I’m very excited to be the next stop on Walden Pond Press’ blog tour for author Anne Ursu‘s wonderful middle-grade novel Breadcrumbs [Indie Bound] [Amazon].  I read Breadcrumbs over the weekend and have to tell you I’m in love with Hazel.  What a fantastic heroine for kids growing up.  But, you’ll see more of my thoughts on it tomorrow when my review goes up.

Today, however, I bring you an insightful interview between Anne and her editor Jordan.  They share some great stuff about middle-grade fiction, magic and location/world-building.  I’m very pleased to be able to share it with you so show Anne and Jordan some love!

Jordan:  What is the place, or purpose, of “magic” in middle grade fiction?  (I know one could probably write a dissertation on this, but is there a short version?)
Anne: Middle grade fiction is all about the journey of the character, about kids figuring out the world, and magic is both a metaphor and vehicle for that process.  As adults sometimes we look at the magic in these stories in a vacuum, as if it were a pyrotechnic show separate from the main event—but that misses the whole point. The magic itself isn’t what’s important. What matters is how it interacts with the protagonist, how it affects her, challenges her, and changes her. In the case of Breadcrumbs, the magic is a manifestation of Hazel’s real life challenges, and the magical world she’s thrown into is as chaotic and lawless as the real one she can’t quite adjust to. It’s not about magic having rules; it’s about the shock that comes when you realize growing up does not.

Jordan: One of the things I love about Hazel is that she has an acute awareness of the fact that believing in magic and believing in the truth of stories aren’t exactly the same thing.  Can you talk about belief in the book?  What role does it play in Hazel’s journey?
Anne: I think kids inherently can see things on the level of myth—they understand that something can be true and not real. It’s one of the reasons they are so open to magic in stories—the space between metaphor and reality is much more permeable, they can hold the two states in their minds at the same time. Hazel loves fantasy and these stories are part of how she understands the world (Jack’s mom, who suffers from severe clinical depression, “looked like someone had severed her daemon.”) but she doesn’t believe magic is actually real. This is why she’s able to navigate the woods—a fairy tale world that’s entrapped so many other wounded people with its promise of magic and rules and order; at the end of the day she evaluates it as a reader and sees it for what it is.

Hazel’s internalized the real message of fantasy—that when something’s wrong in the world and you’re the only one who knows, you’re the one who has to fix it. And when your best friend has been taken into the woods by a force you don’t understand, you must go in after him. It’s the pull of narrative—the belief that if your best friend needs to be saved, you can save him—that ultimately leads her into the fantasy world in the first place.

Jordan: How did the city of Minneapolis creep into and affect things?
Anne: I grew up in Minneapolis, and though I’ve lived in a number of other places, it’s always been home to me. My own childhood memories are so thick with my city—especially when you coat those memories with a Minnesota snowfall. I can remember vividly waiting for the bus on blisteringly cold mornings, the way your moon boots crunch against the snow, and those snowstorm drives when every car is inching forward like prey. That Minnesota is the perfect place for the Snow Queen to drop by for a visit. I also wanted Hazel and Jack to be very specific kids from a very specific place—one that had the wholeness and texture of my own memories. Jack goes to my sledding hill, my dad took me to the same Burger King after softball games that Hazel’s dad used to take her to. My brother went to Hazel’s elementary school and still describes the smell of fast food that wafted over them at recess. Smells like learning!

Jordan: Your fantasy world is made of up so many disparate elements.  What was your philosophy when it came to constructing and populating your woods?
Anne: I wanted the fairy-tale woods that Hazel finds herself in to be a Hans Christian Andersen-like world, with characters and situations that had the flavor of his fairy tales. In that spirit, there are a few references to Norse mythology in there. Mostly, though, it’s made of people who have become trapped by their own longing. The stories of the people who live in the woods never get resolution because they’re not supposed to—these people are stuck in a state of perpetual wanting. It’s supposed to feel like a dream, symbolic and episodic, where the logic takes a back seat to the experience.

Jordan: Without giving anything away, the book leaves a number of things unresolved.  Why did you feel this was necessary?  Does every question need an answer in middle grade fiction?
Anne: I think sometimes as adults we want to protect kids. We look to stories to give happy endings because we want to reassure them that there’s some tidiness in the world, that everything ties up in neat little bows. We wish for that for them in their lives. But life isn’t tidy, and kids know this, and I think stories have tremendous potential to help kids deal all the mess and uncertainty. We’re not telling them that all questions have answers, but rather that some don’t, and that that’s okay.

This story isn’t girl-has-boy, girl-loses-boy, girl-rescues-boy—that was never the point. It’s about growing up, and getting the tools to function in the world. I think the tidy ending in this story wouldn’t really have been a happy one at all, because it would have been short term—it wouldn’t have given Hazel anything for the future. And it certainly wouldn’t have been an honest one.

This summer I went to a book club of middle school age readers who had all read an advance copy of the book. I asked them what they thought of the end, and to a one they all said that the story simply couldn’t be happily ever after. One seemed very concerned, as if I might go back and change it, and gravely instructed me, “A very happy ending would be unsatisfying for this book.” I resisted the urge to hug her.

Jordan: What was the biggest shift in the story between your first draft and your final draft?  (I have my own answer, but I want to hear yours.)
Anne: For me, I think it was that the fantasy world gained focus. At first, there was no rhyme or reason to who Hazel encountered in the woods and why they were there. And then as I was revising, it just came out in a dialogue that everyone who was there had undergone some kind of loss, that they’d all been lured into the woods. So then the whole landscape became about loss and grief and how you deal with it, and each episode challenged Hazel’s assumptions about the world.

Jordan: When has a person “grown up”?  If we think of this story as Hazel’s journey toward young adulthood, what is the key shift for her?
Anne: There’s a moment late in the story where she realizes that she’s not just the star of her own narrative journey, that somewhere her mom is very worried about her. And she realizes that Jack isn’t only the object of her story but the subject of his own, and as much as she might want to rescue him he might not want rescuing. The world suddenly becomes exponentially bigger—it stops being all about her. And that’s essential to her task, because she has to understand what’s happened to Jack before she can help him. And that means understanding that saving him and getting him back aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Jordan: What happened to the Twins this year?
Anne: Shut up.

Isn’t the art beautiful?  There are some fantastic pieces shown as part of Breadcrumbs.  A big thank you to Anne and Jordan for spending the time to talk about Breadcrumbs with us.  Be sure to come back tomorrow to read my review. And don’t forget to follow the blog tour to see more great stuff, the stops are listed on the Walden Pond website.