September 2020

Children’s Author Lana Button grew up in the tiny border town of St. Stephen, New Brunswick. She has a background in acting and is an Early Childhood Educator. Today Lana writes for young children and reads books out loud to crowds of children whenever she gets the chance. Lana’s picture books have been shortlisted for awards including the Blue Spruce, the Shining Willow, the Jean Throop IODE Award and the Rainforest of Reading, and have been recognized as a Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Best Book and the IBBY Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities. She has written several picture books including the Willow series, My Teacher’s Not Here!, What if Bunny’s Not a Bully and Raj’s Rule (For The Bathroom at School). Lana specializes in school, library and festival presentations as well as virtual presentations. Her literary presentations about perseverance, empathy and anti-bullying have inspired children across Canada. Lana and her husband have three grown daughters and live in Burlington, Ontario.

First, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get your start as an author?

I grew up in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, a small border town on the edge of Maine, with my mum and dad and older brother, Dana. As a child, I hadn’t yet dreamed of being a writer and I was pretty sure I was going to grow up to be a movie star. I created and acted out characters often. I’ve also always had a love for working with young children. As a teenager I loved to babysit, and I worked in our local day care centre. After high school I studied acting at Concordia University in Montreal and then spent a few years as an actress working a bit in TV, film and theatre (and working a lot as a waitress).

But the unpredictable life of acting didn’t really fit my personality and I missed opportunities to work with young children, so I went back to school to study early childhood education. It was there that I fell in love with great picture books, and the dream to write books that could inspire and entertain young children was born. Creating picture book characters and stories for children combines both of my passions.

I spent years learning how to write by attending classes and workshops and reading everything I could find on the topic. I worked in childcare and preschool during the day and wrote in the evenings and on weekends (whenever my three young daughters slept). I received years of rejections that started to become more encouraging. And then finally my first acceptance came from Ladybug Magazine for Young Children for a story I wrote called “Bailey Became a Bullfrog”. I also had success in freelance writing for magazines such as Today’s Parent and Parents Canada on different child development topics. During those years many stories I worked on fell to the wayside. But one story, about a quiet little girl who found a way to make herself heard, just wouldn’t let me give up on it, despite being rejected by every publisher (some even more than once.) The story was a finalist in the Writing for Children Competition that was, at the time, run by the Writer’s Union of Canada, and is now run by the CANSCAIP organization. After that, Yvette Ghione at Kids Can Press showed some interest in the story and that eventually became my first book, Willow’s Whispers.

Your books always seem to perfectly capture the mind of a child. How do you approach writing from this perspective?

I feel like I have always had a keen sense of being able to communicate with young children. I joke, when I approach schools to do presentations that I ‘speak kindergarten.’ I have a great deal of respect for the fact that young children have a limited vocabulary and a limited attention span, but they have a lot to say. I consider it my job as both an early childhood educator and as a children’s author to communicate with children with an understanding and respect for who they are, in terms of their unique personality, and in terms of their culture and their family experience. I strive, with every story, to inspire young children and make them feel heard.

Your book What if Bunny’s Not a Bully is a different take on the traditional “bully” story and is the perfect example of a picture book that teaches empathy. What inspired you to write this story?

Young children can be very literal in their thinking. And social conflicts can be difficult to maneuver.  Children may not initially read a conflict correctly, as it can be challenging to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. But it is my experience that when young children have the opportunity to understand how their peer is feeling, their own feelings run deep and they often show care and consideration. I wanted to write a story that made children stop and question what was happening on the page. I’m hoping that the young listener comes to the realization that Bunny is not a bully, well before the characters understand this. The resolution is one that the children hopefully see as fair, and the right thing to do. And then it is my hope that when they face future conflicts, this story might ring in their ear a bit as a reminder that people make mistakes and are sometimes looking for a chance to say sorry and try again.

How can teachers, librarians and parents use your books to engage with children?

This story is intended to be a conversation starter. I would love for children to have the opportunity to share their thoughts on whether Bunny is a bully. I hope that, in times of social conflict, this book can be pulled out to encourage thoughts of empathy and understanding. I hope that on special ‘anti-bullying days’ this story finds a place in the conversation. And I also hope that it is used as a tool for encouraging children to speak up, in times when they see someone being mistreated, and in times when they, themselves, need to acknowledge they’ve made a mistake and would like to try again.

The book especially supports the kindergarten curriculum frames of Belonging and Contributing and Self-Regulation and Well-Being. Having the children reflect on topics of inclusion, empathy and understanding in this story and in their own experiences are topics that can enhance a kindergarten program.

What projects are you working on now? Can you tell us about any upcoming books?

I am actually currently working on a third book in this series, called Tayra’s Not Talking. In this story, a new student has joined Kitty’s class, but she’s not saying a word. Can the characters be friends with someone who won’t talk back? Does she even want to be their friend? The ever-empathetic Kitty shows them all that there are lots of ways to communicate and make friends.

I have a brand-new story just out, called Raj’s Rule (For the Bathroom at School) (OwlKids Books, 2020) illustrated by Hatem Aly, which is a funny book about resiliency and finding ways around uncomfortable situations. And this spring I have a story called Tough Like Mum (Tundra Books, 2021) illustrated by Carmen Mok, about a little girl who has to go to school without her field trip money.

Find out more about Lana at lanabutton.com