Overcoming Prejudices with Kaz Windness
- Matthew C. Winner
- 3 days ago
- 19 min read
Kaz Windness, author illustrator of Worm and Butterfly are Friends Always (Simon Spotlight), joins Matthew to talk about constantly dealing with loss and change.
Listen along:
About the book: Worm and Butterfly are Friends Always by Kaz Windness. Published by Simon Spotlight.
Best friends Worm and Butterfly must spend time apart in this Level 1 Ready-to-Read Graphics “heartwarming story of found family” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)—the sequel to Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book Worm and Caterpillar Are Friends.
Worm and Butterfly are best friends. Worm says best friends stick together, but Butterfly has to fly somewhere warm for winter. Can they still be friends when they are far apart?
Ready-to-Read Graphics books give readers the perfect introduction to the graphic novel format with easy-to-follow panels, speech bubbles with accessible vocabulary, and sequential storytelling that is spot-on for beginning readers. There’s even a how-to guide for reading graphic novels at the beginning of each book.
More:
Visit Kaz Windness online at www.windnessbooks.com/
Other helpful links:
Early Readers and Chapter Books: A Creative Retreat - Kids who are starting to read on their own need to find the books that meet them creatively, inspirationally, and more! This engaging retreat will help you understand the needs of this market and how to create with these transitional readers in mind.
Learn more about Boyds Mills and their upcoming programs by visiting www.boydsmills.org.
Transcript:
NOTE: Transcript created by Descript. I've attempted to clean up any typos, grammatical errors, and formatting errors where possible.
Kaz: I do believe in a collective unconscious, and I do believe that there are ideas that want to be out in the world. I do not believe that it's limited to one voice or one creator, and that, they hit in different ways.
Matthew: That is the voice of Kaz Windness, author of the Bitsy Bat books, and Worm and Caterpillar are Friends, and a whole lot of other terrific books for young readers.
Welcome back to the Children’s Book Podcast, where we celebrate the books and creators who help young readers feel seen, supported, and understood. This episode is brought to you in partnership with Boyds Mills, positively impacting kids by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inspire children to become their best selves.
I’m your host, Matthew Winner—teacher, librarian, writer, and a fan of kids.
Kaz is back on the show to share Worm and Butterfly are Friends Always (Simon Spotlight), her sequel to Worm and Caterpillar are Friends, which is the book that first brought us into conversation. Actually, it’s also one of the most tender and beautiful coming out stories I have ever read. Seriously such a favorite.
Here are a few things I learned in this conversation that I think you’ll enjoy:
Number one: Kaz speaks openly about what it’s like to not feel safe. It’s actually something of a driving force in her creative and resilient act of storytelling.
Number two: Kaz is in her self-proclaimed “series era”. I love that! And I bet her readers especially love that! Kaz is actually co-teaching a course at Boyds Mills called “Early Readers and Chapter Books: A Creative Retreat”, and that’s a connection we make in this conversation.
And Number 3: Jessica Lanan’s gorgeous book, Jumper, comes up as we talk about our love of jumping spiders and also Kaz’s current muse.
So, a little about Worm and Butterfly are Friends Always (Simon Spotlight) from the publisher:
“Best friends Worm and Butterfly must spend time apart in this Level 1 Ready-to-Read Graphics “heartwarming story of found family” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)—the sequel to Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book Worm and Caterpillar Are Friends.
Worm and Butterfly are best friends. Worm says best friends stick together, but Butterfly has to fly somewhere warm for winter. Can they still be friends when they are far apart?”
We end our conversation with thoughts about the increasing presence of AI in the children’s book space. Kaz is a terrific and outspoken advocate on social media for illustrators and creatives, more broadly. So definitely don’t miss that.
Please welcome Kaz Windness back to the Children’s Book Podcast.
Kaz: Hey this is Kaz Windness. I am an author and illustrator of children's books. I'm also a autistic and A DHD, which I'm proud of being neurodivergent.
And I'm also a professor of illustration. I've been teaching adults how to. Tell stories with words and pictures for about 15 years. And I also love going into school visits and sharing that with kids as well. Today we're talking about Worm and Butterfly. Our friends always, but I'm also known for the Bitsy Bat series.
And I've also done a lot of early readers, which is so fun for me. Inspiring early literacy with accessible words, but also beautiful pictures to support that. To support those stories.
Matthew: Welcome back, Kaz. I'm glad you're here. I'm so
Kaz: happy to be here. Thank you for having me. [00:01:00]
Matthew: I asked you this question when I was first starting a mini series, and now it's become part of my process to ask my guests, so I'm gonna ask you Kaz, what's giving you hope today on this day that we're meeting?
Kaz: On this very day. I always think about the kids. The kids always give me hope. And I think being human and living through difficult times or any times is really just so important to have hope and think about those future generations and know that. I'm making a difference for those future generations.
And also friends are giving me hope, like being able to hang out with, people that I've had long relationships with and just have a donut or some coffee. That gives me a lot of hope. And also like mutually complaining about stuff that's going on and getting it outta the system, but also community, which isn't the same thing as friends.
Community is people that have the same proximity to you or people that are in the same. Doing the same kind of work you're doing and I think of teachers and librarians and [00:02:00] educators and, fellow authors and illustrators. All of those people give me tons of hope. So yeah, lots of things I guess,
Matthew: I don't know that I've ever told you directly that you give me hope the way that you show up.
In my online space, but that's still how you show up in my space. The way you show up gives me help. Kaz, I'm grateful for you. I should
Kaz: pull the box of the tissues into my office.
Matthew: I've got my, I don't know that we're using video, but if Boy Mills uses it, that's fine. Oh, there you go. I keep my tissues right on hand.
Cz tell me if you don't mind a brief book. Talk for Warm and Butterfly. Our friends always, I know that. Awesome. That we connected for the first book. I'm so excited that there's a second and it is out in the world. As we're recording this share a book talk, if you don't mind.
Kaz: So it does, essentially pick up where Worm and Caterpillar Friends left off, which is my Geisel Honor book, and it was on a whole bunch of Best Book of the Year lists, award thingies, which was amazing.
But we're back with Worm and Butterfly. Our [00:03:00] friends always. It follows butterfly as they are navigating to Mexico and Worm as they're going into the worm's version of hibernation, which is called excavation. Yes,
Matthew: I learned that word from your book.
Kaz: Yeah, I learned that word from researching the book.
That's one of my favorite things about making these books is all the things that I learned. But as worm is dealing with their loneliness from the separation from their best friend they encounter a new neighbor. Which is bird and have to overcome their prejudices about birds. What I discovered as I was researching this, it's actually very few birds that like to eat worms.
And so it's a stellar's jay that they encounter and have to overcome their, feelings of, this is a dangerous person. I can't trust. Them and to discover that they actually have quite a bit in common. And Bird has also lost a friend [00:04:00] to a migration, a bird friend to migration, and so they are lonely together.
Matthew: It's beautiful the way that, that you're able to take on prejudice in that book in such a, such a way that is accessible for having those conversations with our youngest with. I think of my library students. So with my five and six year olds, my pre-K and kindergarten and first grade much like the beautiful way you handled worm and Caterpillar.
And what I think is one of the most exceptional L-G-B-T-Q centering stories. I just adore that. So your. Gentle. It's, it is a coming out story. Hand is terrific. Kaz, thank you. You're gentle and sincere hand. You're a safe person. I think we read it right from your book, so thank you for that.
Kaz: Yeah, it's my honor to be a safe person. I really, because I know what it's like not to feel safe. I know what it's like to be part of these identities [00:05:00] and I just wanna foster this understanding from a very young age that you have to challenge those baked in biases and prejudices.
And I think if more of us spent more time just talking to people that are not like us, we will discover how alike we are, how much we have in common.
Matthew: It's something to talk about that we feel threatened by difference and that's that's not something we should dismiss. It feels threatening if I'm a worm and I see a bird, because in my knowledge that's.
I, you're going to eat me. What do I know? It's my body trying to protect me.
Kaz: Yes.
Matthew: But part of the way we work through prejudices is by dissecting. What are you trying to protect here? And if I can understand you better or understand the circumstances better, perhaps I can communicate to my body that's just trying to protect me that it's okay, I'm already safe.[00:06:00]
Kaz: Yes. Yes. Oh, I think that's beautifully said. I use animals a lot because I love drawing animals. It's my favorite thing. But I also think about spiders. I have a spider book coming up in the next, I don't know, one, two years. But also like me learning about spiders, I used to be terrified.
I used as a child, a ACH phobia full. Blast. And now I love spiders, but a lot of that came with sitting with my fear of them and actually learning more about them. And most spiders are, very beneficial. My favorite spider is a jumping spider, and they're actually very friendly. They look gigantic and scary, and they have these big, like fge things, but they're actually super friendly and super beneficial.
And so this story follows a jumping spider. But I think, with all things like animals and people too, if we challenge our challenge our fears, we might discover there's actually something really good on the other side of that fear.
Matthew: My fear with spiders I recognize [00:07:00] is not that they look creepy or crawly or gross.
It's that I don't wanna get bit, I think a lot of my fears with any animal comes from, I just don't want it to hurt me.
Kaz: Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew: Which feels very, even as a 45-year-old, it feels oh wow. I can feel that was there since I was very young.
Kaz: Yeah.
Matthew: The, picture book that came out must have been two years ago or so by now called Jumper.
Do you know? Jumper by Jessica. Jessica Lanin.
Kaz: Yep.
Matthew: That book,
Kaz: it was on our, have a. I was gonna bring it. Oh. But just sitting on the top of my stack. I love her so much. Beautiful. And yes, jumper is such a beautiful book that's told in a picture book style, but has a lot of nonfiction to it. And it really puts you in the POV of the spider, a day in the life of the spider and almost getting squashed and how they're just like trying to find a snack and being beneficial in the garden by eating.
The insects that are eating the garden, but I, she's done such a beautiful job of making you really feel like you are that spider. [00:08:00] You understand what it's like and just building that symp sympathy even though she's Dr. Very faithfully painted a jumping spider.
Matthew: It's beautiful and I think I bring it up.
Because I know when we're gonna write any book, we need to make sure we understand the market, understand what's out there.
But also trust This is gonna come from my voice, therefore Yeah. It will be different and what's my take on it and what have you. But I think I also bring it up just out of excitement that
Kaz: Yeah,
Matthew: that book worked.
And so to know that there are books coming out, yours, I assume too, that are just gonna help.
Kaz: It's so funny how we all. There I do believe in a collective unconscious, and I do believe that there are ideas that want to be out in the world. I do not believe that it's limited to one voice or one creator, and that, they hit in different ways.
And I'm friends with Jessica Lanan. Cool. So when. I saw a jumper coming out and I'm like, oh my gosh, I have a jumper manuscript that's just gotten picked up [00:09:00] too. And she was so excited for me and they are very different. Like mine's an early reader. It's called Speeder Spider, it's rhyming. It's definitely fiction.
Even though I always like to add in a little bit of non-fiction. They are very different. Books, but I don't think jumping spiders, I think jumping spiders needs more love. That's what I, oh my gosh, they're so cute. I think spiders need more love.
Matthew: Ka what about it? What if you and Jessica are like helping push the universe toward making jumping spiders Be our next copy.
Barra our next ex lot. Next naral. How cute. They're so cute. Oh my gosh. They're so cute. Oh, that's wonderful. I. Wanna I'm glad that you have this spider book coming out that's exciting. But I do wanna back up and understand a little bit more about Worm and Butterfly, or in this case, worm and Caterpillar.
Did, was it sold as a two book deal? Was it how you are writing these beginning reader books and sometimes series for [00:10:00] you? What has that been like? I understand maybe every book deal is different. So that's why I'm asking specifically about Worm and Caterpillar. But, i'd love to hear more about being in that world.
Sure. So let's start with that. Was it sold as a two book? Deal.
Kaz: I pitched as a two big deal. Oh, cool. And cool. And I had a second man. I had a second manuscript when I pitched the first book and they didn't like it, which is fair. This was before my series era. Sure. I guess I'm in my series era.
That's the best. And so they said let's just try this as a one off and just see how it does. And so it did well and it was. Pretty much the same week that I found out I had won an A LA award. It was just right before that they came back to me and they said, we see the momentum.
This book has, we're really interested. If you had a different idea for a worm and butterfly and it, I love it when this happens. I just, it's almost like [00:11:00] channeling, okay. Like I immediately had an idea of where I wanted the second story to go and, backing way up. I'm 51. When I was a kid, I, my dad was in the army career, army guy, and so we moved around a lot and I.
Me, I, you'll see this a lot in my books that I'm dealing with friendship because I'm besides being autistic and that being a struggle for me friendships is something I want desperately, but I would move every two years, but then my friends would move. All the time. So there was this transient population that you were constantly dealing with loss a loss of friends or a change in friendships.
And of course, this was well before we had ways of keeping track of each other and finding each other. My one of my. Friends in second grade Bridget Borgs, who's now a teacher. I found her through Facebook many years later and it was interesting to reconnect and her interpretation of what her moving away to [00:12:00] Germany was like versus what it was like to me because I did these kind of terrible things at the time.
I think to deal, to preemptively deal with the loss is I would destroy the friendship
Matthew: several times. It makes it
Kaz: easier. Easier. I would sabotage the friendship because sabotage making, it's, isn't it wild? I'm so sorry. That stuff that happened in second grade that you're still. Feeling years later.
So I would sabotage these friendships and of course, in reflection, understanding why I did that, and having that sadness of having not dealt with my friend, moving away in a healthy way, in a way that acknowledged that separation. I carried a lot of guilt for a lot of years until I tracked her down again.
She doesn't even remember any of that. That was all on. No kidding me. All on me. She didn't, it wasn't a, it wasn't something for her, but I held all that guilt in and so I think in a lot of ways these books are, I had an editor or a publisher tell [00:13:00] me once that she believed that children's book authors.
And illustrators too. They often are dealing with their psychology issues at the age that they are most prevalent through their books. So if I'm writing for like second graders. I am dealing with stuff, predominantly things that were happening around that time in my life and significant stuff was happening in my time in that life.
So I think maybe that's part of why I'm in that pocket, because that's why I keep on coming back to and really want those younger kids, four to eight to have a better experience or to have more tools or to have more social emotional learning skills. That emotional intelligence in order to be able to deal with the things that I was unable to deal with, I did not have that toolbox when I was a kid.
In a way it's healing your own inner child, but subsequently hopefully helping other kids in similar ways.
Matthew: It sounds, it sounds like fair If you don't, do you mind if I respond? Yeah,
Kaz: Please.
Matthew: It sounds like really healthy role [00:14:00] playing.
Kaz: Yes.
Matthew: But if we think of writing.
You're not writing for every single kid, but I'm writing for the child in me. Then you are telling stories. Maybe we all are telling stories to role play from that point of trauma or challenge. How could that have been dealt with? That gives me
Kaz: full chills.
Matthew: What did that feel like? I've never heard
Kaz: said that way, but that's beautifully said.
Matthew: And in that way,
Kaz: right on the nose,
Matthew: does that not give any child then? Space to put themselves onto bitsy or onto Worm or onto Squid that I'm roleplaying here.
Kaz: Yes.
Matthew: And so
Kaz: perfectly
Matthew: described. So that may be what it is like for you to go through that. We want kids to read widely diversely because
We'll never get to experience all of these things, but books will help you to. Have the experience of what might it be like if I went through that or if a friend moved or if I was facing similar circumstances. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. [00:15:00] Be
Kaz: sad and
Matthew: interesting to know too, that when I think of chapter books, especially beginning chapter books
It often feels to me, and maybe sometimes they're sold this way, like they're sold in a plan of we're gonna do six or eight, but it actually feels really hopeful to know you might do one. Feel like there is momentum. So let's do one more. Yeah, I do. One more
Kaz: that happened with Bitsy
Matthew: and it can also be okay to go, we did this one and that wasn't enough.
Really a there in the market, but that doesn't mean the book wasn't important, but maybe this other series will land at a time where it's more resonant with what's going on in our world. Who knows?
Kaz: Yeah.
Matthew: Very cool.
Kaz: Yeah. That door continues to be open. And books can have a very long life and you never know what thing or topic or moment is gonna pick up a bo book that you thought that, that flopped.
You never know the way it's gonna find its way into the right hands at the right time and pick up that momentum. And if the publisher sees that [00:16:00] momentum, of course they're gonna want 'em. Give kids, give readers more opportunities to live with those characters and have fun with their stories.
So yeah, it's not, even if you don't get a series deal, doesn't mean that you don't, won't end up with series that's happened with three properties for me now.
Matthew: It's not lost on me that there are a lot of people that are gonna hear. This interview, but I don't ever know who those people are or what they bring into our conversation.
Much like when you make a book, you don't know what the kid is bringing to that conversation. Yeah. Because we're talking so much about tapping back into very real childhood experiences and feelings, I wanna transition us briefly to talking about ai because you've been. Wonderfully. Outspoken.
Kaz: Oh.
Matthew: Online about AI and risks and worries. It very much makes it feel like maybe every time I see you posting, I'm like, oh yeah, ca and librarians have so much in common, [00:17:00] right? Or I hope we all have so much in common. Yeah.
Hope, who knows? We're all different. Or there's no one librarian, there's no one illustrator.
Kaz: True.
Matthew: But. Apart from really emphasizing the value of the human element, I'd love to hear in this space you articulate some of those big picture thoughts and feelings on the presence of AI in the children's literature space. Specifically in regards to illustration, 'cause that's lot of what you talk about but in, in larger respect as well, if you'd like.
Kaz: Yeah. I think that's where we first saw it. Popping up and initially I was excited about generative AI thought, this is a tool that I could like, put my body of work into maybe have a closed server. It would, could give riffs on, like my sketches. 'cause I'm very busy. I have four books coming in the out this year.
And I'm like, if it could just. Help me be more efficient based on my own work. I was really interested in that. As a early I'm a tech early adopter so I was experimenting with some of this and I have very [00:18:00] good pattern recognition thanks to autism.
Matthew: Cool.
Kaz: And I started to notice things that were alerting me to the fact that I.
Did not think that whatever was training these large language models or these large image model generation models I started to realize this was not ethically sourced because I could see it trying to manufacture sig signatures on the imagery and the way the prompts were set up that you could say in the style of.
Dan's hand head, I just to throw out a name, in the style of, and then it would be able to, maybe not very well, but it would try and adapt based on that training data. I'm like, where are they sourcing this? And as we started to expose what these companies were doing, we did discover that it was large bodies of work that were scraped across any place that you can find it and used in order to train these models.
So it is. Taken [00:19:00] stolen work and that's, you can't take it outta this, out of the sauce. And because this technology happened so quickly, we did not have the laws. We, our copyright did not specify that it could not be trained on, openly available. So say, I wanna share things, I wanna share on social media.
This is what we all do. This is how we get work. This is how we keep. Pre relevant posting on my blog they were going through, they had these crawlers that would go through the entire internet and take all of our copyright protected works and feed them into chew them up into these.
Machine learning in order to produce these M images. Now we're starting to have some legal momentum that is getting us a little more, we have these big legal lawsuits and sometimes we're getting a payout from, and there's, we're starting to build this awareness, but I think people don't understand that it is stolen.
It's based on stolen [00:20:00] works. And so when someone thinks. That using it is harmless. It is absolutely not harmless, and that's not even to mention the environmental concerns around it. You know how much WA one in four people in the world do not have clean drinking water and the servers require clean drinking water, that they're just burning off and polluting in order to keep their precious machinery.
Functioning, whereas humans don't have water and what is the purpose? It's not solving a problem. We have artists and creators that are doing this work. It is not solving a problem. It's a massive grift. Anyway, I'm getting, my heart rate is going up a little, but it is something I really care about because, I am a lifelong advocate for artists primarily, and writers too. But really it's always been protecting artists and educating artists in order to have them be protected. So it really, it triggers me a lot. It's my number one thing.
Matthew: Yeah. I appreciate it. Thank you for
Kaz: asking. [00:21:00]
Matthew: I appreciate you sharing it.
And I think that anyone listening can. Just hop over to social media and look at Yeah I
Kaz: go off
Matthew: at your space. Is there you got a little side podcast going through. Guess I do. S We don't call it that, but it's what it is. It's my,
Kaz: it's three, my three minute soundbite podcast.
Matthew: Listen, now that I can get reels on my tv, I have an app for that, that it just plays the reels through the smart tv. I'm like, all right, this is woo. Yeah. You thought you were only putting it onto this app and now it's everywhere.
Kaz: Yes.
Matthew: B before we go I wanna ask you about Boyd Mills this early readers and chapter books creative retreat that you have coming up.
Yeah, tell me, just gimme a little promotion for it. Who's it for?
Kaz: October 23rd through 26th. We have Vicki Fang, we have Ann Alpert, and we have me. And so we're gonna be covering everything and it is gonna be masterclasses on. Early chapter books, early readers, if you have any interest in that.
And it's for both authors and illustrators. You have a really [00:22:00] good faculty for that. And yeah, and plus it's just like fun and community and connecting. And what's been fun for me, doing similar, I've done two other retreats. That covered some of these topics a little bit before. It's really fun for me to see people like getting published and getting, developing these stories and having these breakthroughs.
So I have had enough history with Boyd Mills that I've seen this happen. And plus just people I friends, they, I have people that I'm met years ago that are now, we're. Really good friends. It's such a great way to find community and relax and be fed good and yes, be in nature. Everything is good about this.
Please come and join us.
Matthew: That's awesome, Kaz. I'll make sure I link to it in the show notes. Thank you. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to ask this. To you again because I shared your first message, and so now today I get to ask you to close our time that I will see a library full of children tomorrow morning.
CA's witness. Is there a message that I [00:23:00] can bring to them from you? Yes.
Kaz: Question. Everything. Don't let chat GBT take away your thinking ability. Critical
thinking is so important and I, it goes back to women butterfly challenge your challenge, your thinking challenge these things.
Critical thinking is so important and, there's a lot of things that are trying to erode that away from us. Keep on questioning.