Grief and Humor by Turns: A Talk with Joanne Levy About All the Things We Found

While there is no universal understanding of what kinds of books for kids are the most difficult to write, I think that we can all agree that some forms of literature can be trickier to pull of than others. Take the hard subjects, for example, specifically grief. It shows up in books for kids constantly and can offer a real impact on their reading lives, so I have nothing but respect for the folks who write about it well. And author Joanne Levy? She very much writes grief well.

Though I’ve known Joanne and her books for years, it was the title SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS last year that really grabbed my attention. I lost my chance to review it when it came out, and I’ve always felt bad about that, since the book took some big swings. Happily, Levy has a new title out on September 16th that Kirkus has already called “Emotionally raw and well worth reading.” It’s best described this way:

“Ruthie is finally getting used to the new normal: her parents’ divorce, having a stepdad and (annoying) stepbrothers and trying not to think too much about before.

When her mom starts feeling sick, Ruthie’s relieved it’s nothing serious…until her mom tells her she’s pregnant again. Their family suffered a loss three years ago and it was devastating. How could her mom risk that again?

At least Ruthie has her best friend and her dog to help comfort her, as well as her favorite book series that always cheers her up: The Unicorns of Faravelle Forest. When Ruthie unexpectedly meets Ally, an older woman in the park where she takes her dog to play, she learns Ally is grieving a loss too, and the two develop an unlikely friendship. Though the journey is never smooth, Ruthie eventually realizes there’s comfort to be found in expressing your feelings and cherishing the memory of those you’ve loved.”

Today, I talk to Joanne about her latest.

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Betsy Bird: Joanne! Thanks so much for answering some of my questions about ALL THE THINGS WE FOUND today! I love a good origin story and with this book’s serious themes, this title seems rips for one. Where did this book come from?

Joanne Levy: Hi Betsy, so great to be with you! This book. Hoo boy. This book nearly killed me. The original title of it was actually THE JOURNAL OF THINGS LOST AND FOUND but it changed for various reasons, thanks to my publisher. I really like the new title as it’s more succinct and hints at themes of the book but is sort of nebulous at the same time. I began writing it back in 2019 and it was about Ruthie and her dog, Izzy, who is known for finding things in the woods. Izzy was inspired by my own beloved dog, Zoe. She was ball-obsessed and her superpower was going into the ravine near our home and often emerging with a found ball. Her ability to find/retrieve balls was absolutely uncanny. We rescued her but strongly suspect she came from service dog stock and I imagine she likely would have failed out of service dog training but nonetheless truly was the best dog ever for us.

The main focus of the story at the time I first started drafting was Ruthie finding herself in a new, blended family, suddenly with a stepdad and siblings and then her mom announces she’s pregnant. Ruthie is already overwhelmed and this announcement pushes her over the edge. Her journey through the book was meant to be one of accepting this new family.

Not long into drafting, the pandemic hit and I lost my creative mojo and put the project down. Luckily, I had a few books already under contract so I was blessed to be able to only have to edit during the worst of lockdowns and beyond. Editing I could do; coming up with new ideas? Not so much. But this book nagged at me and I did end up picking it up again. But it wasn’t working. So I put it down. Then picked it up. Still not working. And so on. The problem was that Ruthie’s struggle just didn’t feel like it was enough. Then I came up with what she was really struggling with: grief. And then, once I realized who she was grieving, it informed her very real fear over her mother’s pregnancy.

There are a lot of MG books about grief; I even wrote one with SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS, but I’ve never read one about a kid grieving a sibling they’d never had the chance to meet, so once I came up with that idea, I knew I was onto something that was worth exploring.

This book is also my love letter to authors. My “day job” (I surround it with quotes because while I do get paid for it, I do it in my pajamas and not always during the day) is as a virtual assistant to other authors. As part of that, I’ve had the great privilege to manage the fan email inboxes of a couple of my favorite authors, Lisa McMann and Marissa Meyer, for several years. That opportunity gives me an amazing behind-the-scenes peek into very committed and adoring fans, what they think about their beloved authors, and how they communicate with them. Tween fans are the best fans!

I wanted to put all that into a book so these kids feel seen and know how much they mean to the authors they admire. (I should note, had email been a thing when I was a kid, Judy Blume would have gotten SO MANY emails from me it would have been embarrassing.)

BB: Hey, it’s never too late to spam Judy Blume. Now as you mentioned just now, you go into this deep and serious territory with this latest with its themes of an infant’s death divorce, and childhood depression. At the same time, you always have this levity to your books. There’s a humor here that keeps the reader reading. When you write your books, how do you find the right balance between humor and heart? Do you find yourself having to scale some parts down or scale others up?

Joanne: It really is such a fine balance because I never want to get into slapstick or take away from the serious stuff by overdoing it, but humor is so necessary, especially in books with such hard themes. Even more so when those books are for kids. Moments of levity give the reader a breather away from the hard things, allowing them to process and carry them forward. Also, who doesn’t love to laugh? I know you love to laugh, Betsy **cough** FUNNY GIRL Anthology **cough**. It’s always been my top goal to entertain so I’m always looking for moments when I can crack my audience up. In a book like this that has such difficult and heavy themes, I do make a point of including humorous moments whenever I can as I’m drafting. But near the final draft, I do a very deliberate pass of the manuscript looking for more spots where the tension might be too high for too long and a reprieve is needed and/or where I can make something funny or funnier. I take humor very seriously! So to answer your question, I’m always scaling humor up. There was only one time (in my summer camp book, THE SUN WILL COME OUT) where I had to take out a joke in edits and I’m still mad about it; it was a really, really good joke.

BB: Aww. I sympathize (and I appreciate your pertinent coughs). Did you have a clear cut sense of where you wanted the story to go right from the beginning or did it come to you as you wrote? How much does the final version of this book resemble your first draft?

Joanne: While I have never struggled so much with any book as much as I did with this one, (I’m looking at you, Covid the Creativity Killer™), the story stayed pretty much the same, but with that big addition I mentioned above about Ruthie’s lost sibling that really gave this book its meaning. I was late to figure that out and until that fell into place, I spun my wheels trying to figure out what I wanted to say with this story.

A part that did come to me as I wrote was what happens with Izzy. I don’t want to give away any spoilers here but I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle that until I got there. I waffled a lot. Looking back, I feel like I made the right choice. I hope readers feel the same. 

BB: And were there ideas or scenes you had to do away with as you wrote and edited that you’re sad you had to let go?

Joanne: I’m a ‘pantser’ – someone who writes by the seat of their pants without much (if any) outline – most of the time, which means my first drafts are pretty sparse as I’m getting to know my characters and story, so if anything, subsequent drafts are where I add depth and detail and flesh things out. Usually if I have to do away with something, well, it’s because it wasn’t serving the story and I can’t be sad about it. Except that one time with the joke I had to cut. Did I mention it was really funny?

BB: You really I’m going to need you to tell it to me when we meet someday. Finally, what else are you working on? What’s next for you?

Joanne: Thank you for asking! My next book, out from Union Square Kids in fall of ’26 is called HOW TO WALK A DOG. It’s about an amazing kid, Asher Abrams, who just happens to have ADHD, and his struggle to win back the best friend he lost. It’s about allyship, normalizing periods, poverty, BIG FEELINGS, and yes, dogs. I was inspired to write this book after my husband was diagnosed with ADHD in his fifties (everything suddenly made so much more sense). It’s sweet and really funny but has some heavy moments and themes—so pretty much on brand for me.

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Big big thanks to Joanne for taking the time to talk to me today! As mentioned earlier, her latest title ALL THE THINGS WE FOUND is out September 16th absolutely everywhere. Check it out whenever you get a chance! It’s a beauty!

Filed under: Interviews