For today’s post, I had the privilege of speaking to Becky Laine, author of The Story of ABBA for Young Readers about the book’s superbly redone artwork, how she got into the ABBA fandom, and more.
B: Well, when I first wrote The Story of ABBA for Young Readers, I was quite young and my drawing skills weren’t as good as they are now. Though the first version is really good, I felt the need to completely revise it with new illustrations and improved text.
A: How long did it take you to draw all of the illustrations?
B: It took just over a year to draw all of the illustrations. Normally drawing all the illustrations wouldn’t have taken as long as it did, but I was busy with a lot of schoolwork at the time and there were a lot of pictures that I wanted to draw. Unfortunately not all of them made it into the book, but I am selling some of the unused ones as prints on RedBubble.
A: I haven’t read a single biographical work about celebrity personalities which didn’t include some sort of scandal; but from what you’ve told me about ABBA, the band members seem like really nice, moral people. Did you have to leave out much information to keep ABBA’s story kid-friendly?
B: I didn’t have to leave out much since the ABBA members really did lead clean lives. Of the few things that I did leave out, most of them were simply unnecessary information that didn’t have anything to do with the story.
A: Are you planning on writing other “Story of [X] for Young Readers” books in the future? I think a kid-friendly biography series in this style would have great potential!
Great interview! Thanks, ladies. 🙂
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Hey Allison
Nice interview! It’s such a good stuff to know that this book is finally out!
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