Susan Mathias Smith

The following interview with children's book author, Susan Mathias Smith, is reprinted from Montpelier, published by James Madison University, Summer of 1997.

For Susan Mathias Smith, the key to creating fiction comfortable for children is to keep a story's conflicts manageable. "You want the problems to be resolved in children's literature, or if they can't be, at least to be accepted or coped with by the child," she says.

Smith points to her most recent book The Booford Summer, which received Young Reader awards in Vermont and South Carolina. It tells the story of a young girl, Haley, who befriends an aloof neighbor's lonesome dog, Booford. Eventually, Haley's solicitous concern for Booford extends to his owner, Mr. Wood, an intimidating man who is depressed because his wife has left him.

Smith says that in an earlier draft of the story she has Haley instigate a promising reunion of Mr. Wood and his wife. "But I changed that because that would make it seem that the child fixed that very big problem by a phone call," she adds. In its final form, Booford shows how Haley manages the separation issue by successfully contending with the divorced Woods, without reuniting them. "She can't help the divorce, but she can make the situation better by being friends [with Mr. Wood]," says Smith, who is coordinator of media services for Shenandoah County, Va., school.

Smith sold her first book, Night Light, in 1980 after much revision and burnt midnight oil. With the exception of that first work, Smith's fiction is a kennel of cats and dogs. She has also written No One Should Have Six Cats! Now she is stalking the outline of a story for another book about cats.

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