Bianca with Sally Pla on The Water, The Fire, and Maudie McGinn

The Children's Book Review: Growing Readers Podcast

Sally J. Pla discusses her novel The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGinn and describes the character of Maudie as a girl who learns resiliency in the face of life's challenges. Sally also talks about the importance of reading about characters different from oneself to broaden empathy and understanding. The themes of the book include divorce, neurodivergence, and abuse. Sally's website, Novelmind.com, is a resource for mental health and neurodiversity representation in children's literature.

Sally J. Pla is the author of the acclaimed novels The Someday Birds and Stanley Will Probably Be Fine. She has English degrees from Colgate and Penn State and has worked as a business journalist and in public education. She has three sons, a husband, and an enormous fluffy dog and lives near lots of lemon trees in Southern California.

Transcription:

You can read the transcription on The Children's Book Review .

Order a Copy:

The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGinn: ⁠Amazon⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠Bookshop.org.

Resources:

You can visit Sally J. Pla online at www.sallyjpla.com.

Visit anovelmind.com, a site about mental health and neurodiversity in children’s literature.

Discussion Topics:

• The premise of The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGinn and how it fits with Sally's mission
• Sally discusses the struggle of sustaining focus and shares her secret weapon, a particular software, to block distractions.
• She explains how her mission to populate children's literature with neurodivergent characters came about through her own experiences with her neurodivergent children and a health emergency that refocused her priorities.
• The importance of reading about characters who are different from oneself to broaden empathy and understanding.
• Sally describes the character of Maudie as a girl who cares about others and wants to be accepted and loved and learns to surf as a metaphor for learning resiliency in the face of life's challenges.
• Inherited traumas that parents bring into their parenting and the resources included in the book.
• How the combination of prose and verse in the book was a natural evolution based on Maudie's thought processes
• The message of empowerment and resilience in The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGinn.