I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Sara Pennypacker, a New York Times best-selling author of 11 books for children. Her works include the popular series "Clementine" and her continuation of the timeless "Flat Stanley" series, originally by Jeff Brown. She will appear as part of the Black White and Read All Over series at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow in Carnegie Lecture Hall, Oakland.

Q. What would you tell people about your job as a writer?

A. People think that my job is about the readers and that's nice but when I do my job I'm really just sitting there struggling with the story and the character. I never really think about what it means to write for children. Some people are surprised by that.

Q. What do you think makes your writing unique?

A. What makes everyone's writing unique is that they choose the story only they could tell. People tell the story that moves them the most. For instance, I wrote a book this year called "Sparrow Girl" and the reason that it was the book for me to write is because when I heard the story that triggered it, I couldn't stop thinking about it. ... I think that one of the big secrets to writing children's books is to write the stories that most move you.

Q. How did you start writing?

A. I was originally a painter, which I liked doing at the time, but when I started spending time with my children, and reading to them, I fell in love with children's books. The things I loved about the books were how beautiful they were, how important they were, and I loved the way they would move children and how much the children loved them.

Q. If you could hang out with one of your characters who would it be and why?

A. I would hang out with Clementine; in fact, I do hang out with Clementine. I create her in my head so we can hang out and she can make me laugh. She acts on her own now. I've written her so much and she's so fully formed that my subconscious will take over and she will act on her own. I love being with her.

Q. How did you become the writer of the Flat Stanley series?

A. One day, I got a phone call from my agent. He said, "Good news, the publisher of the Flat Stanley books wants you to continue the series." I said, "That's great ... who's Flat Stanley?" I never heard of him. He said "That's great. They picked you to write the books and you're the only one on the planet who has never heard of Flat Stanley!"

Q. Do you ever use real life events in your writing?

A. Yes, constantly. In the first Clementine book the only thing that didn't happen in real life is that I never lived with pigeons. Everything that happened in the first book was a nod to someone who had said or done that thing.

Q. What are you working on now?

A. I just finished working on a novel for ages 9 to 12. It will probably come out in 2011. Before that, I have Clementine number four, which is called "Friend of the Week" coming out ... in July of 2010, earlier I hope. I am currently working on Clementine number five. There will be a least seven Clementine books in all.

Q. What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Q. My advice is read, read, read, read, read! That's the school of writing, reading. You get more out of that than going to college to become a writer. If you're a reader you'll get so many of the skills you need from it. The other thing is to write, even though it's not as comfortable as reading. It's something you need to practice.

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