ROBERT HEIDBREDER--BIO

Robert Heidbreder—yep, that’s me—was born on the wet, muddy banks of the Mississippi River in 1947 and in 1970 he—I sure did—moved to the wet, misty skies of Vancouver B.C. to pursue his degree in Classical Languages.

In 1975 he—that’s me again—became a Canadian citizen, and in the same year he completed his teaching degree at University of British Columbia. Soon after he started teaching primary children in Vancouver, he began writing because he wanted the children in his class introduced to a liveliness of language that matched their natural bounce, energy, imagination and playfulness. Without the joys of being around children, he would have never ever for ever sure started to write.

But he also writes because when he was little—and was I little once!—he had a mule, that he called Mr. NO because that mule said “NO” to everything by sitting on his bum and braying: “Me no move! Me no move!” He was as stubborn as writing itself can be, even stubborner than me, when I was little.

His first book was Don’t Eat Spiders, (oh and I did eat them once, when I was little.) published in 1985, and his latest book was Crocodiles Play, published in the fall of 2008. In 2010 his book of wake-up lullabies, called Shake-Awakes will be published. His book, Drumheller Dinosaur Dance, won the children’s choice awards in BC (The Chocolate Lily Award) and in Ontario (The Blue Spruce Award).
In 2002 he won the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence and in 2005 he retired from teaching after 30 years. His presentations to children in the schools and at festivals help keep the child—and the mule—within him alive, awake, laughing and rhyming—and braying—away.

“HEE HAW” as I loved to say, when I was little.

Beginning writing

I always loved writing, even when it was hard for me in elementary school, because writing was about who I could be, who I could imagine myself to be, and it was about making ‘something from nothing.’ It’s one of the wonders of writing that you can create something that wasn’t there before by letting your imagination join up with words.

But I started writing in earnest and for an audience when I started teaching primary children.

They inspired me and they helped me find my writing voice.
So when anyone asks me why I write today, I say “Children made me do it!”
And the mule, Mr. NO, of course, too.

Inspiration for Crocodiles Play
Oh how I loved to play when I was a child! Any and everything could be a game.
“Bob, it’s time to do the dishes.”
To beat my older sister and before I’d end be the dryer—so boring—I would rush into the kitchen, run to the sink, dump bubble detergent into the sink and blast on the water.

Then I’d watch the castles, mountains, caves and clouds of bubble rise up, up up.
“It’s not play time. It’s chore time.” I always heard as both the bubbles and my spirits fell.
“Bob, time to help with the garbage.”
So I’d grab the biggest bag, fling it over my shoulder and shout:
“Ho Ho Ho. I’m Santa Claus and you’ll get stinkies if you’re bad.”
“Bob, it’s not play time. It’s chore time.”
Play and work just didn’t seem to mix, no matter how hard I tried. There seemed to be rules, times and places for everything.
When I actually wanted to play a game, I kind of liked to mix it up.
“Susie,” I’d say to my older sister, “Want to play tag?”
“Sure,” my older sister would say and then I’d go off and hide.

I thought when she found me, then I could chase her and try to tag her until she hid. But she just stopped playing.
It didn’t work that way. Just like chores, there were so many rules to the way games were played.

So I became expert in making up my own games.
One of my favourites was CROCODILE.
Our family had visited the southern US and we’d seen alligators.
After that, I just couldn’t stop snapping. But I changed ‘alligator’ to ‘crocodile.’ It just somehow seemed snappier. All those hard C sounds. I’d be really quiet and then go “SNAP! Crocodile got you.”
I wasn’t popular in my family for that.
And I made up crocodile rhymes:

Crocodile, Crocodile at the fair
Crocodile needs new underwear and:
Crocodile, Crocodile on the rocks,
Crocodile wears old stinky socks.

I said these over and over. It was my play.
I loved it, even if others, and there were many, didn’t.
As I got to school things became even more complicated.
When we played dodge ball, I’d be playing kick ball.
Jumping hurdles meant squeezing through them.
Beanbag toss was beanbag bury. (There are probably still some beanbags buried in the field of my youth.)

And those basketballs were just a whole more fun to bowl with than to dribble.
Organized sport was just too organized for me and I kind of let team sports go the way of the stinky Santa garbage in my life.
(I may have come by this naturally. I remember my dad telling me that the first and only time he played football, when he saw all those big guys running at him, he threw the football up in the air and ran the other way.)
When I first started teaching young children, I realized that they shared many of my feelings. Rules were constraining. So our organized games were rather free-wheeling and changeable.

“Need 5, 6, 7 tries at hitting that ball with a bat?” Good idea.
“Hey, can we throw the ball instead of hitting it?”Why not?
So when I started to think about this book, Crocodiles Play,
which is about further crocodile rules and manners first started in Crocodiles Say, my childhood and the childhood of those I taught merged to create a kind of wacky celebration of sport the crocodile (and my) way.
This book then is for me a kind of ode to the imagination,
to stretching the boundaries, which is what creativity should do,
and to just plain having fun. And I’m sure glad Rae Mate illustrated it, since her paintings are a perfect match for the wild crocodile way of sport.

Tips
We often practice piano, baseball, figure-skating, hockey, but we forget that we must practice writing too. So write as often as you can, play with words, change your writing, think of authors you like and learn from them.
Then put your writing away for a while and let it rest. (I have a sleeping drawer for my writing, complete with blanket and pillow.) When you take it out, see if you still like it.

Here’s how I like to think of writers:

W R I T E R S…

Wonder.
Rough in their wonderment.
Inspect their rough draft and invite input.
Tighten and try again.
Examine their writing.
Re-write, re-think, and re-write.
Set their writing aside to see if they’re satisfied, then…
probably…start again wondering!

Next

A book called Shake-Awakes, lullabies to wake you and your parents up is coming out in fall of 2010 and A Black and Bittern Night is coming out in the fall of 2009. It’s a book about Hallowe’en and how children bravely confront the little known creatures called SKUL-A-MUGS who try to steal Hallowe’en away. I also have a new poetry collection hitting the shelves—OUCH!-- probably after 2011 called Sock-Hop Sunday. It’s about moving and grooving through time.

Contact
I don’t have a website yet, but I’m a-working on it. (It should be up by early 2010.) But you can go to Kids Can website and find about me there or you can email me at rheidbreder@shaw.ca

Rae Maté

I was born in Vancouver BC , where the only crocodiles I ever met were in the stories and songs I heard from my parents and teachers. I still love to read and collect good children’s books , but the picture books, nursery rhymes and songs I remember from my childhood continue to inspire me as a creative artist today.

Art was always my very favorite activity at home and in school . When I was in Grade One , a prayer called “The Lord’s Prayer” was recited out loud every morning. The words were old fashioned and I believed that the phrase, “Our Father who “art” in Heaven” referred to the Creator sitting high up on a cloud, happily drawing and painting!

I grew up, graduated from university and became teacher for grades 2-3 for a time. Later I left teaching to look after my own three children, and eventually I found the confidence to follow my dream and go back to art school to train as a professional artist. Now, more than twenty years later, I am still happy to be painting, showing and selling my work from my studio in my back yard. I also enjoy teaching art classes to preschool children and their parents one morning aweek.. My Two and Three year olds students know that art is play, and that is why they are such free and expressive artists!

I started painting Crocodiles when I was in art school : scary creatures with sharp teeth, but I would also include in these paintings the image of a child who knew how to tame them , (like Maurice Sendak’s Max who tamed the Wild Things ), and over the years those crocodiles got nicer and tamer until their appetites transformed. They loved ice cream and flowers! These Crocs were funny and friendly: They danced, played the banjo, read books, cuddled and kissed their children goodnight, singing “Croc-a- Bye Baby...”.

I was very, very lucky because my fanciful crocodile paintings caught the eye of Carol Frank who is the art editor for Tradewind books. She really liked them and asked me if she could show these crocodile paintings to children’s author Robert Heidbreder. I said “YES!!!” because it was always my dream to illustrate books for children. She did, and Robert was inspired to write a story for the silly Crocodiles . Then I got to dream up illustrations for that story, and the result is our first children’s book, “Crocodiles say...” starring three silly Crocodiles, who, from morning till night, never do what they say.

Several years after, Robert Heidbreder wrote a very funny sporty sequel for the Crocodiles . We are thrilled that “Crocodiles Play!” has been nominated for two children’s choice awards this year , The Chocolate Lily Award in BC and the Blue Spruce award in Ontario. I am presently completing the acrylic paintings to illustrate my third picture book, about an adventurous cat. The author is Dan Bar-el, and our book “Pussy Cat Pussy Cat, Where have you Been?” will be published by Simply Read Books in 2010.

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Dear Blue Sprucers, I warmly invite you to send me your questions or comments in an email, and also a sample of YOUR drawings.. of crocodiles, cats, sports, or whatever it is that YOU like to draw! Happy reading!
Rae Maté

My website : http://www.raemate.com
My email: info@raemate.com