Fried Mosquitoes and a Cup of Hot Tea: From Piano Lady to Picture Book Author

by Paulette Bochnig Sharkey

My first book contract and my first grandchild arrived together. 

In October 2018, I was in Wasilla, Alaska, staying with my daughter during her last month of pregnancy while her husband was away on an overseas military assignment. Operating on Michigan time, I woke up early my first Monday morning and opened this email:

I have good news for you! Beaming Books is pleased to offer to publish “A Doll for Grandma.” Attached is the offer letter with preliminary details. We love your story and would be so honored to publish it. 

It was a moment I’d dreamed of.

I started writing in the mid-1980s, when I left my job as a university reference librarian to enjoy time at home with my young daughter. She and I loved reading picture books together. We still quote our favorite lines to one another.

During those years at home, I put my librarian skills to work, researching and writing nonfiction articles for parenting publications and children’s magazines like Highlights and Cricket. 

I wanted to write a picture book. But I didn’t know how. And what would I write about?

Many years later, around the time I retired, I read that musical memories are held in a part of the brain often left undamaged by Alzheimer’s disease. People with Alzheimer’s who can no longer recognize family or friends can respond to music, if it’s the right kind. We usually have the strongest emotional response to music from our youth.

I’m a pianist, so I decided to go to a memory-care unit and play World War II-era songs for the residents. They were brought in, many slumped in wheelchairs, seeming unaware of their surroundings. But when I played the first few bars of “Sentimental Journey,” they raised their heads and began singing. I’ve been a volunteer pianist for about 15 years now, and I blog about my experiences.

One evening at a pizza party with a band I played in, the trombone player mentioned that he’d visited his grandmother in a memory-care facility and she’d told him, “I had fried mosquitoes and a cup of hot tea for lunch today.” I thought, That would be a good line in a picture book.

But I still didn’t know how to write one.

In February 2017, I did two things in pursuit of my picture book–writing goal. I joined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and I signed up for Writer’s Digest University’s “Writing the Picture Book.” I completed a draft of A Doll for Grandma during that 4-week course.

I revised the story plenty, sent it around to my critique group, paid for editorial help. Then I started querying. Publisher and agent rejections came back with comments like “Feels very quiet,” and “too reality based.” Some were more encouraging: “Your language is lovely and lilting and age appropriate,” “There is a deep sense of love that pervades these pages.”

When the story placed among seven finalists for the 2018 Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing, I felt like I was getting close.

Another contest I entered was sponsored by Beaming Books, a Minneapolis-based publisher looking for books that “help kids thrive emotionally, socially, or spiritually.” My entry didn’t win, but it caught the attention of an editor there. She took my book through their acquisitions process twice before getting a “yes” and emailing me that cold Alaska morning. Thank you, Naomi Krueger.

The incidence of Alzheimer’s disease is increasing at an alarming rate. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, someone in the United States develops the disease every 65 seconds, making it likely that a child today lives in a family touched by Alzheimer’s or other type of dementia. That child needs help understanding what is happening to their grandparent, their aunt, their neighbor. 

In A Doll for Grandma, a little girl finds new ways to sustain her special relationship with her grandmother who has developed Alzheimer’s. It’s a story about kindness, empathy, accepting change, and loving people as they are.

Most children’s books about Alzheimer’s focus on confusion and memory loss. I wanted to show other physical and behavioral symptoms as well: anger, sadness, fidgeting, difficulties walking. I wanted children to see what goes on in a memory-care setting, so that visits would be less frightening.

Most importantly, I wanted my main character to model how to best interact with people who have dementia: by embracing their changed reality, rather than trying to bring them back into our world. In that way, we can share moments of joy and meaningful connection, as my main character does when she and her grandmother care for their baby dolls together. 

The doll idea came from observing in my volunteer work that women with Alzheimer’s disease are comforted by holding baby dolls. (I have since discovered “Pearl’s Memory Babies,” a nonprofit organization that delivers baby dolls to residents of memory-care homes.)

I incorporated other real-life experiences into the book, too. The “piano lady” scene drew on my work as a volunteer pianist (my listeners often call me “piano lady”). In the therapy dog scene, I borrowed something my mother said as she stroked a tiny dog’s ear shortly before she died in hospice: “Oh puppy, puppy, puppy.” And I included the “fried mosquitoes and a cup of hot tea” line spoken by my friend’s grandma. I think that would have made a good title, too, but editors have the last word!

I’m fortunate to be able to donate all of my author proceeds to support Alzheimer’s research. We must find a cure for this devastating disease.

The grandson who arrived with my first book contract is now a book-loving toddler. I can’t wait to sign a copy of A Doll for Grandma for him. 

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Bio:

Paulette Bochnig Sharkey worked for many years as a librarian, first in her home state of Michigan, and later in Australia, Nevada, and Wisconsin. She has also been a proofreader, ghostwriter, developmental editor, recipe indexer, and transcriber of children’s books from print into braille. The inspiration for her debut picture book, A Doll for Grandma: A Story about Alzheimer’s Disease (Beaming Books, May 2020) came from working as a volunteer pianist with memory-care residents and from caring for family members with dementia.

Paulette lives with her husband in East Lansing, Michigan. She’s currently writing a children’s biography of 19th century German pianist Clara Schumann.

To order A Doll for Grandma: paulettesharkey.com/books/

website: PauletteSharkey.com

piano blog: PauletteSharkey.com/piano-blog/

twitter: @PBSharkey

 

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