by Darren Diekmann
news@thenewsleaders.com
Best-selling author Douglas Wood loves his home. He lives with his wife “in an old log cabin under some tall pine trees right by the river” north of Sartell. It’s this idyllic location that allows him time for contemplation and inspires his work.
But it was far from here, in a place as unlikely as New York City, during a cathartic walk in Central Park, where he was compelled to create the beginnings of his latest published work, Hello, Little One.
Hello, Little One, a universal tribute of gratitude and wonder at the birth and development of all children, began as a personal letter to Wood’s granddaughter, Maya, on the day of her birth.
Wood is the author of Old Turtle, an award-winning and best-selling picture book. Five-and-half years ago, he was in New York with his wife Kathy giving a reading of Old Turtle, accompanied by a full orchestra and choir at Lincoln Center. At this time, Wood’s son, Bryan, and his wife, Katharina, were back at home expecting the birth of Maya in three weeks.
“All of a sudden, the day before the concert, we began getting texts that the delivery was happening,” Wood said.
Then he received word the delivery was not going well.
“We got texts that were very worrying. It was a very difficult and scary delivery,” Wood explained. “But then we got texts that the delivery had happened, and everyone was well and everything was good.”
To relax, Wood took a walk in Central Park, a few blocks from their hotel. He began thinking of all he wanted to say to his new granddaughter and began writing what was first intended to be a letter.
“But I didn’t have enough paper, so I called Kathy,” Wood said. “And she took dictation and jotted down the words that eventually became this book.”
That winter, he gave the letter to Bryan and his family as a Christmas gift.
After a time, Wood began to think other people might be moved by the letter and thought of turning it into a book.
“But I didn’t think just reading it would be enough,” he said. “I really thought it needed some images.”
This is where his daughter-in-law, Katharina, came in. All the photos in the book were taken by her.
“I knew Katharina was a wonderful photographer and painter,” said Wood, who asked her to take photos of Maya and to collect earlier ones she had taken since Maya’s birth.
“And as we gathered the photos, another little person came along – Henry,” Wood said. “So the pictures where you see one little person holding another one, that’s Maya holding her little brother Henry.”
The book contains about 40 evocative and endearing black-and-white photos, almost all of Henry or Maya. A poetic sentence or two of light-handed advice and insight accompanies most photos. The photos and text compliment and amplify one another. And while on some pages, photo and text seem loosely connected – on others, the text seems expressly written for the picture.
Hello, Little One has not received a lot of publicity, yet it has been well received, Wood said.
“I have done a number of events this fall where I have read the book,” he said. “It’s getting an incredible reception.”
In October, he read it to a group of 350 Minnesota reading teachers, a large group of naturalists from all over the country, and, most recently, about two weeks ago in Sartell at the Unity Spiritual Center of Central Minnesota.
“Every time I read it, you can hear a pin drop in the room,” he said. “It’s a very gratifying reaction. People have been pulling out hankies and wiping eyes. It’s really been nice.”
Wood said he believes the favorable response is because the book enables other people to relate to his family’s experience.
“If you do a good piece of work, it is usually personal,” he said. “But if you go deep enough into the personal, then it becomes universal.”
Hello, Little One is in bookstores now and is published by North Star Press of St. Cloud Inc.
Douglas Wood of Sartell writes a good number of his dozens of books from his desk looking out over the Mississippi River.
Author Douglas Wood loves his rustic home in Sartell, which allows him time for contemplation and inspires his work, such as his best-selling Old Turtle.
