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Jennifer L. Holm on Full of Beans

by Betty Carter
Aug 02, 2016 | Filed in Authors & Illustrators
holm_jenIn our July/August 2016 issue, reviewer Betty Carter asks author Jennifer L. Holm about the inspiration for her new novel Full of Beans. Read the full starred review.

Betty Carter: You have a knack of making a story so time-specific (the Great Depression in Full of Beans, for example), yet so universal in theme. What inspires you first, the setting or the human condition?

Jennifer L. Holm: Definitely the human condition. For Full of Beans, I had a photo stuck in my head from when I was doing research for Turtle in Paradise. It was of a little lane in Key West simply towering with huge piles of rotting garbage. The town couldn’t afford to pay trash collectors, and this was the obvious result. I couldn’t help but wonder what a kid would think about that garbage (or that smell).

Betty Carter
Betty Carter, an independent consultant, is professor emerita of children’s and young adult literature at Texas Woman’s University.

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