Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Betty G. Birney! (Thur. 6/4/09)
By Paula Yoo - Posted on June 3rd, 2009
Keep reading for an exclusive interview between Paula's dwarf hamster BOBBI and acclaimed middle grade author and TV writer BETTY G. BIRNEY!
HI EVERYONE! My name is Bobbi. I am Paula Yoo's dwarf hamster. You may have seen me in her blogs where she posts silly pictures of me eating sunflower seeds and running in my wheel.
Well, I've taken over her blog for today. And guess what? I wrote a letter to one of my favorite authors, BETTY G. BIRNEY! I had all these questions for her. And guess what???!!! She wrote me back!!!!!
Paula told me I had to post this as an official exclusive interview for SCBWI TEAM BLOG because Betty is on the faculty of the SCBWI National Conference this August 7-10, 2009 in Los Angeles. So that makes me the official SCBWI TEAM BLOGGER HAMSTER!!!! Yay for me!
So below is our email exchange. I'm a little exhausted from running up and down Paula's keyboard, so if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a nap.
But before I go to sleep, here's my email interview with BETTY G. BIRNEY!
BOBBI: Hi Betty G. Birney! My name is Bobbi. I am Paula's pet dwarf hamster. Sometimes she lets me run in my ball around her room. One day I bumped into a book of yours called THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY. I'm really good at escaping from the ball, so I twisted the top (which had a missing plastic latch that Paula did not detect) so I was able to scramble out and read your book.
I was hooked! So I scampered up Paula's bookshelf and found all your other books! Like SURPRISES ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY, ADVENTURE ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY, FRIENDSHIP ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY, and TROUBLE ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY!
And then I found out you wrote these other books, like THE PRINCESS AND THE PEABODYS, THE SEVEN WONDERS OF SASSAFRAS SPRINGS, and even books with pictures like PIE'S IN THE OVEN and TYRANNOSAURAS TEX!
When Paula was looking for me, she turned on the TV in her room and wow! Your name popped up again! I saw all these TV shows like WELCOME TO POOH CORNER, DOUG, and the Emmy-award winning MADELINE.
Wow! You must really love to write!
BETTY: I DO, I DO, I DO!
BOBBI: I was so mesmerized that I sat in front of the TV, chewing on the corner of one of your books (sorry), when Paula found me and swiftly dumped me back in my cage. She did give me a sunflower seed to make me feel better.
BETTY: I'm glad about the sunflower seed, Bobbi. (Only one? Is Paula a bit stingy?) But you should squeak up and tell Paula that hamsters need to get out of their cages once in a while.
BOBBI: Paula's computer is on and I see this website on her screen called http://bettybirney.com/. It says that you wrote your first book at age 7 called "Teddy Bear in the Woods." What happened in that book? Do you still have it? Can you remember the first sentence?
(Betty, age 7)
BETTY: I used to have it but it's been missing in action for a number of years. I don't remember the first sentence but I do remember that Teddy Bear had a lovely little house in the woods but he was a bit lonely. All he had to keep him company was a radio. Luckily, a girl teddy bear named Tallulah moved into the woods and made Teddy much happier. I wrote a sequel called Teddy Bear and Tallulah). Bobbi, do you think that I wrote that book because I didn't have a friend in the neighborhood and was a little lonely? Thank goodness a few years later my best friend moved in the house across the street.
BOBBI: What is it like to write for TV? Do you go inside the TV box and use a magic wand to create the people inside it? Do you draw Winnie the Pooh?
BETTY: If only I did have a magic wand! All I have is my computer and words. I don't draw anything - I wish I could - and I didn't even invent Winnie the Pooh. Writing for TV is different than writing books because there are all kinds of people involved with the script: producers, directors, actors ... but when you write a book you do it all alone. That can be VERY-VERY-VERY good or VERY-VERY-VERY bad.
BOBBI: How did you come up with the idea for Humphrey? Did you meet him at a pet store?
BETTY: Not exactly. Some years ago, I was in my son's science classroom. The teacher had perimeter of the room lined with tables and shelves with cages and tanks on them. There were mice and hamsters, turtles and lizards and they even had a boa constrictor named Lumpy. I remember standing there and wondering what those animals thought about what went on in class. What did they see and hear? Then I thought it would be fun to write a book looking at a classroom through the eyes of a classroom pet. Some time later, that became Humphrey!
BOBBI: Do you have a hamster called Humphrey? Why do you like hamsters so much? Have you ever owned a dwarf hamster like me? If you were a hamster, what would you like to do most - eat sunflower seeds, run in the wheel, or play with me?
BETTY: Bobbi, I have to be honest. I do not have a hamster. I never did have a hamster. Growing up I had a dog named Mitzi and a parakeet named Ricky Ricardo (that gives you an idea of when I grew up). Now I have a dog named Desi. She has forbidden me to get a hamster and I don't want her to be mad at me. But I love animals, except mosquitoes.
If I were a hamster, I would like to play with you - of course!
(Pictured above: Desi!)
BOBBI: Did you know I went to the hospital this year? I had a funny looking lump on my tummy. Paula was very worried and took me to a doctor. I had my first operation! The doctor put a little gas mask on me so I could sleep. And then when I woke up, I had these stitches where my lump used to be! Paula fed me LOTS of sunflower seeds and I had to drink this funny pink medicine that tasted like cherries. Have you ever had a sick hamster? What did you do about it? How did you feel? Did you cry like Paula? What do you recommend saying to Paula or other children when their hamsters are sick?
BETTY: Bobbi, I was almost crying, too, until I got to the happy ending. I never had a hamster but when I was about to write the book, I knew I was going to have to be an expert on hamsters. So I called up Desi's vets and asked if they treat hamsters. It turns out they do and they invited me to come in and watch a hamster examination.
A woman who assists the vet, Judy, also rescues hamsters. I was shocked. Rescues hamsters from what? Who's out to get hamsters? Well, it turns out that if a hamster isn't perfect, pet stores don't want it. So they call up Judy and she takes them and tries to find homes for them. Last time I talked to her, she had 17 hamsters.
Judy brought in two hamsters that day and Dr. Swindall examined one of them, a charming one-eyed hamster named Kramer. I took some funny pictures that day. I learned that your experience was very rare, Bobbi. Hamsters are unusually healthy hamsters unless they get the dreaded "wet hamster disease." Anyway, I was able to ask these two experts lots and lots of questions. And in the third Humphrey book, TROUBLE ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY, Humphrey goes to the vet's office and meets a one-eyed hamster named Winky.
(Pictured above: Kramer getting weighed!)
BOBBI: Where do you write? Paula writes at this big desk in front of a window so she can look outside and watch the squirrels run across the telephone wires. Sometimes she lets me run over her keyboard. She will write for very long periods of time, but she mostly is on this thing called the Internet. How long do you write? Do you goof off like Paula and do other things instead of write? Sometimes Paula will look very stressed and she will watch FOOD TV and then rush to the kitchen to try and make the food they show. It always gets me hungry.
BETTY: I write in my backyard. Not outside, though. In a little house in the back of my backyard. (Funny, because I loved those Little House books.) It has my desk and the walls are lined with bookshelves. There's a couch, too. I am out there 7 days a week and it's my favorite place in the world next to England. I'm not always writing. Like Paula, I find myself on the internet quite a bit. I'm trying to break that habit because the other day I realized I'd just spent ten minutes watching a woman blow dry her hair. Luckily, the office is far enough from the kitchen and the TV to keep me out of trouble there.
While I'm not always writing, I am often doing "pre-writing" which means research and just drifting and dreaming, or answering Humphrey's fan mail. I love the privacy of this little house. There are few distractions, although sometimes an avocado bounces off the roof from the huge tree outside my office. They're not ripe when they fall and they sound like bombs.
Desi does a good job of keeping the squirrels at bay but I recently had a close encounter with one outside my office door. I knew the squirrels love the avocados but I'd never seen how they carry them.
BOBBI: What was your favorite grade? Paula's was 2nd grade. I don't have one because Paula never sent me to school. 
Do you bring a hamster to schools when you visit students? Maybe you can bring me!
Do you bring a hamster to schools when you visit students? Maybe you can bring me!
BETTY: I loved school. I loved vacation, too, but I loved school. I did like second grade a lot - maybe because that's when you get to read on your own and pick out your own books.
I go to LOTS of school - 150 schools in 18 states and two other countries over the last four years- but I don't take a hamster with me. I would love to take you along!
I have some GREAT-GREAT-GREAT photos of hamsters in my presentation. I often meet school hamsters and many of them are now named Humphrey. (But in Florida, one school named their hamster Betty. Quite an honor!)
I was recently at a school in Omaha where they had gotten a hamster for the library. Two days later there were 8 hamsters (how does that happen, Bobbi?) and I got to meet most of them. They're in different classrooms now and they had a great hamster race last year. I saw the video. The highlight was when one of them got frustrated with the slow pace, banged his hamster ball against the wall so the top popped open. Then he climbed out and won the race!
In a village school in England, where I visited last year, I met their hamster named Humphrey. Afterwards, some birds built a nest outside the window. They set up a video camera so the students could watch the eggs hatch. (This is a great school.) Two babies hatched and they named them Betty and Birney.
It's hard for kids - and hamsters - to believe I don't have a hamster, but the truth is: I am a hamster. I may not look as cute and cuddly as you, Bobbi, but since the books are written in Humphrey's voice and looking at the world through his eyes, I really am Humphrey. And he's a lot lilke me. More like me than any of the other characters I've written.
It's fun to be a hamster, isn't it?
BOBBI: Wow, I KNEW you were a hamster, Ms. Betty!!!! YAY!!! Do you have another book I can read? I have read everything. I want to read more! Please tell me if you have more books coming out soon! And what about TV? Paula always has her TV on. Is there anything you wrote that I will be able to see onscreen soon?
BETTY: I just finished the sixth Humphrey book, SUMMER ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY, which comes out in February. If you read this one, Bobbi, you'll find out what Humphrey does on summer vacation. And I have contracts for more, including a series of younger Humphrey books. But I don't just write hamster books. I'm especially proud of THE SEVEN WONDERS OF SASSAFRAS SPRINGS, which has inspired many schools and communities to read the book and then conduct a search for local wonders. I've been lucky enough to attend some of those events. And THE PRINCESS AND THE PEABODYS was such fun to write. It comes out in the UK this week. I'm working on another non-Humphrey book which I must finish soon, but I don't like to talk about what I'm writing during that process. I'm not sure if I'm writing it or just having a wrestling match with it.
I wrote children's television for 20 years and I'm really finished with that. I loved it but I love writing books more. I'm only interested in writing my own projects - maybe a Humphrey show is in the future - we're working on it.
BOBBI: Wow, this is a really long interview but it is so much fun! I can't wait for your new books! But I better stop because I am exhausted from running all over this keyboard. I'm going to take a nap. I really like you, Ms. Betty Birney!
BETTY: Hamsters like a lot of exercise, but it sounds as if you deserve a rest! (And maybe Paula will give you a treat for helping her out).
You're a good interviewer. I was interviewed by a hamster on the BBC in London. Her name was Henrietta but she had a funny accent.
As Humphrey would say, it's been fun squeaking with you. You're a REALLY-REALLY-REALLY nice hamster. Your friend, Betty!
- Paula Yoo's blog
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Wow, TERRIFIC INTERIVEW!! The According to Humphrey books are my absolutely favorite new discovery for the Summer Conference. It is a phenomenal series, and I wound up reading them all; I can't wait to find out what Humphrey does during the summers!
In this interview, I also really, really enjoyed finding out where the character of Winky came from. That part of that book was (groan, no pun intended) really eye-opening for me. The books have this wonderful feeling of real, new, ongoing discovery in them that's all-the-time. They are the real deal.
I also love knowing that Betty Birney wrote these without having owned a hamster, and her confession that, anyway, now she is one.
Thanks and thanks, Paula and Betty Birney!
Cheers, and see you both at the Summer Conference!
Rita
http://rhcrayon.livejournal.com
It's like we're getting coffee together!
Except without coffee . . . or you
Thanks Rita for your comment and we can't wait to see you too! :)
Hysterical, informative, and so much fun!
Paula, Betty, Bobbi,
I applaud all three of you!
Brava, Brava, Brava!!! (And a "Bravo!" for Humphrey!)
Well done!
Namaste,
Lee
"I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell do I Read?"
at
http://www.leewind.org