Interview with Sara O’Leary, Author of “A Family is a Family is a Family”

How did you come to writing children's books?

A lot of it had to do with having a small child of my own and spending so much time reading books with him. And it’s pretty common, I think, to have that impulse of reading children’s books and thinking “Oh, I could do that!” Which is pretty funny because writing picture books is actually very difficult. Mem Fox has described it as “like trying to write War and Peace in Haiku” which is pretty brilliant.  

What was your inspiration for writing A Family is a Family is a Family? 

At the time I wrote that one I had already published three books about a little boy named Henry and the tall tales his mother and father told him. Having spent time portraying one version of a family, it seemed to me that I had a responsibility to make clear I didn’t think it was the only version.  

I thought about people I knew and tried to construct a narrative that was open enough that a child reader could point to something familiar, even if their own family wasn’t precisely depicted. And then that idea came to life when my editor Sheila Barry brought in Qin Leng to illustrate it. Qin had the text and a roughed-out list of things that we hoped to see in the book, and it was left to her to make all those forms of representation and inclusion feel organic, which she did beautifully.

What were your hopes for the way this story would be shared? Were you envisioning it to be read at home with families and/or in classrooms?

I think of it as a kindergarten book because the classroom setting in the story partly reflects the time when there could be a need for it. It’s that age where kids are moving more to being peer-oriented, and when the idea of “difference” being something difficult to explain can be forced upon them. So, yes, I really do like the idea of it being used in schools because if it can give even the smallest sense of reassurance to someone facing that fear then I’m grateful. 

I also think that books like this need to be there for the kids who’ve never had cause to question whether all family structures exactly duplicate their own, and I believe that it’s important that these ideas are introduced early in the hopes of pre-empting the prejudices that can develop. 

Did you experience any negative feedback regarding the LGBTQ part of this story?

I haven’t experienced any but I do think the pushback against a book like this will be silent because it probably has to be read first unlike some books where it is clear from the title exactly what is being talked about.  

The book does get used quite frequently in Drag Queen Story Hours which I think is fantastic, but I was appalled to read a newspaper article about protests and a SWAT team being called out at one of their events. If anyone could think a person in a wig reading a story about children in loving families to children is somehow dangerous then something is very wrong.

What about writing children's books has been the most helpful in crafting your new novel, The Ghost in the House? 

Writing children’s books has taught me how to work with really concise forms, and how to look at the shape of stories in a way I don’t think I could have done before. And I hope all that has informed my writing of this novel. 

And writing a novel has taught me how much I love writing books of five hundred words or less.

What is one of your favorite children’s books and why?

I’m going to cheat and name two books. The first is Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers, which is a story of a boy who finds a penguin on his doorstep and doesn’t know what to do with him. The other is the book Sparky by the novelist Jenny Offill which is the story of a girl who gets a pet sloth and finds ways to persuade herself he is the perfect pet. Boy or girl, penguin or a sloth, love is love.

I was talking to someone about the picture books I’ve done so far and the ones I am working on and said, “You know, every book I’ve written for children is a love story.” And as I said it, I realised it was true. The children’s books that most appeal to me seem to have that at the heart of them as well.