Book Interview: Laura Alary

I love to hold book interviews on my substack. Below is an interview with Dr. Laura Alary, who is my Knox College classmate and wonderful friend. We have kept in touch over the years and it is wonderful that she is writing amazing children’s books.

Tell us a bit about youself:

I grew up in Nova Scotia on Canada’s east coast and spent many hours roaming beaches, looking for treasures like stones, shells, and sea glass. This childhood habit is a good metaphor for my work as a writer. I still collect things I find fascinating, distinctive, or beautiful, only now they’re fragments of conversations, anecdotes about people, and intriguing facts. Eventually, I use them to create stories.

How did you start writing children’s books?

I started writing children’s books to help me recover from writing my PhD thesis! After squeezing out and defending all those chapters, I had lost all pleasure in writing. At the time, my son was an infant, so while I was reading and singing to him, I thought I’d also try writing a story to see if I could find joy in words again. Later, when I had three young children at home, I began to write the sort of books I was looking for but couldn’t find. For instance, when I wanted to introduce my children to the season of Lent in a positive way, I ended up writing Make Room: A Child’s Guide to Lent and Easter. That book was well-received, so I followed it up with Look! A Child’s Guide to Advent and Christmas and Breathe: A Child’s Guide to Ascension, Pentecost, and the Growing Time.

How did you start this book?

I thought I had covered the highlights of the liturgical year, but when my son asked me when I was going to write a book about Easter, I realized (with some embarrassment) that I had skipped the whole of Eastertide! His question prompted me to start thinking about how to describe this marvelous season of resurrection for young readers. The result was Rise: A Child’s Guide to Eastertide (Paraclete Press).

What is the main focus?

As I pondered this particular arc of the church year, one of the things I realized is that Eastertide is both an ongoing celebration of resurrection and a season of preparation for Ascension and Pentecost. During this in-between time, Jesus comes and goes in mysterious and startling ways. He seems to be getting his followers ready for a time when he will no longer be physically present with them. In the book, I use the game of hide-and-seek as a playful analogy for how Jesus prompts his friends to seek and find him in bread and wine, in the scriptures, and in one another. So part of the book’s focus is the question: Where do we see Jesus? Another focus has to do with the meaning of resurrection. The child narrator admits that sometimes she wonders what the story of Jesus rising from the dead has to do with her. I try to address this question by broadening the idea of resurrection to include new beginnings and fresh starts of all kinds. For example, Peter failed miserably as a friend, but Jesus gives him another chance to show what he can do. Maybe this is resurrection too.

What projects do you have coming out next?

I have five picture books coming out in 2025, on topics ranging from Easter and Christmas to the water cycle and the essential role darkness plays in the lives of all living creatures. Watch for Sea in My Cells and Wind, Stop Blowing! In May, and two more in the fall. My interests range so widely I can’t always predict what I will create next. Whatever the topic, my stories tend to emphasize curiosity and connection—the impulse to wonder about and grow in our understanding of one another, the world we share, and the universe beyond us.

About the book:

Rise: A Child’s Guide to Eastertide, Written by Laura Alary, Illustrated by Giuliano Ferri, Published by Paraclete Press, January 2025

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I preached and gave a public lecture on my book When God Became White at Knox College this past October. It was great to catch up with my friend, Laura Alary.

Special Events:

1.If you appreciated my 2 new books, When God Became White and or Surviving God co-written with Susan Shaw, please feel free to vote for them as your favorite 2024 book/s in the Englewood Review of Books’s Readers’ Best Awards – Vote for Your Favorite Books of 2024!

2.Homebrewed Christianity hosted by Tripp Fuller has been a constant supporter of Madang Podcast. Please sign up for their online class happening now,Rise of Bonhoeffer.Great lecturers and topics are being covered.Tony Joneswas the Book Series editor of theHomeBrewed Christianity book series(Fortress Press). You canread them all, including Tripp Fuller and my book.