Guest Author: Virginia Wright

Today, I have a special guest at my pad, children's author, Virginia Wright.  She has an adorable new book out, called Wild Animal Sounds.

Before I start the interview with her, I'll give you my quick review of the book:

Five stars:  Wild Animal Sounds is a book that phonetically recreates the sounds wild animals make. Animals include the elephant, warthog, bear, lion, and hippopotamus. Some animal sounds readers will be quite familiar with - "Ort-ort-ort-ort-ot-ot" of the sea lion. Others may be new - "Mooo-oooh-moo-ma-nuck" for the moose. Children are invited to repeat each sound after the animal makes it. At the end of the book, is a coloring page and a short quiz to see if the child can match the animal with its sound. The illustrations are cute and colorful, and compliment the text nicely. Wild Animal Sounds is a book children ages 3-7 would enjoy.

Hi, Virginia!  Welcome!  I love your new book, Wild Animal Sounds. It's so perfect for introducing animal sounds to kids.  The sounds in your book are unique. They are spelled the way they sound in real life. Where did you get the idea to do that? Sherry, I didn’t get the idea to spell the words the way they sound in real life from anyone or anything. I just knew that I wanted Wild Animal Sounds to be unique. When writing Wild Animal Sounds, I listened to hours of wild animal sound clips. I wanted to give my readers what I felt was a human interpretation of an animal sound. I would listen to animal sounds and then write down what I felt I was hearing.

You did a great job recreating the sounds! Would you give our readers some examples of the sounds in your book? Yes, I’d love to, Sherry.  I didn't want to simply say that an elephant trumpeted, so after listening to several animal clips of an elephant, I decided that the elephant sounds like “E-reow.” Another human interpretation of one of my animals in the story is the coyote that sounds like “Rup-rup-rup-aroo.” 

I didn't know a coyote could sound so cute!  Do you have a favorite animal sound?  My favorite animal sound, Sherry, is the sound a moose makes—“Mooo-oooh-moo-ma-nuck.  In Maine, we have moose in the wild. I live fairly close (a couple of hours) from the Canadian border. I felt that if a moose could talk it would have a little bit of a Maine accent and Canadian accent mixed.  ;-)

Haha!  Before reading your book, I really had no idea what a moose sounded like.  What other kind of animal sounds do you hear where you live? I hear many animal sounds where I live Sherry, I will name a few: Coyote, Osprey, Loons, Raccoons,  Deer, Seals, Grey Squirrels, and Chipmunks.

I noticed one of your sounds is a cockatiel.  Do you have any pets, or did you have any when you were a kid?  No, Sherry I do not have any pets.  I have owned dogs in the past though and loved every one of them!

Dogs make a lot of noise!  So do frogs.  My African clawed frog croaks all night, and makes it sound like I'm living in a jungle!  How did you decide which animals to use?  Sherry, I based which animals to use in Wild Animal Sounds partly on a few of the animals we have in Maine, but also based on animals I wanted to illustrate. The cockatiel was added to Wild Animal Sounds because of my granddaughter, Julie.  My son’s family has a cockatiel and my granddaughter asked me if I would put hers in my book.

I'm sure your granddaughter is thrilled about seeing her pet in your book!  Are you working on any other projects? Yes, Sherry. My latest WIP is titled: Timothy the Christmas Mouse. I am hoping (**fingers crossed**) for a 2015 release. I am also stepping away from the children’s genre at some point to finish a cookbook.

I can't wait to read the new Christmas book.  And a cookbook sounds good, too.  You've shared some excellent recipes on your blog and Facebook, so I'm sure you'll have some awesome recipes in the cookbook!  Where can we find Wild Animal Sounds:  My First Book? Thank you for asking, Sherry. Wild Animal Sounds can be found at many online book stores, I will list a few: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books-A-Million .

Thanks for telling us about your new book!  I'm sure kids will love it!  Thank you, Sherry.

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Virginia will give an autographed copy of the book to one lucky person.  Just leave a comment for your chance to win!