Fourth Grade Journey

A Fourth Grade Teacher's Journey Through the World of Books

Monday, April 29, 2019

An Inside Look #87 (Author INTERVIEW)

Inside Look with Greg Howard
(Author of The Whispers)

*During the summer of 2016, I added this feature to the blog which was called "Season #ONE".  This first season ran from June of 2016 to March of 2017.  

*I started up the interviews again in June of 2017.  It was great to get back to Season #TWO.  This season ran throughout the summer.  

*Season #THREE ran during the school year of 2017/2018.  


*The next season (season #FOUR) of interviews took place during the summer and fall of 2018.  With each interview I became more and more impressed with the authors I was having interactions with.  


*It has been such an honor to connect with authors and "chat" about their novel, characters, and thoughts about the story.

*This is the SIXTEENTH interview of what I'm calling Season #FIVE.

*Thank you to Greg Howard for being the Eighty-Seventh author that I've had the pleasure of interviewing.  I truly appreciate it.  


*Here are links to the first Eighty-SIX interviews…


SEASON #ONE (2016-2017)

























SEASON #FOUR (Summer 2018)






















SEASON #FIVE (2018/2019)












*Greg Howard was kind, gracious, and giving with his answers to the questions.  It is an honor to post his responses here on the blog.  

*Thank you Greg for writing this incredible and thought-provoking book.

*Here are my thoughts about Greg's newest novel...

My Book Review



The Whispers
by Greg Howard (January 14, 2019)


How did you come to know Riley?
Riley is basically a fictional version of me when I was his age. I remember all too well how I reacted to pain, loss, isolation, othering, and religious bigotry, so slipping into Riley’s eleven-year-old shoes wasn’t all that difficult.


What do you think is Riley's most admirable quality?
I admire Riley’s tenacity most of all. Life has given him every reason there is to give up on his beliefs and his quest, but he plows forward anyway. And it’s his tenacity that eventually leads him to a place of healing and enlightenment.


What do you think Riley can offer to other children that are experiencing similar situations to what he went through?
I hope Riley and his story inspire other children to choose hope when they feel isolated and rejected. It’s the one thing that keeps Riley going on his journey when everyone around him has given up hope.


How did you research Riley and the circumstances he found himself in?
I did a good bit of research on childhood traumatic grief. I was unfamiliar with the condition when I wrote the book, so it was a matter of evaluating Riley’s symptoms in order to arrive at a diagnosis. Of course, I was simultaneously diagnosing myself at that age, which shed a lot of light on my own experience with childhood traumatic grief.


Do you and Riley share any similarities?
Oh sure. We’re both tenacious, sensitive, analytical, and imaginative—with a heavy dose of sass and wit, of course.


What was the hardest scene to write about Riley?
Probably the scene toward the end when he’s at the beaver dam and he begins to question everything that has brought him to that moment. He starts losing faith in the Whispers, God, his quest, even the very existence of his mother. It’s a very mature, yet heart-breaking moment and one filled with a lot of raw emotion.


Who do you think was Riley's biggest supporter and why?
Outside of his mother, Riley’s biggest supporter is probably his dad. Even though his dad is not very good at showing his unconditional love and support because he is lost in his own grief, Riley’s dad is doing the best he can at this extremely difficult time in their lives.


Why do you think some adults and young people have such a difficult time accepting other people’s “conditions” while others are able to open their arms and accept them for who they are?
For some people, when they don’t understand something, the knee-jerk reaction is to fear it. And fear is a powerful motivator. If someone is raised to fear the world and anyone who is not like them, they’re going to have a hard time empathizing with people from different cultures, or backgrounds, or with different life experiences. 
What do you think Riley is doing as the present time?  
I like to think that Riley is now a child psychologist in a small Southern town. He’s extremely wise and empathetic and I think he would make an amazing therapist.
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