Kate DiCamillo Talks About The Puppets of Spelhorst

A podcast interview with Kate DiCamillo on The Growing Readers Podcast, a production of The Children’s Book Review.

Are you ready to be inspired? Listen to Kate DiCamillo’s enlightening interview on The Growing Readers Podcast. She takes us on a journey into the magical world of The Puppets of Spelhorst and shares the power of storytelling.

Her childhood memories of playing with puppets are a reminder of the beauty and simplicity that can be found in our everyday lives. Her emphasis on perseverance and dedication to doing the work is a testament to the importance of following our dreams. Let Kate’s words encourage you to become the master of your own story and to focus on the beauty and magic in the world around you.

Discussion Topics:

Kate DiCamillo talks about:

• The different themes and meanings readers can take away from The Puppets of Spelhorst
• Where the heart of the story came from, and childhood memories of playing with puppets
• The importance of being the masters of our own stories and how we are all interconnected
• How the art in the book adds to the magic and makes the tale feel timeless
• The power of storytelling to connect people and effect change
• Kids who will see themselves in The Puppets of Spelhorst
• Perseverance as a writer, including experience with rejection letters
• The importance of doing the work and sending it out into the world, using the metaphor of buying a lottery ticket
• Keeping a sense of enchantment and possibility in the world by consciously focusing on beauty and magic

Don’t miss this chance to be inspired!

Listen to the Interview

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Read the Interview

Bianca Schulze

Hi, Kate. Welcome back to the Growing Readers podcast.

Kate DiCamillo

I’m so happy to do this. We had such a good conversation last time, so hopefully, I’ll come up with something new to say.

Bianca Schulze

Well, I was like, hopefully, I come up with some good questions that enable that for you, Kate. So the first one I want to ask you is in that last conversation when we were talking about The Beatrice Prophecy, you talked about feeling vulnerable in the lead-up to a book release. And so I really want to ask you the question. How are you feeling now about your first book in The Norendy Tales: The Puppets of Spelhorst? It’s been out for a couple of days. So what are your feelings?

Kate DiCamillo

Well, I always feel that feeling never goes away, that vulnerability. It’s just like I’ve learned maybe to count that as a positive thing because it means that because I feel so exposed, that means that I must be showing a lot of my heart. And that’s part of the job, right, is to offer up my heart and hopefully to connect with other hearts. And as you said, it’s been a couple of days, and most of the reviews have been out. And so now it’s this thing of talking to readers and the one on one of talking to readers and seeing if it works for them.

Bianca Schulze

It’s funny that you mentioned reviews because that’s going to be kind of what we go to next.

Kate DiCamillo

Okay.

Bianca Schulze

So because you are such an incredible storyteller and you really deliver your tales in such a way that the reader gets to decide what each of your stories means to them. And I just think that I feel like this particular story is a really sneaky story because there’s so much that a reader could choose to take away from it. So I’m going to cheat a little bit because I was kind of coming up with my thoughts, and they felt a bit discombobulated. And so I want to read to you two wonderful quotes from reviews by others. So are you ready?

Kate DiCamillo

Yeah.

Bianca Schulze

Okay. So the Horn Book, in a starred review, wrote a quote: “Like many other stories featuring toys, from Hitty to The Mouse and His Child, there is a strain of melancholy here, with characters who long for autonomy but whose existence is dependent on the imaginations of others. This mood is perfectly captured in digitally rendered pencil drawings that add specificity (a Regency-esque setting in fictional Norendy), dignity, drama, and sheer beauty.” Unquote. And then the next quote is the next review excerpt is from Betsy Bird from a Fuse Eight Production School Library Journal. And what’s actually really cool is that Betsy sent me a message last night, and she actually read the excerpt. So I’m going to pull it up, and we’re going to let Betsy read the excerpt.

Betsy Bird

There’s so much more to talk about with this book. The role of the girls who play with the puppets and how their very different impressions of them cause great changes. The role of the maid, Jane Twiddham, and what she wants. Heck, there’s a whole undercurrent of feminism and the roles puppets and living women play within society. But I suppose I’ll save that for someone else’s thesis. The important thing to understand is that this is a story where it doesn’t matter how physically passive you are. Your interior life, your hopes and dreams and goals, that’s the thing that matters. That’s what’s going to make you an active protagonist in the end, regardless of whether or not you have the ability to move. The puppets of Spellhorse taught me that. Now imagine what it could teach your own.

Kate DiCamillo

It kind of makes me tear up a little bit. Yeah. So, okay, I’ll follow your lead as you talk about that.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, well, when I read Betsy’s review, I was like, I don’t really need to say what I’m thinking because Betsy just said everything I was thinking. So, first of all, thank you, Betsy, for reading that for us. I want to ask you, Kate, since we’ve heard what the Horn book said, what Betsy said, what place in your heart did this story come from, and what is the meaning of the story for you? And I know that this is going to be separate from what other readers may take away from your story, but where in your heart did this story come from?

Kate DiCamillo

Yeah. Wow. What a way to phrase it. I think we talked about this with The Beatryce Prophecy. This is one of the mysteries of this job for me is that I don’t fully know what a story is about until it goes into our readers’ hands. And so it’s like every good and thoughtful critique of it helps me understand my own heart and that thing of how I’m writing behind my own back, I can literally tell you where it came from, and then we can trace it through the tendrils of my heart, if you will. So a friend of mine is an artist and has a workroom, and in the workroom displayed on her shelf was an owl puppet and a wolf puppet that had belonged to her when she was a child. And I saw them, and they spoke to me immediately, and I’m like, can I borrow those? And she said yes. And I took the puppets home, and I put them in my office, and I still have them. It took me forever to figure out what the story was. It was one of those things that I would pick up and put down and pick up and put down, and it didn’t really take off until I put the word wants in there, which is a really powerful word for me, and then also realized that there were more puppets besides just the wolf and the Owl. That realization taps into a childhood memory for me of I grew up in a single parent home. My dad left the family, but he would still visit sometimes and unexpectedly often. We didn’t know when he was coming. And when he came, he came bearing gifts. And one time, he came bearing puppets. And they were these paper machete puppets, quite elegant. And I grew up on a dead-end street in a small town in central Florida, and there was a neighborhood of kids there and we used those puppets to put on a show. And I still remember how much I loved that feeling of getting to tell a story with those puppets. So then, if you’re still with me, how does that tie into my heart? It ties into my nine year old heart, holding those puppets, thinking, what’s the story? And also thinking anything can happen. And there is great power in being the one who gets to tell the story. So it’s really interesting the way that you phrase this question and where it’s brought me to that memory of the puppets. I’ve talked about that a little bit, but not that thing about why and that power of holding them and being the one who got to tell the story. Which goes to Jane Twiddham. Right. And thinking, Wait a minute, I can do it.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, absolutely. I didn’t have puppets as a child, but I also connected with around that same age of putting on plays. And like you said, having the agency to tell a story that feels good and feels right to, you know, Betsy’s point is so really profound and true that it’s just so necessary, that interior life and how it can sustain you and give you courage to live in the world. And so even if you’re not physically moving, you are very much alive because of your dreams.

Do you mind if I read you a passage from the book that I thought captured how the story resonated with my heart?

Kate DiCamillo

Yeah, I would love that.

Bianca Schulze

Great. It kind of reminds me that we’re all a part of each other’s stories. And our stories, while they’re often impacted by others, that we can, and we should try our hardest to be the masters of our own stories. So that’s why I picked this little spot.

“Could you sing the song again?” Said the king to the girl puppet. “Which one?” Said the girl. “I know three songs. I know the song about things that are not wanted. I know the song Jane Twidham sang to herself, and I know the song that Jane and I sang together in the play. I am filled with songs.” “Sing them all,” said the wolf. And then we can remember it all, everything that has happened to us. It’s just as the man in the toy store said to the boy, we were in a story together.”

And I loved that specific moment because I think it does tie in that agency of our own stories, but also remembering that we are all interconnected. I specifically really liked that spot.

Kate DiCamillo

It was beautiful to hear you read it. Thank you. And it’s great because you never know if a story is working. And I do want to talk about the art for a minute, because Betsy also talked about the art. No, it was Horn Book that talked about the art, but Betsy talked about it, too, and what it adds and what it does to heighten the magic and to make the tale feel timeless. And as you were reading, this is what made me think of the art. I disappeared this old 59-year-old me, and I listened to you like I was eight years old, which is the same thing that the art did as it rolled in. It was just like the story had nothing to do with me, and I got to live in this story through the art. And that’s the same way I felt when you were reading. It’s like, great. That has nothing to do with me, but I’m in. Do you know what I mean?

Bianca Schulze

Definitely, yeah. The artwork by Julie Morstad. Do you have a specific illustration that you specifically liked the most, or is it just all collective?

Kate DiCamillo

It’s collective, but I have to give a shout-out to that two-page spread that ends the book. And I won’t say what it is, but it arrives for me each time. It’s like a jolt of electricity. It’s so right and true. And, you know, when I was editing the book with my editor that was written, what is occurring in that illustration? And my editor said, I think we should do it without the words. And I said, absolutely not. Kill your darling kind of thing. And then I said, okay, I’ll try. And it is so much more powerful without the words. Just to turn the page and see that.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, I can see that. That would have been hard to let go. But such an amazing choice because I feel as though it’s definitely a discussion book. It’s a book that I hope that adults will read alongside their kids or with their kids or to their kids. And that is when you get to that double-page illustration at the end. And no spoilers here, but I feel like that is just a great opportunity to open up discussion and get to the heart of what the story meant to the individual readers. I really think that that illustration allows for that so beautifully.

Kate DiCamillo

Yeah. And you just tumble into it. You’re there. It’s a portal. That art is.

Bianca Schulze

Absolutely. All right, well, it’s time to talk about the characters now. Do you have a copy of the book next to you, by chance? Would you be open to reading the prologue? Because I think it’s a nice short snappy way to sort of introduce who all the characters are for our listeners. Yeah.

Kate DiCamillo

Once there was a king and a wolf and a girl with a shepherd’s croak and a boy with arrows and a bow. And also there was an owl. The king had a beard made of human hair. The wolf’s teeth were bared in a snarl. The girl wore a green cloak. The arrows and the boy’s quiver were sharp enough to prick a finger. As for the owl, his feathers were real. The king and the wolf and the girl and the boy and the owl lay jumbled together at the bottom of a trunk that had the word Spelhorst stenciled in gold letters on its lid and sides. The king and the wolf and the girl and the boy and the owl were puppets, and they were waiting for a story to begin.

Bianca Schulze

Yes. All right, so I am happy to talk about as many characters as you want to, but I’ve picked two that I would love you to elaborate on more. I picked the girl, and I also picked the wolf, and I want to know a little bit just about those characters. The reason I just think the girl really spoke to me almost as though she felt like the most relatable character to me and who I am. And then the wolf, the comedy that the wolf brings, but that there’s also a depth to the wolf that he’s always wanting everybody to know he has those sharp teeth. And then you have to think about his core. Why does he need everybody to know that he has these shop teeth?

Kate DiCamillo

Yeah, you’re right.

Let’s start with the girl. Because it’s funny, I haven’t talked about the girl at all. I’ve talked about the wolf quite a bit because of that comedic relief and because that wolf is so insistent on her. Like, my teeth are well and truly sharp.

She just takes over a scene, but the girl is in the background. And to hear you talk about the girl makes me realize that because the girl is doing what I’m always doing, she’s watching, and she’s listening, and she’s hoping. So you identify with the girl, and hearing you talk about her and me thinking about her, it’s just like, yeah, that’s me. That’s the person who’s watching the moon come up.

I can’t remember who said this, that the artist’s duty is to pay attention and report back. And so that girl puppet is our artist, and the wolf puppet, yes. Is comedic relief, but also underneath that is, like you said, that core of that desperate need to be seen for who she is, and that’s what delivers the pathos with her. So it was really fun to write that wolf because I myself always need to laugh, but I felt that undercurrent of need with her and she kind of broke my heart, too.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, well, so I picked the girl and the wolf. Why don’t you pick one other character that you would like to speak about today?

Kate DiCamillo

I will talk about the owl because so much of this started with that owl and because that was another really fun thing to do. Because what you do is the owl understands that as an owl, he’s supposed to be very wise, right? So he says these portentous, often meaningless things that aren’t wise at all but yet have a certain poetic grace to them in a weird way. So it was very fun, and again, because you could use the owl’s utterances as a comedic beat. But then there comes the thing about the owl and what the owl longs for, which is flight. Again, that underpins it’s that longing that gives the owl an emotional resonance. So a really fun character to write.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah.

All right, well, so now I feel like this is the classic question for authors in terms of you’ve written the book, what’s a highlight from the book for you? And it could be a feeling, it could be a specific passage that you wrote. We did talk about Julie Moorstad’s double-page spread at the end, so you can cheat and say that’s your favorite part. But I’m going to ask you to dig deep and pick something that you brought to the book.

Kate DiCamillo

I’m going to see if I can find this.

It’s page 69.

This was almost well, it doesn’t matter when it was, but it was before the book came out. And I did an event in Deadwood, South Dakota, and the person who interviewed me read aloud this passage and I was sitting next to her in front of an audience. And it moved me so much that I’ll read it to you and see. So, in chapter 14

 On the mantle, His Majesty the King had given some thought to his circumstances and had grown quite agitated. How can they be taken away one by one? It does not seem right to me. I command someone to make it different. What kind of different do you want it to be? Said the girl. I want it to be a world where songs are sung every day. I want us to be together. I command the world to be different. Emma is writing a story with all of us in it, said the girl. We will all be together again. I do believe it will happen. I hope so, at least. So when the person who was doing the interview read that she was talking about somebody that she had lost and how they had been together in story, and it made me realize that it’s always that thing that happens when I write where the story is smarter than I am. But that passage just kind of sums up what story can do for us and how it can connect us. And also just that need that the King is kind of ridiculous, a little bit too with his kind of, like, utterances that a king would make, but I command it to be different. I want it to be a different world. And stories are a way to make the world different and a way to affect change.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, absolutely. The king I kept wavering on is the king telling me that it’s not enough to just shout to the world, I command it to be different. You actually have to do. You have to do, you can’t just say it, but then at the same time, it actually has to start with saying it. You have to have the thought. You have to have the thought to want the change before the action anyway. So it was, like, crazy to me. You can’t just shout, you want the change. You have to make the change. But you can’t make the change because you’re currently stuck. But actually, that is how the change begins because you said it out loud.

Kate DiCamillo

Right. And it goes back to Betsy Bird’s point about the know. It’s like, we might be unable to move right now, but the dream ultimately can Animate know. And so, yes, I command it to be different. Just the mere acknowledgment that things need to be different has power.

Bianca Schulze

All right, well, often, as creators for kids, we talk about providing children with the opportunity to be seen and to see the experience of others. So who are the kids that you imagine will see themselves in The Puppets of Spelhorst?

Kate DiCamillo

I imagine that there will be more than a few girl puppets, as it were, out there. Those people who watch and then think, how can that watching be turned into a story? And there might be. Wouldn’t this be wonderful? A kid who has to announce her ferocity all the time and realizes that behind it, there is something else that can be done rather than just shouting about how sharp, well, and truly sharp her teeth are? There is a different way to be in the world, and that could be by connecting to other people and being in that story.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, I think that’s a great answer. So when I talk to you, and I read your books, and I see statistics such as your books have sold more than 44 million copies, it’s amazing. It’s tough for me to fathom that you have received 473 rejection letters in your lifetime for your writing. So where did your perseverance as a writer come from? To not give up and to keep trying? Because as readers, we are so glad that you did not give up.

Kate DiCamillo

I’m so glad I didn’t give up, too. And I’ve got that number of rejection letters as part of a PowerPoint when I talk to kids about becoming writers, and that’s okay. So you write a story, and after a while, you think it’s good enough that you can send it out. And then I always say to the kids, what do you get when you send the story out, and they will generally shout money. And I’m like, no, what you get is a rejection letter. Then I ask them to guess how many rejection letters, and they’ll say 15. Some smart alecks sometimes will say 50, and everybody will go, Haha. And then I put that number up, 473, and there’s just this collective chaos. And I always say to them, every time I stand underneath this number, I think the same thing. What would have happened if I’d given up at 471? I would not be this person who gets to do what I feel I was put here to do, which is to tell stories. Back to your question. How do you keep on going? For me, it was because I had decided when I was in college that I wanted to be a writer. What that meant for me at the time was that I was going to wear black turtlenecks and sit around looking bored and disdainful and tell everybody I was a writer and not write anything. And so I spent almost ten years doing that posturing, pretending. By the time I sat down and started writing, I knew that I just had the emotional math of it down, which is that I couldn’t make myself talented, I couldn’t make myself lucky, but I could make myself do the work. And I could be absolutely relentless about putting the work out there. So that was why I didn’t give up because I knew that by the time I sat down and started doing it, it all depended on whether or not I was going to buy a lottery ticket, as it were. That joke about, Please, God, let me win the lottery, and finally, God says, Meet me halfway, buy a ticket. And so I was going to buy the ticket. I was going to keep on buying the ticket.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, I feel like that’s a great message for everybody. It’s like you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy the ticket.

Kate DiCamillo

And buying the ticket is sitting down and doing the work and also sending the work out into the world. And buying the ticket is also listening to people when they tell you what needs to be different. Buying the ticket is compromising. It’s a complicated ticket, but it’s entirely up to you, that ticket.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, absolutely. And then I also just have to point out that you kind of started your response how maybe you were posing first what you thought a writer looked like with your black turtleneck. And here you are today, sitting with your black turtleneck on, you’ve got your glasses on your head, your chin resting in your hands.

Kate DiCamillo

And I just that’s always the picture of, yeah, no, you’re right. And you say all that, and I think, wow, lucky me that the dream came true.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, it can come true. And I’m glad it did for you. Let’s see. All right, can we take a quick moment to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Tales of Despereux, which has 6 million copies in print and counting? So how does that feel?

Kate DiCamillo

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I mean, 20 years, and it’s that thing where it will happen in a signing line, and it always kind of, like, knocks me sideways when somebody comes through the line and says casually, my fourth-grade teacher read this to me. And now I’m reading it to my fourth graders, and I want to go, everybody stop what you’re doing. Listen to this miracle. Because to me, it also taps into one of my favorite things, which is the power of a teacher reading aloud to a classroom.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, absolutely. Well, something fun about the 20th-anniversary copies of Despero is that they also include a brand new short story titled The Tapestry at Norendy. So I thought maybe you could share with listeners a little bit more about this setting of Norendy what kind of world it is, and how many more stories you imagine are going to take place there.

Kate DiCamillo

Yeah. So this is the first time that Norendy showed up, was in this story for Despero Candlelic Press when they were deciding to do a 20th anniversary edition. It’s like, okay, we’ll have new art from Tim, and why don’t you write an original story? And I was like, this is me. I say this a lot. Absolutely not. I can’t do that. That’s impossible. No. And then, okay, I’ll think about it same as the art at the end of The Puppets of Spelhorst. And then I came back to him and said, I’ll try, but I don’t know. And then it was just kind of like I found that there was a little door and that I could pull on it and go back into this world. And it was deeply satisfying. And I won’t tell what that story is about, other than I’ll say that Princess P has grown up and has become a queen, but that’s all I’ll give away about it. But once I was in there, it’s kind of like, oh, wait a minute, Norendy. This is a place where, you know, a wind can blow through, and a tapestry can lift up and show you this other world hiding inside of this world. And so I just kind of, like, latched onto that idea. I said to my know, what if we called these other fairy tale novellas that are coming? What if they’re all taking place in Norendy? And she said, Where’s Norendy? And I said, Here, but you kind of have to squint a little bit. And so we both kind of like it just seemed full of possibility to both of us.

Bianca Schulze

I love the way you phrased that here, but you just have to squint a little bit. And I think that’s the perfect definition or explanation of what it feels like as a reader to visit in there. It feels like here, but you’re squinting a little bit.

Kate DiCamillo

Yeah.

Bianca Schulze

I love that.

Kate DiCamillo

I’m glad that it feels that way. As the.

Bianca Schulze

You know, when I was in the first few chapters, it does have that real classic kind of storytelling feeling to it. And I remembered back to a collection of Hans Christian Anderson fable stories that I had at home, and that cover was always just tatted because we read it over and over and over again. And just reading The Puppets of Spellhorse took me back to that feeling of such sort of classic storytelling.

Kate DiCamillo

You could not have said, because I’ve got my own copy. I had a copy when I was a kid, but I’ve got my own copy as an adult of Christian Anderson that I return to again and again and again and again. So, I mean, that’s a huge compliment. Thank you.

Bianca Schulze

Pleasure. And I wish that I still had that specific book because I can still see the purple I don’t know what the illustration actually was, but I see the lavender purple border around the yeah. All right. So I also have a copy of Ferris, your next book, which is at the top of my TB red pile. It’s right over here.

Kate DiCamillo

Hi, Ferris.

Bianca Schulze

But I have to do a little shameless plug for myself because our upcoming books actually share the same release date of March 5, 2024. And the title is Catitude. So like attitude. But catitude.

Kate DiCamillo

Wow. All right.

Bianca Schulze

It’s a picture book. And it’s fun.

Speaker 2 37:06

Honored to share a release date with you.

Bianca Schulze

You’re far too kind.

All right. Well, I hate to go sort of, I guess, down in feeling, but honestly, with all the sort of broken and horrific things that are happening on Earth, like even as we sit here and speak today, we don’t have to go too deep because there does need to be a level of light in the world that we can hope to spread. But I do want to know, how do you keep your sense that the world is surprising and enchanting and has the possibility to be better? What do you do as a creator to tap into that?

Kate DiCamillo

One of the things that I do is consciously move my mind away. Like, when I go on a walk, which I do a lot, I do a lot of walking. And instead of looking for what’s not there or relentlessly going over all the terrible news in my head as I’m walking, it’s like I can feel, like, kind of like a physical shove of, like, okay, that needs to stay there. Let me look at all the beauty that’s here, and let me pay attention to that. And that beauty once I lock into it because it’s everywhere in faces that I walk past and dogs that I stop and talk to and the trees that I greet as long as nobody else is coming along to see me greeting the trees once I lock into that beauty. Then right behind it is all the magic and the possibility, and there are some days when I wake up and think,

Kate DiCamillo

what possible difference could a story make? And then I think, no, this is the thing that I’ve been given to do that I can do, and to not do it would be really wrong. So let me tap into that hope and possibility and magic and do what I can do, which is tell the story.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, I just got the tingles from that response. Well, just as you tell audiences at your author visits and talks, you say, go home and read to your adult. I’m going to be putting you on the spot here, but is there a book nearby you with a passage that you’d like to read to me today? It can be anything like, is there anything calling to you that you’ve read recently or you have bookmarked, and if you don’t it’s okay?

Kate DiCamillo

Yeah, no. How about I go and get a poem that I read this morning and an anthology? Is that good?

Bianca Schulze

I would love that.

Kate DiCamillo

Okay. Hold up.

Okay. Boy, this is fun. Thank you for letting me do it.

Bianca Schulze

You’re welcome.

Kate DiCamillo

I love the chance to do it. So, this is in a collection that is actually for the board members of the National Poetry Series. And it’s like it’s not published, but I got it from a friend, Anne Patchett, who’s in it, and everybody got to select a poem. So Kevin Wilson, who is a wonderful writer, selected this poem by Mark Strand called Fiction.

I think of the innocent lives of people in novels who know they’ll die but not that the novel will end. How different they are from us here. The moon stares dumbly down through scattered clouds onto the sleeping town, and the wind rounds up the fallen leaves and somebody, namely me, deep in his chair, rifles the pages left, knowing there’s not much time for the man. And the woman in the rented room for the soldiers under the trees that line the river for the wounded being hauled away to the cities of the interior where they will stay. The war that raged for years will come to a close, and so will everything else, except for a presence hard to define, a trace like the scent of grass after a night of rain or the remains of a voice that lets us know without spelling it out not to despair. If the end comes, it too will pass.

Bianca Schulze

It’s kind of a fitting piece for right.

Kate DiCamillo

It spoke to me so much this morning when I read it because I was going to say to you thank you for acknowledging everything that I mean, the absolute horror, and acknowledging that we still have to find a way to bring light and hope always.

Bianca Schulze

Well, before we go, Kate, I have to give a shout-out to the incredible piece that Casey Sept did on you. For The New Yorker, it beautifully delivers the message that, as a fictional author, your stories are not autobiographical, but they are an emotional truth. And I want everyone to go read this. So the piece is titled, quote, What Kate DiCamillo Understands About Children, unquote. And the subtitle is, quote: Her books for young readers have sold more than 44 million copies. They are full of yearning, loneliness, ambivalence and worry. Unquote. And I have to say that it absolutely broke me when I reached the end, and I was crying physically so hard that my body was shaking. And in an honest move to avoid talking about why it broke me. Although maybe someday we will have that conversation. I’m going to share what might be a really surprising excerpt for you from which I need to know more about. So, Casey Sepp wrote about you. Quote:

“The closest thing to luxury in her house is two pairs of slippers, one under her writing desk, the other under her claw foot tub. During a tour of Eudora Welty’s home in Jackson, Mississippi, she was struck by the humanity of the novelist’s slippers, which were still waiting faithfully under her bathrobe long after her death. Di Camillo talked about them so much that her best childhood friend, Tracy Bailey, got her one pair, and her best writing friend, the author Anne Patchett, got her another.”

Unquote. So, Kate, what are the slippers? Because I might need to add them to my wish list.

Kate DiCamillo

Should I go and get you the slippers and show them to you?

Bianca Schulze

I would love that.

Kate DiCamillo

All right. Hold on.

So those are the ones that Tracy Bailey—

Bianca Schulze

Okay, wait, you’re going to freak out right now.

Kate DiCamillo

How fantastic is that? It’s exactly the same.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, we have the same it’s exactly the same.

Kate DiCamillo

And those are the ones that sit under the tub, and these are the ones that sit under the desk. And they’re like I slip them on. I’ve said this to Anne in the summertime. I don’t flip them on because it’s too hot. But now I have about six months where every morning I will split these on, and I feel like I am stepping into the role of the storyteller when I do it.

Bianca Schulze

Okay, that is so funny that I don’t know. I mean, there’s so many things we could have talked about from that New Yorker article, and I chose to bring the light and talk about the slippers and the fact that the first pair you showed me, I’m literally wearing the.

Kate DiCamillo

Exactly what are the chances? They’re really kind of infinitesimal. The chances that we would I mean, it’s almost impossible. There are so many slippers in the world. I mean, come I at some point, maybe you’ll let me come back when Ferris is out in the world. If you’re—I mean, I don’t know how often I get to come on, but.

Bianca Schulze

I will make time for you, Kate.

Kate DiCamillo

We’ll talk more about what a profound experience it was for Casey Sept to come for me, for her to come here. It was that thing of—it taps into one of my favorite stories from Isaac Denison about the Stork and a person who I won’t go into at all. But it’s just like it helped me see the pattern of my life to have that intelligent, that fierce intelligence, and that humanity of Casey Sept looking at me. So I’m glad that the article moved you.

Bianca Schulze

Yeah, it physically moved me. My husband is like, what is wrong? I was like, I will have to tell you in a few minutes.

Kate DiCamillo

I will tell that to her. It will matter to her, and it matters to me.

Bianca Schulze

Well, in a world that moves fast, except when we take a moment to listen to a podcast or, even better, read a book, what is one important message you would like to leave with the growing readers’ listeners today?

Kate DiCamillo

Let’s go all the way back to Betsy Bird. Let’s go back to that. If you have an interior life, if you dare to dream, then you can also affect change. Let’s do that.

Bianca Schulze

I love that I had to just mute because my eyes started watering, and my mascara started running, and my nose is running because, honestly, the New Yorker piece really it’s like I still am thinking about it. So sorry.

Kate DiCamillo

No, it really will matter so much to Casey. So I’ll tell her that.

Bianca Schulze

Well, Kate, I would love to finish after that beautiful answer that you just gave, on a philosophical note. The more I read your fictional stories and learn about your personal story, the more I realize that I am Kate di Camillo. You are me. And what I mean by that is if only we all took the time to notice our stories, crossing paths and linking together, that our involvement and impacts on our stories and the stories of others, we’d all discover we are part of each other. So what impacts you is likely to affect me. And maybe then the world could become a kinder place than it is. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for writing The Puppets of Spellhost. Thank you for writing all your books. And most importantly, thank you for sharing your time with me today. I’ve loved every second.

Kate DiCamilloI, too, have loved every second. And I don’t have mascara on, so you can’t tell that I’m crying, but I am. And thank you. So thank you for bringing your whole self to a story and for the safe place to talk about what matters and for making me think and for making me feel today. Thank you.

About the Book

Publisher’s Book Summary: From master storyteller Kate DiCamillo comes an original fairy tale—with enchanting illustrations by Julie Morstad—in which five puppets confront circumstances beyond their control with patience, cunning, and high spirits.

Shut up in a trunk by a taciturn old sea captain with a secret, five friends—a king, a wolf, a girl, a boy, and an owl—bicker, boast, and comfort one another in the dark. Individually, they dream of song and light, freedom and flight, purpose and glory, but they all agree they are part of a larger story, bound each to each by chance, bonded by the heart’s mysteries. When at last their shared fate arrives, landing them on a mantel in a blue room in the home of two little girls, the truth is more astonishing than any of them could have imagined.

A beloved author of modern classics draws on her most moving themes with humor, heart, and wisdom in the first of the Norendy Tales, a projected trio of novellas linked by place and mood, each illustrated in black and white by a different virtuoso illustrator. A magical and beautifully packaged gift volume designed to be read aloud and shared, The Puppets of Spelhorst is a tale that soothes and strengthens us on our journey, leading us through whatever dark forest we find ourselves in.

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Show Notes

Kate DiCamillo is one of America’s most beloved storytellers. She is a former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and a two-time Newbery Medalist. Born in Philadelphia, she grew up in Florida and now lives in Minneapolis.

Resources:

For more information about Kate DiCamillo and her books, visit ⁠https://www.katedicamillo.com/⁠.

Thank you for listening to the Growing Readers Podcast episode: Kate DiCamillo Talks About The Puppets of Spelhorst. For the latest episodes from The Growing Readers Podcast, Subscribe or Follow Now.