An Interview with Author Judy Cook

Last time I blogged it was related to dancing dinosaurs. And guess what? My post today is about dancing dinosaurs, too! Canadian author and dancer Judy Cook is here with me to answer some questions about her debut picture book When Dinosaurs Go Dancing, recently published by FriesenPress and a great blend of rhythm, rhyme, dance, and science!

Thanks for joining us, Judy! I'd love to hear more about your background in dance. When did your passion for dance begin and where has it taken you professionally?

I started dancing when I was a child at Sonia’s Dancing Academy in Saskatoon. I seemed to have a special talent for tap dancing, and after receiving a trophy for “the most outstanding tap performer” at a dance festival, I was hooked. A little praise goes a long way!

I kept taking jazz, tap, and ballet classes and even helped my teacher Sonia Fabian in teaching little kids. When I finished high school, I decided to continue my studies at the dance college at Ryerson University in Toronto. I had found my path in life! 

I was so happy in Toronto because I had found a group of people who loved dance as much as I did. I was dancing from morning until night. I would even come to the campus on the weekends for extra ballet classes. After graduating, I auditioned for stage shows and began dancing professionally on TV and in shows around the Toronto area.

I was in a show at the Skyline Hotel for a year and then decided to go to Winnipeg when I was accepted for an apprentice position with Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers. I danced with them as an apprentice for a year and then started a theatre company “Canadian Content Theatre” with some theatrical friends of mine. We travelled and performed all around Canada with that company for over 15 years. 

That’s when we created our show “Listen to the Bones.” It was a musical theatre show all about dinosaurs and was initially in collaboration with a touring Dinosaur Alive exhibit that was at the Manitoba Children’s Museum for a summer.  

What an interesting path that led you to dancing, theatre...and eventually dinosaurs! How did you come up with the idea for When Dinosaurs Go Dancing?

The book title is from a song in our “Listen to the Bones” musical. There is a dance I still do with the kindergarten-grade 2 students.  I have been doing this dance for years in the schools, and the students have always loved it. I kept thinking that somebody should write a book based on this song, but when I realized that I was probably the only person who would ever do it.....I started jotting down ideas for the book.   

It’s always fun to learn more about debut authors and their paths to publication. What was yours like? Did it happen quickly or was it a long road?

It was a long road for me…..12 years. I didn’t know how a person went about publishing a book. I was talking to an old school chum from Saskatoon about my idea. His kids had loved our dinosaur song “Listen to the Bones” when they were growing up. He took out a cheque book and made out a cheque to me for $5,000! He laughingly said that if I make a million I can pay him back some day. So that’s how I got the money to pay an illustrator, and that’s how I met Sonia Nadeau, who is now a dear friend of mine! I also went to a publishing workshop at Humber College in Toronto, so I went into the project with wide-open eyes, realizing that it was very difficult to sell a lot books, and even to make back your money, especially if you are trying to do it yourself.  

 Because you chose to self-publish your book through FriesenPress, you needed to find an illustrator on your own, as you have alluded to. How did you find Sonia Nadeau?

Yes….after I got the money I looked around for an illustrator from Winnipeg, and when I saw Sonia’s work I immediately knew she was perfect for the book project. 

For most traditionally published picture books, the authors and illustrators don’t interact much during the publication process. What was your relationship with Sonia Nadeau like as the book was coming together?

Because I was used to collaborating with other artists in all the previous creative work I had done and because I was so close to the dinosaur material for so-o-o many years, I just knew I needed a more hands-on approach with the illustrator. Sonia was also close to the material because she had a job in a day care and just by chance had been using our music with the kids in her classes for six years! I went to her day care….we recorded the kids dancing to the music, and she used the video for some of the inspiration for her drawings. I also knew I wanted the dinosaurs to be taken from scientific renditions, and Sonia has a friend who draws dinosaurs for encyclopedias, so every dinosaur in the book was drawn that way! We share a particular sense of humour, and we had lots of meetings and were on the same page from the start. She is a delight to work with and I hope we can do it again soon!

I read in your bio at the back of When Dinosaurs Go Dancing that you conduct workshops in schools through several different arts programs. Can you tell us more about those workshops?

I have created a theatrical dance program for schools in which the students and I choreograph together and all the classes perform for each other at the end of the week. I work with some students who have extensive dance backgrounds mixed with some others who have none. It’s my challenge to help create and guide the students to show off everybody’s talents. That’s where my theatre training comes in handy. If somebody in the class has a special talent, we just choreograph it into our piece. My objective is for everyone to have a positive experience with the art form of dance! I was also the dance specialist for a two-year research project creating a dance program focusing on children with fetal alcohol syndrome in the Norway House Cree Nation, and was part of a panel to share the research at a world arts festival (VSA) held in Washington, DC. I have had very positive experiences creating dance programs for children with disabilities.

How do you incorporate the book into your workshops for children?

I have just started to do readings in schools, and I have taken parts from the musical and adapted them to do fun scenes with the kids. The kids become newsboys in a scene that’s set to music and based on when people first began to discover dinosaur fossils.

There is also a hand dance "Back in Time” set to a music soundscape. I can use the same music with the kids for creative transformations….We theatrically change from being the wind…..to becoming a fish…..to flying like a pteranodon. It’s all great for workshop material. The kids can work together and make different dinosaurs out of their bodies while learning to be cooperative and work together as a group.

My partner Rubin Kantorovich and I recently co-wrote a new song called the "Bruce Rap." It’s all about the mosasaur I mention in my book. When I was doing a school workshop, I gave a verse to each group of four-to-six kids to work on, and they learned the words and choreographed cool moves to go along with it. Then they performed it for another class! They LOVED that activity!

The fossil skeleton of the mosasaur is on display at the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre in Morden, Manitoba. FriesenPress's printing press is located in Altona -- a town close to the fossil museum. They printed 2,000 copies of the book for a big giveaway at the Altona Sunflower Festival this year. It was so fun to be able to give books away and not have to worry about making my money back. That was a fun event AND they gave me 250 free paperback copies that I can sell!   

Sonia and I also had a book launch at the fossil museum. I did the dance with the kids, Sonia gave an illustration workshop along with the reading, and we premiered the “Bruce Rap" song.

What great ways to promote the book! Through all of these activities, have you found any parts of the book that resonate the most with children and their caregivers?

I think the younger children enjoy the rhyme in the first part of the book and their older brothers and sisters like the dinosaur and fossil facts in the second part. They all love Sonia’s beautiful illustrations, and the dancers connect to all the dance-related parts. 

What other book projects might you have in the works? Any more dancing dinosaurs on the horizon? 

I would love to do another book with Sonia. I’d like to do a teacher’s guide, too. Right now I’m working on trying to find ways to distribute the book to school and public libraries. Some of my friends who are teachers have told me they have used the book in their classes and are having a lot of fun with it. 

Sonia and I just found out some more positive news. The Mom’s Choice Awards has named When Dinosaurs go Dancing among the best in family-friendly media, products, and services. I’m hoping that will help us promote the book.

Congratulations. That's fantastic news! And thanks for sharing more about your journey with us today!

Thanks so much for this opportunity. It’s fun to share with people the background of how it all came together. I have learned so much about the book business by doing this project, and maybe my story will help inspire someone else out there to keep their dreams alive and perhaps create their own book!

To learn more about Judy and When Dinosaurs Go Dancing, you can check out the book's launch page through the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. You can also follow Judy on Twitter here.