Andrew Larsen

An interview with local children's author, Andrew Larsen, for the Lillian H. Smith Story Project.

Larsen, Andrew

Wong, Christina

MP3

August 8, 2015

Downtown (Toronto, Ont.)

Kensington-Chinatown (Toronto, Ont.)

Wong, Christina

Wong, Christina

Larsen, Andrew

Lillian H. Smith Branch.

00:01 Speaker 1: I was born in Montreal, I moved here when I was about 12, and I still remember the library that I used to go to in Montreal as being a very special place that I would go to with my mom on Saturdays, and it didn't seem like a chore, it didn't seem like something we had to do, it was kind of exciting, I think largely because it was a new and beautiful building. And I went to high school, and went to university, and was a perpetual university student for a long, long time, I had part-time jobs that would pay for my love of university. And I worked in restaurants to pay for my love of going to school. The thing is, I never remembered that I wanted to get out of restaurants, that I had to make a choice to stop working in restaurants, because the money was so alluring.

01:02 S1: At a certain point though, I was working as a manager of a restaurant, and I found out one morning that the restaurant was gonna close that night suddenly because of a business dispute between the owner and the landlord. And at that time, I was working, my wife, Ester, was at home with our daughter, Bella. So, she was a stay-at-home mom, we were a single income family, everything was great, but suddenly I was not gonna have any kind of income. And my wife decided upon hearing that news, that she actually would really like to get out of the house. And I'd always said to her, "You're so lucky that you get to stay at home with Bella." She said, "Well, now it's your turn." And so within 24 hours, she had turned her part-time volunteer position into a full-time paid position, and suddenly I was at home with our daughter.

01:58 Speaker 2: The roles was reversed...

02:00 S1: Yeah, a complete reversal. And you kind of have to be careful of what you wish for, because I was not at all expecting being a stay-at-home dad to be what it is.

02:07 S2: Right.

02:09 S1: And I thought to myself, "This is challenging, it's great, but what am I gonna do beyond being a stay-at-home dad?" And I started thinking, because we would read books a lot, and I started thinking, "Maybe I could do this, maybe I could write a kid's book?" Because I was really loving reading kid's books to my daughter, Bella. And I tried, and at first it was not going very well at all, and I realized the simplicity of it is deceptive, because it's really difficult. I mean, you can write something that rhymes, but that looks forced, or you can write a story, but it's hard to write something that works. And I guess I was at it for... I don't know, a year, maybe a year and a half, and I wrote something, and as I was writing it, I knew it was different than anything else I'd written, and I knew that that was going to be the thing that I was gonna try and get into the world of kid's books with.

03:13 S1: And it worked, and so my first book got published. I saw myself or I began to see myself as someone who was not just a stay-at-home or who was not just someone looking for a job that they would eventually go into, but I began to look at myself as an author. And around that time we had our second child, Charlie, and when Charlie was... I guess he was about two, because Bella was in grade one, I believe, when I started staying at home. Charlie was about two-years-old, and I'd been hearing all these people talking about this great program, or this great series of programs here at the Lillian Smith Library.

04:05 S1: And we're in walking distance, but the programs that we have been going to were at different libraries, but I was hearing all this talk about programs at the Lillian Smith Library, and how they're amazing. And this is from other parents on the playground at school, and just other people that we knew. So, I ventured down here one day, and I don't know the name of the program, but it was Joanne Schwartz who was running, and it completely changed my world. And why did it change my world? Well, it was probably the first thing that my son and I had done together outside of our circle of friends, it was almost like going to school, you come here every whatever day it was, Tuesday or Thursday, and we would walk though the university campus, and that's a great walk.

04:54 S1: But Joanne's Toddler Time, or whatever it was called, was mind blowing. I got to mingle with other parents, Charlie got to mingle with other kids that he didn't know, I got to learn songs and hand games, or lap games, or whatever you call them. But more importantly, Joanne introduced us as parents, as new parents, whether it was our first child, or our second child, or third, but as new parents, she introduced us to the world of books, of children's books. And not your run of the mill children's books that you'd find on display in a store, but children's literature.

05:36 S2: Yes, she's so good at that.

05:38 S1: She's amazing. And I mean it's funny, because we've since become friends, and I don't know what she studied in university, I mean she would have studied library sciences, but I don't know if she studied children's literature, I know she's an author. But she introduced us to this whole world, and at the beginning of every class, she'd come down with a armful of books. And she would talk about different books and what it was that made those books work with kids and what it was that was special about those books. And I think probably 95% of them I had never heard of. I had never heard of the authors. And she would have them there for us to check out. If you wanted to after the Toddler Time. And I started reading these things, and I started exploring the whole world of children's literature. And I think that that greatly, greatly, greatly influenced the writer that I've since become. I realized the potential in children's literature. And she's a great reader herself to kids. And in seeing how she read books to kids and how she engaged kids with her style of reading, I learned from that. But it became something that I looked forward to doing with Charlie, that Charlie likes doing.

07:05 S2: So nice.

07:05 S1: And you always like... As a parent, when there is something that you do that your kid really likes. And after the Toddler Time, we would hang around a little bit, talk to the parents and such. But we come up to the children's section and hang out there. And they've got nice, comfortable chairs. So, Charlie would often just situate himself on one of those chairs, and I would just look around at what there was. And sometimes, Joanne would have read a book by a particular author and then I would go and see what other books they had written. And I would go home with a stack of books. And during the course of the week until the next Toddler Time, I would read these books for fun to myself and sometimes to Charlie.

07:53 S2: Right.

07:55 S1: And I was doing it because I was so taken by it but in retrospect, I realized that it was like an education for me. And I mean, I didn't come here looking for any kind of an education. I came here looking for something to do with Charlie following the advice of the neighbourhood. But it was great. It was really, really great.

08:13 S2: So, it just kind of, I guess, reinforced your career path, I guess in a sense.

08:18 S1: It did. It kind of... It almost like laid a path of bread crumbs out because Joanne was showing us and showing me what children's literature can be. I'm a big fan of Dr. Seuss, but she was showing us that children's literature is a lot more that Dr. Seuss. It's a lot more than the kind of things you find on the shelf at your average book store. That it's rich, it's varied, it's exciting and it's art. And it's art that can engage really young kids on a really visceral level. Joanne introduced a number of books that were completely visual. No words at all. And I was astounded because suddenly, I realized the richness of a picture book can be purely visual.

09:05 S2: Yes.

09:06 S1: The ability or the lack of ability to read words need not be a barrier. Whether it's because the child is really young and is pre-literate or because they don't like reading words or whatever the reason. There are a number of books that she introduced like that and it was also very organic. You didn't think that you were being... Cause she wasn't teaching us she was just kind of...

09:26 S2: She was just sharing. Yeah.

09:27 S1: Sharing. It was really, really lovely sharing. And I kind of took it in random and it was so, so... It was an exciting time for me.

09:33 S2: Oh, it's so nice. Do you still come here to meet...

09:40 S1: I come here occasionally if I'm in the... I say if I'm in the neighbourhood. I mean, I'm not far but if I'm coming by here. And I still... I mean, I love the building itself. There is something very, very special about the building. And I didn't know that it's a relatively new building.

10:00 S2: Yeah. It is.

10:00 S1: And that astounds me because I don't remember when this building was being built but when I come in here, there is a richness about it and there's something about it that makes me think this building has always been here. And it hasn't always been here.

10:14 S2: Yeah. 'Cause I feel like it kind of blends in the neighbourhood. Maybe that was the idea that the architect had had but I'm not sure actually but...

10:22 S1: And there's space in a way that... I mean a lot of new buildings have space but there's a sense of space. And almost a quiet majesty to the building that you don't find in a lot of new buildings.

10:31 S2: Yes.

10:32 S1: It's not ashamed of what it is. It's very proudly a library. And there are people that hang out here and read. I know that it was a place... I mean, I guess as we get older, we get busier. I was thinking about that maybe because my son is involved in sports and school, and this and that, but before he was in school, we came here not just for Toddler Time but it became a destination point. We would take the walk through the university campus and for a kid, the university buildings are kind of dreamy. They're old and there's are all kinds of little nooks and crannies you can discover that are really quite magical. And so, this became a destination point and that's a nice thing to sort of inculcate into a young kid, that the library is sort of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

11:19 S2: Yeah. What was your favorite book that you read to Charlie? Do you remember or... Or favorite book in general for you?

11:31 S1: Well, it's funny because I think one of the favorite books that I read actually is a Dr. Seuss book which is Hop on Pop. Just because I loved discovering sort of the sing song to it. The absurdity of it and I read it so many times that it just... It became...

[chuckle]

11:48 S2: Ingrained in you.

11:49 S1: Yeah. Become part of my marrow. I loved reading Allan Ahlberg. He's a British author. I love reading his books. And there were books and a lot of them were ones that I discovered through what Joanne was introducing us to, and I can't... As I was walking here today, I was trying to think of names of them and I can't likely think of them but there was one that was Australian, about a child and a grandparent, that goes to the beach. It's wonderful and it's dreamy, and Charlie loved it. And I remember in one of the illustrations, you see the child's bare bottom.

[chuckle]

12:32 S1: And even at a young age, Charlie realized that there was something scandalous about that, but it was done very, very wonderfully.

12:39 S2: Great. Great.

12:40 S1: There was another one that she introduced us to. I think the author is Elsa [12:45] ____ Clavin or Claven, I don't know how you pronounce it and it's about a lion that paints in a cave. The lion keeps on disappearing in the story and coming back with paint on its tail.

[chuckle]

12:55 S1: And you realize that the reason the lion keeps coming back with different colours of paint on its tail is because it has been painting this beautiful picture in a cave.

13:05 S2: Oh, I wanna check that one out.

13:06 S1: Which subsequently, I realized, influenced... The book that I wrote called 'The Imaginary Garden' which is probably the most well known book that I've written. That whole idea of the wonder of painting, the wonder of art. My tastes, my sense of what to read and what you can read enjoyably really was expanded in this book.

13:37 S2: Do you find that it's kind of creeping in, into the books you write, like maybe the community or anything you've encountered with the program?

13:46 S1: There were a couple of stories that Joanne and... Again I can't remember them, read to us that were very, very urban. And, there was one I seem to recall. It showed a view out of the window that changed over the course of number of years and you're seeing urban revitalizations. So, at first, it's like an empty lot and then you see people planting things in the lot and a garden growing and suddenly, this kind of urban wasteland becomes a growing concern. People are hanging out, gardening and I learned that... Well, I came to sort of absorb the fact that your own surroundings, your own neighbourhood, your own friends, your own experience is the stuff that stories are made of. It doesn't have to be... I keep on referring to Dr. Seuss, I don't know why, but it doesn't have to be Dr. Seuss fantastical. It doesn't have to be baby-ish, which is what a lot of people, myself included, think when you're starting to write, that if you're gonna write for kids you got to write like a kid.

14:58 S1: I realized that there are things that concern you and I that we can embrace and work on and create out of, and do it in way that kids can appreciate 'em... Yeah, so I think... Just sort of embracing the validity of the urban experience is something that you can use in your work.

15:25 S2: Great. Is there anything else you'd like to add or...

15:27 S1: No, I'm a huge fan of libraries to begin with, and as a parent who is staying at home, I mean the kids are at school now, but as a parent who is at home with the kids all day long, the library was invaluable to me on so, so, so many levels and it's nice, 'cause I look back and think of my Saturdays with my mom at the library in a sort of special way. And it's interesting because it's different with... It will be different when my kids look back at their introduction to the library because it wasn't just Saturdays. It was something that we did quite often. It was integrated into our day-to-day life. And even now, I don't have the wisdom of Joanne close at hand, but if I'm reading something, we'll hear about a good book, a good kid's book or if somebody mentions something or an author... I'm at the library a couple of times a week, picking up books that I order, and my kids are with me, particularly Charlie. So, it's still something that we...

16:33 S2: Still part of you.

16:34 S1: Yeah. Part of... Just part of, you know... We'll go out and buy vegetables, get some bread and pick up a book at the library. So, it's very much part of our day-to-day life. And I really look back fondly on the days when this particular branch was a part of Charlie's early days.