When the Babies Came to Stay

Christine McDonnell — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 15:00:25 +0000

Here’s the cover and an inside spread from my new picture book, When the Babies Came to Stay, which will be published by Viking Press in the spring of 2020. The illustrator is Jeanette Bradley. (jeanettebradley.com)

At the beginning of the story four babies turn up on an island, one on the mail plane, two on the ferry and one on a pile of nets. What should the islanders do with them? The librarian solves the problem.

Of course she does! Librarians are the smartest people and they’re always helpful.

(Full disclosure: I was a librarian for many years and a lot of my closest friends are librarians, too.)

The story answers the question what should we do when people turn up on our shores?

The answer: make them welcome, give them a home, and take care of them!

As the librarian says, “Where we’re going is more important than where we came from.”

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Inspiration in Ireland

Christine McDonnell — Sun, 17 Nov 2019 16:49:38 +0000

This spring I visited Innishbofin, an Irish island. Supposedly the pirate queen, Gráinne O’Malley, and the Spanish pirate, Don Bosco, had fortresses there in the 1500s, trapping unsuspecting ships in the harbor.

For years Innishbofin was home to a thriving fishing community but famine, war and emigration decimated its population and now only a hundred and fifty people live there. It’s a quiet place with boats anchored in the protected harbor. Sheep dot the rocky hillsides and trails lead by peat bogs and ponds. When the fog comes it’s easy to imagine why pirates chose it as a hiding place.

My new picture book, When the Babies Came to Stay, is set on an island but I wasn’t on an island when I wrote the first draft. I was looking out at cows lazing in the pasture behind my house. In the distance the Lowell Mountains were hazy blue. A whirring hummingbird paused by the flowers outside my window. It was a summer afternoon in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, miles and miles from the ocean, with no island in sight.
Here’s the idea that came to my mind: four babies appear mysteriously on an island. One is discovered in the mail bag, two are left on the ferry and one is found sleeping on the fish pier on a pile of nets. The babies are discovered by the ferryman, the harbor master and the fisherman and not one of them knows what to do. The librarian takes charge!

Why an island? Why four babies? That’s the mystery of the imagination.

It doesn’t surprise me that the librarian is the hero, the smartest one around. Of course she is! I love librarians. I was a librarian myself, working at the New York Public Library at the start of my career and ending my library career in a large school library. This is the first time a librarian has appeared in one of my books. I’m delighted that she’s the star.

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Jeanette Bradley - Christine McDonnell

When the Babies Came to Stay

Inspiration in Ireland