Children’s author Maria Gianferrari is both a fiction and nonfiction writer with books that connect young readers to the natural world and the creatures around us all. Her poetic writing is paired with scientific, natural, and animal themes that will reach any young reader where they are. Maria connects her childhood in New England to her books, and I’m so happy to be able to share our interview here.
Leonora: So many of your books center on connecting art and science. Do you feel that the intersection of these two subjects strengthens each other?
Maria: Definitely! Especially poetry/lyrical writing and scientific topics—they are very complementary. I love how poetry and its imagery can encapsulate and make complex scientific topics more concrete and comprehensible.
Some scientific language is in and of itself quite poetic. One of my favorite examples is the way that red-tailed hawks hover while hunting for prey below. It’s called “kiting.” Isn’t that a great image? Here’s how I used it in my book, Hawk Rising when the Father Hawk is flying:
“He rides the wind/like a wave,/twisting and turning,/kiting and floating.”
I used another example in my book, Whoo-Ku Haiku: A Great Horned Owl Story (a book told entirely through haiku poems). Owls and other raptors fold and spread their wings to appear bigger when they’re threatened, or to protect captured prey, eggs, or chicks. It’s called “mantling” which also evokes the image of a cloak or cape.
I love weaving this type of vocabulary into my books.
Leonora: Do you think that children can benefit from learning science through art and storytelling? Why?
Maria: Absolutely. As I mentioned above, science-based picture books can present complex and interesting information in a fun and engaging way. It may help pique a child’s interest in a particular topic or area and encourage them to go deeper and learn more about what they’re interested in.
Leonora: In Thank a Farmer you highlight farming practices and discuss how food and commodities go from the farm to the table. Did you have any personal stories of a-ha moments when it came to understanding the sources of your meals or clothing?
Maria: I grew up in New Hampshire down the street from a farm. Our house was adjacent to a cornfield and across the street from a maple sugar house. In the late winter, our whole neighborhood smelled like cotton candy! We watched the farmers tap the maple trees and hang their covered buckets and saw how they threaded them together with tubing. We got to “help” them pour the sap into a huge vat and watched it boil brown into syrup while eating maple sugar candies. It was such a wonderful way to experience the transformation from sugar maple sap to syrup. I’ll never forget that it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. And then, of course, we also had sugar on snow, which was a delicious taffy-like treat.
Leonora: Your books connect readers with pets and service animals in so many beautiful ways. Do you have any advice for parents as they facilitate relationships between animals and children?
Maria: Thank you! In terms of relationships, I think it’s always important to teach kids to take cues from their animals—they’re always communicating with us, but we sometimes ignore the signs. Cats sometimes get a bad reputation for being too independent, and people often wonder why they seem to be purring one moment, and then hissing or scratching suddenly the next. They often warn us and tell us quite clearly what they want, and they communicate with their tails.
Leonora: How has growing up in New England connected you to nature?
Maria: As I mentioned above, our house near the farm was a very special place. Behind the sugar house were hills where cows roamed in the summer and there was a small pond where we’d search for fish and frogs. Nature was basically our playground. We’d play hide and seek in the cornfield during the summer, race track in the fall, and skate in the mini-ponds between the rows in winter. I was a shy kid and being outside in nature was always where I felt most at home—climbing trees, looking under rocks, exploring, watching birds, digging for clay—all of these things brought me joy, and inspired me to be curious about this beautiful world we live in. It’s not surprising that I write about creatures and the natural world, since I’m still that shy, nature kid at heart, and I want to celebrate nature and share all of the fun and fascinating things that I learn with kids.
Find out more about author Maria Gianferrari on her website and follow her on Instagram for updates, book releases, and events in Massachusetts.
