CLICK!

Illustrated by John Beder
Published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Nov. 2003

About Click!

I love polar bears and have often visited the polar bear exhibit at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. The zoo has a viewing wall where you can watch the polar bears swim by and see their big paws paddling through the water, and their fur slicked back and silky-looking. And at the time that I was thinking about a new book for my Canadian publisher, I had just finished reading Phillip Pullman’s great trilogy, His Dark Materials. In the final book, The Amber Spyglass (Knopf, 2000), polar bears play a pivotal role. So, naturally, polar bears were upper-most in my mind.

The first line I thought of was, “Up in the great white north . . .” So I wrote, “Up in the great white north/under a blanket of snow/a great bear rises.” I had this strong image of a great white bear rising, as if by magic, from the blanketed landscape and shaking the snow off its back. And then, because I was writing for children, I immediately thought of a little bear doing the same. Once I knew I was going to write a story using comparisons, I remembered one of my favorite books, Frank Asch’s Just Like Daddy (Prentice-Hall, 1981). In that book the little bear does most things just like his daddy. But in the final page he does something just like his mommy. This led me to put a boy and his mother into my story.

Later, I took out the first line that started it all: “Up in the great white North,” since it could give someone the wrong impression; certainly northern Canada is not always white and covered in snow! Although it no longer appears in the book, it was a very important starting point because that line helped me find the stately bear-like rhythm I needed to tell the story.

Also, reading so many books, like those by Frank Asch and Phillip Pullman help me to discover new ideas. I truly believe that all great writers are also great readers. Many ideas come from reading; whole worlds await us in books. So I hope you enjoy reading Click! and other wonderful stories. One day you may be inspired to write your own book.

S. C.
June, 2004

• CLICK! Activity Guide