Barry Intereviewed On “Books We Love”

“Books We Love,” the blog of the Park Ridge Public Library, has posted an interview with me. Here’s a sample:

I love the character of the pig-what made you choose a pig and not some other animal?

In retrospect, it’s silly how long I spent trying to decide on the right animal to be in the Witch’s yard. Wolf? Huge housecat? Giant ferret? But then I thought of pig, and obviously a pig was the perfect antagonist, just because a pig is the iconic “non-kosher” animal that Jews avoid eating. And once I had that, the pig’s grumpy, over-the-top personality fell into place.

Do you have any subjects that you’re dying to write about, but haven’t yet? Any non-Hereville books that you have percolating away in your head?

I have a few non-Hereville ideas. But Hereville is also a very broad canvas — after all, hundreds of people live in the town of Hereville. So I think I could happily do many, many more Hereville books, and be able to fit in a huge range of stories and characters.

I’d be really eager to do a story with a positive, fat character as the protagonist. I was really disappointed when the TV show “Huge” was canceled.

Click through to read the entire interview! And my thanks to Sarah Hagge for doing such a great job conducting the interview. By the way, Sarah also wrote a very nice review of Hereville back in December; you can read that review here.

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