids to start thinking about how they can be the ones who have the big ideas and make a difference. If we look at the way we’re living, we can make choices that will make our lives better, and that’s what I wanted to show. And Laura has done such a good job of showing how beautiful it can be.

Working in a public library, you must get all kinds of reactions from kids and their favourite books. What books are the kids going wild for currently? Kids are genuinely going wild for graphic novels. It’s a big trend, especially once they go on to independent reading. I think it’s a good stepping stone for some kids who want to be reading up. When they want to read big books but aren’t ready for a whole double page of dense text. If that’s too daunting for them, graphic novels are a real in that feels accessible.

The Big Backyard Plan has a lovely rhyming scheme. Are the younger kids more receptive to rhyming books? Oh, yes, if it’s good. I read one the other day called Hello Cocky: A stickybeak at the cockatoo by Hilary Bell and Antonio Pesenti. It’s so beautiful! It has a rhyming scheme, and it’s nonfiction. I love it so much. It’s clever and the illustrations are just superb.  Lots of cockatoo books in the last year or so. Sarah Speedie’s just had a new one out called The Great Dawn Choir, which is about all the birds in the backyard. I don’t know if kids respond better to the rhyme, but I think they want the rhyme to match the story. It’s that connection to the story that the kids love.

What books got you into reading as a kid? I was a big reader. I remember going to my nan’s in the holidays, and she had a box set of the Famous Five, and I would read them every school holiday. We had a lot of golden books. The collections with all the golden books in them. In high school, I used to read all the Sweet Valley High books.

You have spoken previously about being inspired by other authors in your writing. What books have you read recently that had a strong effect on you? Well, I love Hello Cocky by Hilary Bell. It’s such a good rhyme and nonfiction, which I love. I’ve been enjoying South with the Seabirds by Jess McGeachin. I really love this story and the way Jess writes historical and environmental stories. I also think Sakamoto’s Swim Club by Julie Abery is a beautiful book, which is also nonfiction. She writes in spare rhyme, and it makes this story so successful for kids because it says so much in so few words. I set myself a task to write in spare rhyme; I thought that would be a nice challenge. It’s hard but fun, and I love it. Getting the story down is my least favourite part. Playing with the language and finding ways to say it better is what I love most.

Has anything inspired an idea for a new book? Have you got anything in the pipeline? Well, I’m actually working on my own nonfiction using spare rhyme.

That sounds very exciting, good luck with your next project, and thank  you again for talking to StoryLinks.

Kirsten Ealand

Like a Gannet

The Big Backyard Plan