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Community Corner

Hop! Plop! Local Children's Book Author Never Stops

Warren resident Corey Rosen Schwartz talks about life as a children's book author and an avid scuba diver.

As an avid scuba diver, Corey Rosen Schwartz explored the depths of the Red Sea, as well as the waters off Turks and Caicos, the Cayman Islands and Cozumel, Mexico.

“It’s such a high to go down 100 feet and look over a wall and see for what seems like miles.  It’s breathtaking,” says Schwartz.  “I’ve seen sea turtles.  Eagle rays are amazing.  And I’ve seen sharks, although I’m not a fan.  I’ve never gone on a shark feed.”

It’s a far cry from her life now in Warren as mom to a kindergartner and first grader.

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“Since I’ve had kids, I’ve only been [diving] twice,” she says.

These days, Schwartz focuses on an endeavor that gives her a high of a different sort, albeit one above sea level.  She writes picture books for children.

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“Getting inside the head of a five-year-old… it’s just so amazing what goes on in their brains,” she says.  “And, as a writer, I really stay in touch with that.  I write down all the funny things that my kids say and I see if there’s a way to use it.”

Schwartz’s first book, Hop! Plop! (Walker & Company, 2006), which she co-authored with Tali Klein of Fort Lee, took more than four years from conception to print. 

“I pumped out two kids faster than a 32-page picture book,” Schwartz says, with a chuckle.

Hop! Plop! tells the heartwarming tale of two best friends of mismatched sizes who try to make a day of it at the playground.  “‘Look,’ said Mouse.  ‘A seesaw.  My favorite!’  ‘Yeah!’ said Elephant.  ‘Mine, too!  Let’s get on,’” reads the straightforward prose.  (And, as can be predicted, with a “Hop!  Plop!  Boom! Bop!”… Mouse goes flying.  But, don’t worry.  Without revealing the ending, I can tell you that the two friends find an ingenious way to joyfully, and safely, play together.)

Schwartz, a former teacher with a master’s in Deaf Education, has a second book due to be published by Putnam in the fall of 2012—a so-called fractured fairy tale, The Three Ninja Pigs.

“One day, we were at a restaurant and my kids were talking to the waitress.  And my daughter said ‘I speak a little Spanish.’  My kids are very close in age and they are competitive, so my son said ‘Well, I speak a little karate.’  And I thought, ‘Oh my god, there has to be a book in there,’” she says.   “I did some research and there were very few books on karate.  And I knew that lots of my son’s friends took karate or taekwondo.  So I just brainstormed and I came up with the idea of The Three Ninja Pigs.”

Whereby the three pigs get fed up with the wolf and enroll in Ninja School.  

“My daughter read The Three Ninja Pigs in an early draft.  And she said to me, ‘Mommy, I think Pig Three, the Black Belt, should be a girl.’  So I changed it,” Schwartz says. 

Schwartz has two more fractured fairy tales in the works—one, a twist on the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the other, Cinderella with a twin sister.

“Fractured fairy tales became big when Jon Scieszka wrote The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (Viking, 1989).  He wrote that and it became a huge genre,” says Schwartz. “Now, with movies like Tangled, [fractured fairy tales] are really hot.”

Schwartz and her husband of 10 years, David, live with their children in a contemporary 1980s ranch-style home in a quiet Warren neighborhood.  Remodeled five years ago, the house is open and airy, the many windows granting glorious wooded views.  A few framed illustrations from some of her favorite picture books hang on the walls.  Schwartz and her husband, a neuroscientist and pharmaceutical consultant, share a home office with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking their front yard.

Among Schwartz’s favorite children’s books are Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale (Walker Childrens Hardbacks, 2005) by Mo Willems, Bear Snores On (Margaret K. McElderry, 2002) by Karma Wilson and an assortment of British picture books, such as That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown (Hyperion, 2007) by Cressida Cowell.

“I tend to love books that rhyme.  I love, love, love Dr. Seuss,” she says.  “I’m a huge, huge Seuss fan.  He’s definitely my idol, if I have to pick one.  If I had to pick a second, I would go with A.A. Milne.  I love, love, love Winnie-the-Pooh.”

Not surprisingly, reading is a nighttime ritual in the Schwartz home.

“We read to our kids all the time,” says Schwartz.  “While my daughter is perfectly capable of reading on her own, we love to get in bed and read together.  We read all the Junie B. Jones books together.  We just laugh our heads off.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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