Nora Carpenter on Yoga Frog

I'm delighted to report that VCFA grad Nora Carpenter (my student!) has a new picture book out. A yoga book--with a frog character leading the way.I asked Nora: Where did this book idea come from? [Nora] When I first started teaching yoga to kids back in 2007, I searched the Fairfax County library system (I lived in Northern Virginia at the time) for a book that introduced a basic yoga flow in a way that was fun and simple without being simplistic. I found one kids' yoga book, but it was written for older kids (10+), was incredibly wordy, and focused on minute details (“place your hand three inches from the end of the mat” kind of thing). There was no way it was going to help me teach preschool or young elementary children. Fast forward a few years to my time as a student in the MFA for Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. I decided to write the book I wish I’d been able to find in that library. My efforts produced a series of lyrical yoga poems, some of which I included in my graduate reading.[Aside from Uma] I remember those poems. They were quite wonderful.[Nora] They caught the ear of someone who went on to work for Running Press, so RP reached out to me about writing a yoga book. It was one of those moments that was both super long in the making and also serendipitous. My poems didn’t get picked up, but if I hadn’t created them, I might never have gotten the opportunity to write Yoga Frog. Writing (and life) is weird like that.[Uma] How much did it change along the way?[Nora] My early story drafts featured a young frog who befriends Yoga Frog and learns from him. Then I reshaped it into a dialogue form. Then I changed the frame. At one point there were tween frogs in the book! In the end, the book worked best as nonfiction.[Uma] What did writing this book teach you? A joyful moment? A moment of realization?[Nora] It reminded me to have fun while writing. Creation is tough work, but at the end of the day, why do it unless you love it? I had so much fun writing this book! It also reminded me not to cling too tightly to my work and to experiment with different forms. I was really excited about the initial, story version of Yoga Frog, but my editor was like, “eh.” She liked it okay, but she really wanted the book to make it super simple for kids/beginners to learn basic poses. In those first drafts, the story had taken over. So I scrapped all those drafts and started again. Magic happens when you let yourself play.[Uma] How did you decide on the combination of Sanskrit names and your own whimsical ones?[Nora] I wanted interested readers to have access to the proper Sanskrit names, but in my teaching experience, more child-friendly terminology gets better results with young kids. For example, preschoolers can have a hard time conceptualizing a pose which literally translates as Half Lord of the Fishes. However, by calling it Caterpillar and giving it a specific kid-friendly action with sounds (searching for leaves to munch as you twist) it gives children a way to remember what they’re supposed to be doing in the pose. (Why are we twisting? Oh yeah, we’re looking for leaves.) Poses like Chair (Utkatasana) didn’t require a kid-yoga name because children have no problem imagining they’re sitting on an invisible chair or creating a chair shape with their bodies. At the end of the day, my goal was to help kids relate to the poses in the simplest, most fun way possible.[Uma] I found your backmatter fascinating as well. If it’s hard to write books aimed at the very young, I cannot imagine what it takes to get a toddler into balasana. Talk to me about how you approach teaching yoga to very young children.[Nora] I make it as imaginative and interactive as I can. Adults sometimes don’t realize that kids’ yoga classes look quite a bit different than adult classes. Specifically with very young children, I’ve found that nothing engages them like imagination and pretend play. For instance, if I asked a group of toddlers to mimic me in Child’s pose (Balasana) and stay for five deep breaths, most of them are not going to stay in that position very long. They get bored, restless, and start rolling around or getting up. However, if, like I do in the book, I ask them to pretend to be hawks and fly down to protect their chicks for five breaths, almost every single toddler is able to do that. The pretend play element gives children something to focus on, whereas adults are better able to concentrate on the sound of their breath or counting. Plus, it’s just fun! The kids love flapping their wings and “flying” down to their nest. It gives them ownership of the movement so they’re not just doing something that a grown up asked them to do for reasons they don’t understand. Importantly, the results of kids and adult yoga are the same. While pretending to safeguard their chicks, kids’ bodies and breath are still slowing down as they relax into a resting, forward folding bend. That is the main function of Balasana, even in an adult class.[Uma] You are so finely attuned to the sensibility of the young child, so essential in writing for the youngest readers and listeners. Maybe those poems will find a home someplace one of these years. Thank you, Nora![Nora] Thanks so much for having me, Uma!Update: Nora Carpenter's YA novel, The Edge of Anything, is slated for publication in Spring 2020. Here's a preview summary:

Sage is a high school volleyball star desperate to find a way around her sudden medical disqualification. Lennon is a loner teen photographer with a guilty secret. As Sage’s carefully planned life unravels and Len’s past increasingly threatens her safety, the girls develop an unlikely bond, finding the strength to conquer their internal monsters in a place neither of them expected: each other. Set in the mountainous outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina, The Edgeof Anything explores the transformative power of friendship and how it can help you find yourself and the goodness in life, even when everything feels broken.

Congratulations, Nora!