Queenie Quail is the charming protagonist of my newest picture book, Queenie Quail Can’t Keep Up (Pajama Press, 2019), and I thought I’d dedicate a post to introducing this plucky feathered character!
Queenie lives with her mama and papa and many brothers and sisters, and though she tries to scurry and hurry about like a good quail should, Queenie just can’t seem to keep up! There are just too many wonderful things to stop and see along the way, and Queenie can’t help wanting to take in everything around her.
Queenie is very near and dear to my heart because she and I are two peas in a pod. Like Queenie I am very easily distracted by shiny things (much to the chagrin of all my former schoolteachers), and I’m always happy to stop and read a historic marker or investigate a beautiful flower along the way. I spent much of my childhood in a dreamlike state, always wondering and imagining and investigating and exploring. Even as a college student I struggled when it came time to declare a major – how could I focus on just one area of study when I wanted to learn about everything?! There’s just so much in this world I want to see and explore! It’s always been a challenge for me to focus, and rather than tell a story about a character who has to change herself in order to fit in to the world around her, I wanted to create a character whose dreaminess actually saves the day, and who teaches others to pay more attention to all of life’s little wonders.
Anyone who has ever tried to take a walk with a small child will immediately recognize Queenie’s dawdling. Children are immensely fascinated by even the most seemingly insignificant things – I recently saw a mother trying to coax her small child away from a shop window where she was staring awestruck at brightly coloured vacuum cleaners! Somewhere along the way to adulthood, though, we often lose that sense of wonder. We become so focused on our tasks, our responsibilities, our chores that we stop pausing to admire a beautiful butterfly, or a sublimely-scented flower. As our lives become faster paced, our world becomes less wondrous. With Queenie, I hope I can remind folks to slow down every once in a while, and reconnect with that inner child who loved to stop and examine pebbles or collect knobbly sticks. There really is so much to see in this beautiful world, if only we take the time to see it!
Queenie Quail Can’t Keep Up will be released March 1, 2019 in bookstores and online, and you can preorder a copy now through your preferred retailer. Queenie can’t wait to meet everyone!