Claudia Mills is the author of more than 50 books for young readers. The following is a complete transcript of her interview with Cracking the Cover for the first book in her Nora Notebooks series, “The Trouble With Ants.”
Why do you write?
This may sound lame, but I just love every single thing about writing. I love putting words on a blank piece of paper, groping toward story ideas, learning things about my characters that surprise me, thinking of problems that might befall them, watching them learn from their triumphs and tribulations. I even get tears in my own eyes when I write an emotional scene and chuckle aloud when I write something I think is funny!
Why specifically do you write for young people?
I have loved many books I’ve read as an adult—War and Peace is amazing!—but I’ve never loved any book as much as the ones I read as a child: Anne of Green Gables, A Little Princess, A Wrinkle in Time, the Betsy-Tacy books of Maud Hart Lovelace. I want to write a book that a child might cherish as much as I still cherish these.
Where did the idea for the Nora Notebooks come from?
Nora first appeared as a character in my earlier Mason Dixon series: Pet Disasters, Fourth Grade Disasters, Basketball Disasters. There she provides a serious, scientific contrast to always-pessimistic Mason Dixon and his always-optimistic best friend, Brody Baxter. My editor at Knopf, Nancy Hinkel, suggested that I give Nora her own series. Her words were: “I could use a book about a girl with an ant farm.”
How many books are planned for the series?
Three. The Trouble with Ants is going to be followed with The Trouble with Babies (where a-n-t lover Nora becomes a ten-year-old a-u-n-t) and The Trouble with Friends (where Nora finally becomes friends with her opposite-in-every-way classmate Emma).
Why ants?
I wanted Nora to have a passion for science, and I decided it would be fun if that passion focused on an unlikely and tiny object: the ordinary, almost unnoticeable ant. Once I started reading about ants, I was even more hooked on this idea. They are fascinating!
How much research was involved?
I drew all of Nora’s fascinating ant facts from the marvelous book Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration by scientists Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson. I also did a phone interview with an ant expert, Professor Whitney Cranshaw, at Colorado State University, who answered my questions about what kinds of ants Nora would keep in her ant farm and what kinds of experiments she might do with them.
How did Nora develop? Is she based on anyone you know?
She certainly isn’t based on me! I was never good at science or particularly curious about the natural world. But once her voice got into my head, as I began to write, I felt I knew her as well I know characters who are much more like me, such as Kelsey in my recent Kelsey Green, Reading Queen.
What do you hope young readers gain from the book/series?
I hope they get inspired to follow their own passion for whatever odd or unusual subject attracts them—and to keep on following it despite a lack of enthusiasm from their peers or temporary setbacks in achieving their dreams.
What are you working on now?
I’m finishing up the fifth and final book in my Franklin School Friends series, titled Cody Harmon, King of Pets. Cody is like Nora in that his passion is animals. He has two pet dogs, two cats, three chickens, one rooster, and one pig; his problem is how to find a way to bring them all to the class pet show. So I guess I keep being drawn to the theme of kids who love something deeply and find a way to pursue what they love.
Is there a book from your own childhood that still resonates with you today?
All of them! I still reread my childhood favorites over and over again. The one that resonates most deeply, however, is Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace, because Betsy’s passion is, you guessed it, writing.