This Interview is a Little Bit Super: A Gary Schmidt/Leah Henderson Q&A

If I told you that there was a new Gary Schmidt book out this year, would you be surprised? What if I told you that there was a new Leah Henderson book? And what if I went even further and told you that Gary and Leah had worked on it together. And WHAT if, WHAT IF, I went even further than that and let you know that it was an anthology called A Little Bit Super and that it was out now. Would you be surprised? I was surprised. Not simply on the collaborating duo, but also at the line-up they got to contribute. Feast your eyes on this star-studded array:

• Pablo Cartaya
• Nikki Grimes
• Jarrett J. Krosoczka
• Remy Lai
• Kyle Lukoff
• Meg Medina
• Daniel Nayeri
• Linda Sue Park
• Mitali Perkins
• Pam Muñoz Ryan
• Brian Young
• Ibi Zoboi

Incredible, right? And best of all, I’m going to call this one for Team Science Fiction, because as far as I’m concerned superpowers are less fantasy and way more scifi. Here’s a description of the book, by the way, that you might enjoy:

“In these hilarious stories by some of the top authors of middle grade fiction today, each young character is coping with a minor superpower—while also discovering their power to change themselves and their community, find their voice, and celebrate what makes them unique.

The kids in these humorous short stories each have a minor superpower they’re learning to live with. One can shape-shift—but only part of her body, and only on Mondays. Another can always tell whether an avocado is perfectly ripe. One can even hear the thoughts of the animals in the pet store! But what these stories are really about is their young protagonists “owning” a power that contributes to their individuality, that allows them to find their place in the world, that shows them a potential they might not have imagined.

Because if you really think about it, we all have something special and unique about ourselves that makes us a little bit super. We all have the power to change as an individual, to change our communities for the better, to have a voice and to speak up. These playful, thought-provoking tales from some of today’s top middle grade authors prompt readers to consider what their own superpower might be, and how they can use it.”

My superpower? Well, if I had one I might just waste it on the ability to conduct the best possible Q&As with the authors and illustrators that come on my site. But until that happy superpower-inducing day arrives, join me as I ask Gary and Leah a whole slew of questions, hitherto unanswered:

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Betsy Bird: Gary and Leah, thank you so much for answering this multitude of questions I have about A LITTLE BIT SUPER today. I scoured the book itself but could find no answer, so I’ll just ask you myself: where did your collaboration come from? And where did this book itself come from?

LEAH: Hi Betsy, thanks so much for asking us to share a little bit about the book’s journey.

The way Gary and I met is literally how the anthology came to be. It happened about seven years ago, when my debut novel was about to come out. I had the pleasure of being on faculty at a conference where Gary was the keynote. During the faculty dinner, I found my name card next to Gary D. Schmidt! Talk about an “oh, wow . . . please don’t embarrass yourself kind of moment”. Anyway, when an unrecognizable piece of meat (we think it was meat) was placed in front of us, my very first question to Gary was: “What is this?” We joked if we could have a superpower we’d change our meal to something amazing. And that’s when it all started. “If you could have a little superpower what would it be?” I asked Gary, and from there our imaginations flew! We thought of how fun it would be to see a book filled with stories about kids with minor superpowers. And in a VERY special moment (to me anyway), Gary said, “we should write that book!” And now we finally get to share it with readers.

BB: Wow! Well, while this does feel like a short story collection in some ways, there does appear to be an overarching thread connecting these tales as well. That had to be a part of the vision from the get go. Was that something you two worked out ahead of time, or was it guided at all by the submissions you received?

GARY:  Hi Betsy!  What we hoped for was a collection of stories that were delightful and entertaining as they engaged with the idea of having a minor superpower.  (One of the minor superpowers we used as a way to explain this book is that the character always smelled good—we’re glad that no one took us up on this!)   But we also always meant for this to talk about empowerment for a middle school kid, and that was really the larger theme.  How is it that a middle school kid could feel empowered, and as it turned out, the stories examined exactly that.  One kid uses her skills to save the family business.  Another develops empathetic connections to animals, or to classmates.  All the stories engaged with that vision.  But meanwhile, our own secret power was Jarrett, who linked all the stories together through his own graphic novel that is spread through the book.  So while the first story by Pablo Cartaya begins with the threat of government agents descending on his narrator, the book ends with Jarrett bringing those government agents suddenly into play.  That made the whole book feel tight.

BB: I was going to ask about that, actually. There are thirteen written stories by thirteen different authors and one continual graphic novel story that pops up between them by, as you said, Jarrett Krosoczka throughout the book. Did you know from the start that the number of contributors you needed was thirteen (plus Jarrett)? Did it just work out that way? 

LEAH: From the beginning, Gary and I thought fourteen or so stories would be a good solid number for a middle grade anthology. And we were thrilled that Jarrett agreed to tackle our idea of weaving characters from each story into one graphic novel story. A story we hoped could be told over the course of the entire book. And Gary is right, Jarrett (and all the other contributors, really) were our true superpower. What we asked Jarrett to do was no easy feat, but he executed it brilliantly.

BB: Tell me a little bit about soliciting stories. You’ve quite the who’s who of authors here. How did you come up with the list of people you wanted to include?

GARY:  We began with friends and gathered several suggestions from folks we knew.  From the start we understood that this was going to be a book that reflected a community of folks, and we wanted that community to be close as they came together to work out what it meant to be empowering to young kids.  And I have to say—and I don’t mean this to be arrogant—we were thrilled at the writers who were inspired by the idea and who came up with amazing minor superpowers.  I mean, who could have imagined coming up with the power of discerning ripe avocados except Linda Sue Park?

BB: Let’s go back a little bit again to Jarrett’s work on the book. You have some graphic novelists like Remy Lai included but Jarrett’s the only one contributing comic art to the collection. Was it always going to be Jarrett from the get go? And did you have the idea of connecting these tales through his story from the start?

LEAH: When we started getting serious about this collection, we knew we wanted an art component to give it something special. And Jarrett was the first person we thought of to create that art, but we also left it wide open for our other contributors to envision how they wanted to tell their story – prose, poetry, etc., it didn’t matter. We only gave them the simple (or maybe not so simple) task of creating a kiddo with a minor superpower and telling their story in around 4,000 words. What was truly wonderful was that from the beginning everyone had a very different approach and superpower – time jumping, matchmaking, crossing fingers for a wish, shapeshifting, a demon claw, etc. And the stories seemed to build off each other in the best possible ways. They went beyond featuring fun, quirky powers, to stories of empowerment and examining one’s self or the larger world.

BB: That’s awesome. Finally, what else do you two personally have coming out in the future? Anything we can look forward to?

LEAH: I have a picture book collaboration and a middle grade nonfiction project on the horizon. At the moment, both are untitled, but that will definitely change soon.

GARY:  Jupiter Rising –the sequel to Orbiting Jupiter —comes out this August, and then two novels co-authored with Ron Koertge come out in successive springs:  A Day on the Beach in 2025 (thirty very short stories about middle school kids on a New Jersey beach), and Simon in 2026 (a novel about an Athenian kiddo killed in the Spartan wars in fifth-century Greece, who finally escapes from Hades and emerges into the seventh-grade boys’ bathroom of a middle school in Minneapolis-St. Paul). 

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Most excellent! I cannot thank Leah and Gary enough for taking the time to answer all my questions today. Special thanks too to Sammy Brown and the team at Harper Collins Children’s Books for helping to set all this up. A Little Bit Super is out now, so be sure to read it wherever you get your finest literature.

Filed under: Interviews