Dawn Lairamore’s love of books was first formed when she was a young reader. They were special years, she says. “I can very clearly remember walking into libraries and bookstores when I was a kid and just having a great feeling of excitement fall over me — all these wonderful books and stories right at my fingertips!”
Now, as an adult and an author herself, Dawn aims to contribute to that “same sense of excitement in young readers, offer them stories that they can get lost in, that take them on a great adventure.”
Dawn is the author of middle-grade novels “Ivy’s Ever After” and its follow-up “Ivy and the Meanstalk.” Both books follow the adventures of Ivy, the princess of Arendale. Ivy has a mind of her own and frequently finds herself caught up in some very un-princesslike adventures.
The idea for Ivy came to Dawn as she was reading a book of fairy tales. It occurred to the author that if she were to one day pen a fairy tale, she’d want to switch things up, making the characters do things you might not expect fairy tale characters to do.
“An idea came to me about a princess locked in a tower guarded by a dragon, waiting to be rescued by a handsome prince.” Dawn told Cracking the Cover. “But in my version, the feisty princess didn’t want to marry the prince, and the timid dragon didn’t want to be slain by him. The prince was sort of a jerk, you see, so the princess and the dragon teamed up against him. That idea became ‘Ivy’s Ever After,’ a fairy tale about a princess seeking out her own happy ending rather than waiting for one to be thrust upon her.”
Like many good ideas, Dawn’s book took shape over a period of time. At first, Dawn didn’t work on it very consistently, writing a chapter here and there and then putting the manuscript aside for a month. “But somewhere along the way, this project that I had really embarked on for fun more than anything else really started to take shape,” Dawn said. “Once the end was in sight, I started working on the manuscript much more consistently and frequently until I had a finished book.”
All in all, it took Dawn two years to complete “Ivy’s Ever After.” “Ivy and the Meanstalk” only took eight months because, Dawn says, she had a hard deadline to work to. And despite the time it took to get there, Dawn says her finished books are pretty close to her original ideas, which, she says, “is really cool!”
Humor is what helps the Ivy books stand apart from other “fairy tale” books, Dawn says. Some of the fairy tale retellings out there are for a little older of an audience and have a more serious tone. Ivy has its serious moments, but overall I think the books are good fun. I really wanted to take readers on an adventure and make them laugh.”
Ivy’s independent spirit also helps with that broad appeal. People often think that Ivy is based on me when I was that age,” Dawn said. “But I think she’s more the 14-year-old I would have liked to have been (confident, individual) rather than the 14-year-old I was (shy and kind of awkward).
“I really love her spunk and her sense of individuality. I like that she’s not a perfect person. She makes mistakes and doubts herself, but manages to grow from her mistakes and pushes forward no matter what.”
Though Dawn wouldn’t confirm if there are any more Ivy book in the works, she said it would be fun to take Ivy on more adventures. For now, however, she’s just happy that readers are enjoying Ivy’s world.
“What readers take away from any book is going to be different for every reader, and that’s as it should be,” Dawn said. “But I hear from readers that they enjoy the humor of the books, and many of them appreciate that Princess Ivy is so true to herself despite the pressure to conform. I love that they come away from the books with such a positive message.”
**Dawn took a lot of time and care to answer Cracking the Cover’s questions. Read a complete transcript of her interview.
