#PictureBookMonth – Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type #literacy #edchat #lrnchat #preschool

Doreen Cronin possesses the ability to twist ordinary events and facts into something to laugh at. She is a comic genius whose performance stage is the pages of a children’s book. Cronin hypothesizes that while 99% of the material we encounter each day passes through our brains, everyone has some thoughts, sounds, phrases that stick. “Some ideas, some words just stick and bump into each other,” she says. “The things you can’t get rid of in your head—they’re sticking around for a reason.”

One tidbit that stuck with Cronin was the series of sounds “click clack moo.” She didn’t know what to do with it and let it simmer for a while waiting for another stimulus to give it life. Unfortunately for Cronin, that stimulus was the death of her father. “My father was a police officer and he was very, very funny. He always had a hilarious story to tell.” When he died, she was devastated and frequently had trouble sleeping. One morning she woke in the middle of the night and started writing, simultaneously crying and laughing as she crafted a story she knew her father would love. “I believed he helped me write it,” she says. In that state of mind Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type (a Caldecott Honor book illustrated by Betsy Lewin) found its stream. [Read the rest of my profile with Doreen Cronin.]