Celebrate Nonfiction

Exploring the Joy of Nonfiction Reading and Writing

Nonfiction Authors Dig Deep by Jennifer Ward

Today we continue the Nonfiction Authors Dig Deep series with an essay by author Jennifer Ward. Thank you, Jen.

“Write
what you know.” It’s a phrase often shared to encourage students with their
writing process. I am a firm believer in “write what you know,” having been a
teacher and someone who now writes full-time for a living.

As
writers, we pull from the innate “what we know” to form thoughts and place them
on paper. This applies to any genre of writing, be it poetry, fiction, or nonfiction.
This innate knowledge forms individually from a lifetime filled with curiosity,
wonder, and personal experiences. It seems I have always been curious about animals,
specifically birds, so it’s no wonder they often surface in my writing.

Me, with my best friend

One
of my earliest books involved trying to better understand bird feathers. I
sorted and classified feathers that our pet parakeets, Linus and Benji, had
shed, carefully organizing them and gluing them to stapled pages of
construction paper.

I
also learned early on that it’s not easy to make a bird’s nest. My first attempt
took place when I was a child, perhaps age five. I was determined to build one
and spent hours gathering cut, dried grass from the mowed lawn in our suburban
neighborhood. I wet it in water runoff trickling down our street and formed nest
after nest by squishing the grass together in small, circular shapes.

I
discovered that water is indeed cohesive, but once my nests dried, they fell
apart and the grass blew away. Birds clearly had the upper hand (or beak, so to
speak) when it came to engineering nests.

I
suppose I’ve always had that “Huh!” thought regarding birds and nest building,
because I simply could not let the premise go away. As an adult, when a
hummingbird built her tiny cup nest outside my kitchen window, I watched her
for weeks as the nest formed, bit by tiny bit. I knew then that I had to dig
deeper into avian architecture, and the idea for Mama Built a Little Nest was born.


As a child, I was told that if I sprinkled salt on a bird’s tail, I could catch
it and it wouldn’t fly away. I was enchanted by the idea of a wee, wild bird,
content to be my friend, perched complacently on my finger, both of us glad of
each other’s company.

So
at the age six, I crouched quietly for hours at the base of tree, salt shaker
in hand, hoping a bird would hop by on the ground. And several did, but I was
never stealthy enough with the salt shaker to prove the salt-to-tail theory
true.

But
those memories likely planted the seed for my upcoming book, How to Find a Bird, which explains that we
need not always look up to spot birds. They can also be found down low.

And
my life-long fascination with birds is clearly the inspiration behind my
recently published book, I Love Birds! 52
Ways to Wonder, Wander and Explore Birds with Kids. To this day, I spend
hours with birds in the wild—observing them, wondering about them, getting
inspired by them.

All
writers, including nonfiction writers, create work that’s deep rooted in the personal
experiences and memories that shape who and what we are. Those experiences form
beliefs and fuel passions. They invite us to question and wonder, and they ignite
our creativity.

I
hope the books I write for children stimulate readers to dig deeper themselves and
explore the many layers of nature and science, so that they, too, may think,
“Huh!”

Jennifer Ward is the award-winning
author of more than 20 books for children, most influenced by science and
nature, including Mama Dug a Little Den,
illustrated by Steve Jenkins (Beach Lane Books, 2018), Feathers and Hair, What Animals Wear, illustrated by Jing Jing
Tsong (Beach Lane Books, 2017) and, “What
Will Grow?”, illustrated by Susie Ghahremani (Bloomsbury Books for
Children, 2017), which received three, starred reviews. She is easily
distracted by everything outside her windows. www.JenniferWardBooks.com

5 Responses

  1. Jennifer, I am tickled to see that pic of you as a kiddo with your horse! Looking forward to I LOVE BIRDS! Think i'll buy it for my granddaughter's b-day to get her exploring!

  2. I have read Mama built a little nest and loved it. I am also a bird lover and I can’t wait to read your new books. I’m also writing a book about birds. I loved hearing your story today. Thank you for sharing.

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