A Conversation with Lisa Graff

Last week we talked briefly to Lisa Graff, who wrote the book absolutely almost. Before she was a writer, Lisa worked as a nanny for a while. So Lisa, was there anything you learned as a nanny that you bring with you when you write books for kids these days? When I started nannying in New York, that was the first time I'd ever experienced a play date.

Or, you know, the kids that I nannyed for were very, very scheduled. They had lessons every day, they had after-school activities, they had far more homework than I ever had. and when they played it was scheduled play. And I think part of that was, you know,

that times had changed since I was a kid and part of it was that it was in New York City and so you can't just play on the street or, you know, go ride your bike in the middle of the street

like I did, which I think is less common now but I grew up in a really small town. So, you know, I don't know if that's the times or the place that I was in

but it did really strike me. And one of the families in particular that I nannied for, their kids went to a very posh private school. And I found it very interesting how much pressure

there was on these kids. That was so different from my experience in a public school, which was a very good public school, but I didn't have the same sort of pressure I felt like.

I love the whole reality show subplot that's going on. Talk about where that came from. Yeah, when I first started writing I wasn't sure that that would fit in the book. It just felt tonally that it might not mesh with this whole story that I had of Albie,

but I wanted to explore it anyway because I'm really interested in who decides that they want to be a part of reality television. I'm a pretty private person, so I can't imagine exposing my life for criticism and fame that way.

But I'm also really fascinated by reality TV and I like watching it and I like voyeuristically being involved in other people's lives. And so I just really wanted to talk a little bit about the difference between what we see on TV and what the reality is in reality television because I think kids are more

savvy than I was when I was that age. But I think it's not something that they probably think a lot about what is actually going on. Now talking about you as a writer, when did you decide, first of all, that's who you wanted to be

and secondly that this genre was going to be your voice? When I was 14, my half-brother was born and I decided that I wanted to write him a novel and I'm not sure exactly where that came from but I wrote him a kid's book. It took me four years. It was pretty terrible but it was a lot lot of fun. I was just about to graduate college and I was trying to figure out

what on earth I was going to do with myself and I started thinking about what the things were that I liked doing in my spare time and I realized that I really loved writing children's novels and so I decided to do some research and see if I could find programs for graduate school for children's writing. So I

found two and I applied to both of them and I thought okay if I get into one of these programs, then that means maybe I have something, I have some sort of talent and I can hone that talent and become a writer. And if I didn't get into the programs, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with myself. So I got into both and I

decided to go to the new school in New York and I didn't look back. That's what I decided to do. Thanks, Lisa. We have interviews with dozens of other writers at our website, book for Kids.org on our Writers on Writing page. I'm Kiddie Feldy. Thanks so much for listening.