Interview with Chris Adams
Author of Alice the Barn Kitten: Who will play with me?
Chris Adams has always had a love of reading & writing across many genres and is excited to begin to bring creative ideas to life to share with others starting with his first published book, Alice the Barn Kitten, a children's book written in collaboration with his daughter Molly. The partnership & ideation with her was fun, both learned a lot and for the first time reached the milestone of publishing.
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Quick description of the book for a new reader - what should they expect?
- A fun read aimed at young children either as something their parents or an older sibling might read to them or for the new reader to look at on their own. It has animals, friendship and a desire to play!
What was your inspiration for this book?
- It features an original story that we plotted out together inspired from Molly's love of animals in general, and the barn cats that hang out at the farm she takes riding lessons at specifically.
Which authors do you admire? How have they influenced your writing style?
- We both love to read and went back and looked at a lot of children's books together to see the different styles and approaches. My favorite of all time was "Busy Day Busy People", For the hand drawn illustrations style that we chose to go with Molly drew inspiration from favorites like The Day the Crayons Quit.
Can you tell us a little about the locations in your book?
- It is set in a barn and filled with an assortment of barnyard animals, cats, pigs, horses, dogs and more.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
- Find what interests you and try to bring the way you feel about it to life for the readers. Hopefully we did that here.
Could you talk a little about your writing process?
- Molly and I worked closely together to plot out the story page by page. Then we thought about what pictures might best match with the messages and words on each page and she drew an illustration to pair with them. Then we tweaked the wording, had a few people that weren't as close to the work as we were read it and let us know what they thought then tweaked again based on that feedback.
Which character has had the greatest impact on readers?
- Our main character, Alice, who cheerfully keeps asking and looking until she finds someone to play with her seems to resonate the most with young readers. Keep trying and keep looking for friends to play with is a good approach to childhood,,, and life in general!
If the book were to be adapted for TV or film, who would you see in the lead role? Who did you have in your mind’s eye ?
- I'd see this as a Saturday morning cartoon in the unlikely event that that were ever to happen!
How have readers responded ?
- Molly gets excited every time we see a new review on Amazon, or another copy sells. The feedback in general has been very positive, that was a sweet book and that their children enjoyed it.
Where next? What are you working on now?
- We are getting ready to publish our 2nd book, which was also in part inspired by Molly's experiences on the farm that helped serve as a source of inspiration for some of the characters in our first one. It is called Oscar's guide to getting a horse ready to ride. Available soon on Amazon & Kindle!
