Mel Rosenberg, "Emily Saw A Door" (Random House Studio, 2026)

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network – Children's Literature Channel
Host: Michelle Knudsen (guest host)
Guest: Mel Rosenberg
Episode Focus: "Emily Saw A Door" (Random House Studio, 2026)
Recording Date: February 8, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this lively and insightful episode, acclaimed children’s author Mel Rosenberg sits down—on the other side of the interview table—with fellow author Michelle Knudsen, who guest hosts. Their wide-ranging, heartfelt conversation delves into Mel’s U.S. picture book debut Emily Saw A Door, exploring the story’s origins, the creative partnerships behind it, and the personal journey that brought Mel to this milestone. Threaded with laughter, philosophical reflections on writing, and memorable stories from both authors, this episode is a warm celebration of persistence, vulnerability, and collaborative art in children’s literature.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Being the Interviewee: Stepping Into the Spotlight

• Setting the Scene: Michelle Knudsen opens by noting the role reversal; Mel is typically the interviewer. He admits feeling nervous but is reassured by Michelle's encouragement.
• Quote:
  • "It feels weird to start... my hands are very cold. I'm a bit nervous to be frank with you." (Mel Rosenberg, 01:40)

2. Book Introduction: Emily Saw A Door

• Synopsis: Emily goes from door to door searching for a place of belonging, ultimately creating her own door—and, as illustrator Orit Magia expands, a world of her own.
  • "She has to create a world of her own." (Mel Rosenberg, 02:39)
• Illustrator's Contribution: Mel praises Orit Magia’s visionary spreads, especially the ones he didn’t script, highlighting the magic of unexpected illustrator input.

3. The Author-Illustrator Dynamic & Letting Go

• On Collaboration: Both authors reflect deeply on the need to release control and make room for the illustrator’s vision.
  • "You have to die as an author to be reborn...there is a rebirth involved in every story." (Mel, 03:43)
  • "You create this thing and then...you have to let it go." (Michelle, 04:12)
• Letting Readers Interpret: The book’s openness to interpretation is celebrated, with Mel sharing how he’s learned to embrace diverse reader perspectives.
  • "It's open to misinterpretation, which means it's open to other interpretations...it has a healthy reader response." (Mel, 16:12)

4. From Hebrew to English: The Book’s Journey

• Origins: Originally published in Israel (where it won a major award), the book was first written in English, then condensed and adapted into Hebrew, and finally “melded” back into a new English PDF for the U.S. market.
• Process: Discussion of word count constraints and the challenges of distilling a story to its emotional essence.
  • "I fetched and we got it down to 315 words...in Hebrew." (Mel, 06:45)

5. The Heart of the Story: Origins & Inspirations

• Personal Motifs: The genesis of Emily stems from Mel’s experiences with exclusion and not fitting in, e.g., a sign at a Tel Aviv carousel.
  • "That’s the story of my life, being too short, too fat, too Jewish, too left-handed." (Mel, 09:14)
• Children’s Acceptance of Absurdity: A discussion on how children dive into story worlds without needing extra context about protagonist backgrounds or missing parents.
  • "Kids just...walk into the story." (Mel, 11:58)

6. Developing the Manuscript: Editorial Evolution

• Critical Feedback: Mel shares two major revision moments—first, the realization that Emily's journey didn’t end with her drawing her own door, and second, crafting a more organic turning point using chalk at a hopscotch game.
• On Editors: Both stress the importance of listening, even when it initially stings, and the value of collaborative revision.
  • "[Editors] are brilliant when they show you what is missing." (Mel, 23:38)
  • "You always have to at least consider. You always listen, and like, often, most of the time they are right...but sometimes...it's okay to just be like, after you think about it..." (Michelle, 25:06)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "In order to take credit for everything, you have to lose your text. You have to die as an author in order to be reborn." (Mel Rosenberg, 03:43)
• "So my dream was of course, to try and kill the book in America. And so we made a PDF in English." (Mel, 07:41)
• "You have to let go. You have to let go." (Mel, 19:53)
• "If you allow it to be less [than you envisioned], it can become more." (Mel, 55:04)
• "I think all of us children’s authors were stuck at some point in our lives. And then we write to assuage that." (Mel, 27:00)
• "Children's book community...there's a lot of, like, paying it forward...reaching back and helping people because somebody else helped you get to where you are." (Michelle, 56:43)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------------|---------------| | Mel introduces Emily Saw A Door and origins | 02:10–05:30 | | From Hebrew version to English/US publication | 05:30–08:26 | | Reducing the manuscript: editing process | 08:26–10:00 | | Book’s inspiration & theme of belonging | 09:00–13:13 | | The question of interpretation: Who’s behind the doors? | 13:43–17:16 | | Author-illustrator collaboration and letting go | 17:39–19:53, 52:49–54:56 | | Editorial feedback and crucial manuscript changes | 20:22–25:04 | | Mel’s writing journey and motivation | 27:00–29:18 | | Getting the book deal: Submission, agent & sales story | 30:06–32:29 | | The importance of community and mentorship | 38:21–39:12, 56:22–56:56 | | Mel’s creative process and working habits | 44:39–49:23 |

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Additional Topics

• Michelle’s Perspective: She candidly shares her own childhood struggles and writing process, drawing parallels to Mel’s journey (35:55).
• Life as a Multi-hyphenate: Mel reflects on his science career, musical endeavors, and how they inform his creative life (40:38).
• Upcoming Projects: Mel teases his next book (about a bacteria “discovery”), another Israeli release, and muses about picture book musicals.

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Episode Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is warm, self-deprecating, and threaded with humor and admiration. Both authors acknowledge the difficulties (and joys) of children’s publishing, the vulnerability needed to “let go” as an author, and the importance of both community and persistence. Mel’s journey—breaking into traditional publishing in his seventies, after hundreds of rejections—serves as an inspiring testament to creative resilience.

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Closing Quotes

• "Sometimes you get lucky...and I got lucky. So I'm grateful to hundreds of people, Michelle. Hundreds of people, including you, who helped me along the way...It's incredible as a scientist, what scientists help other scientists? It's not like that." (Mel Rosenberg, 56:22–56:43)
• "The children's book community, I think, is very special in that way...there's a lot of, like, paying it forward." (Michelle Knudsen, 56:43)

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Further Listening

• Mel invites all to the U.S. launch: February 24, 2026, Bookstar Bridge Door, 93rd & Madison, NYC (04:58).
• For more on children’s writing and mentorship, check out past New Books Network interviews with both Mel and Michelle.

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Transcript

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[Michelle Knudsen]

Hi, everyone, I'm Michelle Knudsen, and just for today, I am the host of the Children's Literature Channel, filling in for Mel on the New Books Network. I'm very excited to be here today because we are here to talk about Mel Rosenberg's new book, Emily Saw Adore. Welcome.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Well, thank you, Michelle. That was great. Just for. Just for today. Meanwhile.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yes, we'll see. We'll see how I do. Well, so you are usually the person asking the questions, obviously. How does it feel to be on the other side?

[Mel Rosenberg]

I don't know yet. It feels weird to start. You know, I, like, I'm not well. My hands are very cold. I'm a bit nervous to be. To be frank with you.

[Michelle Knudsen]

It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. Everybody who is listening and watching is so excited for you. They are your fans, they're your people. So, like, you're just. You're just talking to friends. You're talking to friends.

[Mel Rosenberg]

You do psychological consultations, too?

[Michelle Knudsen]

I'm available for all. For all the things. Why don't you start by telling us a little about the book?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Okay, well, first I'm going to tell everybody why I asked you to introduce me.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Okay?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Because I think the world of you and your writing.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Thank you.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And you've been on the show twice, and we had a remarkable time. And I figure that you want to get back at me for some of the things that I said. So here is your opportunity. So, Emily Saint Adore, illustrated by the incredible Lorip Magia. And it's huge, and it's blue and it's beautiful, and I Shall open it up. I opened it up actually by accident on the best thread, which has no words. Beautiful. And actually this is the part of the book that I didn't write. So it's a story about Emily going from door to door, seeking a place where she will be welcome, not finding any, and in the end creating a door of her own. I'm giving too much away. But what are did is she decided that when Emily creates a door of her own, it's not enough. She has to create a world of her own. And she did this. And for some crazy reason, I'm the I'm promised of that spread that I had very little to do with.

[Michelle Knudsen]

That's all. That's sometimes how it happens. I think I have often been surprised by, like, how much I love what the illustrators do that have nothing. Nothing to do with me. But it does have to do with you, because offensively. Right. You know, none of this would exist without your words in the first place. So you still get to take credit for everything is what I'm saying.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah, we talked about this. We talked about this with, I think with the spider book, with your beautiful Luigi book. In order to take credit for everything, you have to take credit for nothing. You have to lose your text. You have to lose. You have to die as an author in order to be reborn. I don't know whether in a Christian sense, both of us are kind of Jewish, but there is a rebirth involved in every. In every story.

[Michelle Knudsen]

I think that's true. I think that's true. You sort of. You're there, you put yourself in it. You create this thing and then you. Yeah, you have to, like, you have to let it go. And I don't know if I like to think about the dying and we. I feel like more of like a sharing and giving away, but a rebirth is.

[Mel Rosenberg]

But you're young and I'm old, so you know. And so the book is launching with Penguin Random House, the Random house studio, on February 24th. And I am as excited as PI. I'm going to New York for the launch, which everybody's invited to, including you, and go ahead and ask me things.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Do you want to say the exact date and place of the launch while we're talking about it?

[Mel Rosenberg]

I could if I remember. Yes, it is a corner book. Find that out. February 24th. All right. February 24th on the Bookstar Bridge door corner of about 93rd in Madison. And very excited about that. And I'm coming to get out Orit Magia and our Israeli publisher, Meira Firon and our Israeli chief editor, Joachim Schwimmer, who created Emily in Hebrew. And I don't know if people know that, but it was originally published in Israel.

[Michelle Knudsen]

So I'm going to jump around in my questions because I was going to ask you about that. So how much, if anything, has changed from the Hebrew version and the English version?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Okay. Everything and nothing. Okay, next question. So, you know, people ask me, you know, who translated the, the book into English. Okay, but actually the book was actually written in English.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Ah, okay.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I, I, you know, I came to Israel when I was 18. I came for one year and it dragged on. As you can see, I'm still here, but I, I think in English and I, and I learn that I should write my children's stories in English. For many years I wrote in Hebrew, but English is like, you know, the language that I sleep in. And then I, you know, whatever. So Emily was written in English. And when Jotam Schwimmer saw it and accepted it, together with Meira, they asked me to chop it down because it was part of a series of early readers. It was less than 500 words. I know that that's strange for you, but even that was too long for your thumb. So he wanted 300, 350 words. And that's like a big O thing, right? You've done your best to condense a story and you have to it more. So I fetched and we got it down to 315 words or so in Hebrew and. Or she illustrated the Hebrew version. And it was, it was edited. There was some major differences in the editing process, which I can talk about, but it came out in Hebrew. I will show you. If I made the Hebrew book, which is not blue, it's orange. And it won the major award in Israel. And PGA Library recently purchased 50,000.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Very nice.

[Mel Rosenberg]

It's actually the PGA Library of Israel if you got the Java. And so practically every kid here in the country in second grade has a copy of Amberly. And they're all pretty doors, and it's wonderful.

[Michelle Knudsen]

That's incredible. That's wonderful.

[Mel Rosenberg]

But you see, because my dream was of course, to try and kill the book in America. And so we made a PDF in English. So what I did is I took the Hebrew of the book and the original English and I melded them together because now Yotam was not watching over my shoulder. It could be a little longer than 315 words, but less than 500. And so I made a PDF version that was like the, the English to Hebrew back To English with the pictures. So everything was like it fit. And then I judiciously started to send it to people who I thought might read it that. Well, that's about it.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Okay. It's. It. It makes me feel a little better to know that it started out at least a little long, because I did. You know, I am jealous of people who can write short picture books that are actually very short.

[Mel Rosenberg]

All you do is you, like you look at the thing and one word, yes and one word out. One word, yes and one word, delete. Very simple.

[Michelle Knudsen]

I can't do it. Okay, so how. So we're jumping all around, but that's fine. What, how, how did it, how did the idea first start before you wrote the very first version in English? How did the idea come to you? Is it based on something inspired by something?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Well, we had this discussion like, where did the library line come from? And where did Luigi come from? And where did Maryland Monsters come from? And you have over 50 books where ideas came from. And the truth is, I don't know. At the Tel Aviv beach, there's a carousel and it has a sign. The sign says, if you are less than 80cm tall, you can't go on the carousel. And I love the guy said, that's so unfair. That's the story of my life, you know, being too short, too fat, too Jewish, too left handed, and I could go on. So I think that that was my immediate prop. But God knows I was driving it in a place where I worked in an innovation center with the brilliant doors. And 50 years ago I wrote a song about the doors and I liked the doors and the. There were doors that refused me when I was a kid. So you know how it all comes together and some of it is cognitive and some of it non cognitive. So it just kind of gelled. And it wasn't like your library lion, Michelle. I just wrote it one night and it was done. I wrote it not quite done in.

[Michelle Knudsen]

One night, but almost.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And it went through a long process and I added doors and tracked the doors. And I think one of the main things that happened was that it kept shrinking. You know, at the beginning I felt bad because where is Emily coming from? You know, where is she? Where are parents? What is this place where there's just doors and voices behind the doors? But I've previously written a book in Israel about a hedgehog, maybe a porcupine. One of those, you know, spiky things, those lines.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yep.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And like Gregor in Metamorphosis. Gregor something. Kafka's Book Gregor Samsa or something. Marsma. Wakes up in the morning and realizes he's kind of a cockroach. In my story, which was inspired by Kafka, this poor hedgehog, him or porcupine, wakes up in the morning and realizes all of his quills are backwards and nobody wants to touch your again. And my great fear was, you know, kids are going to read this and they're going to say, well, how did that. However did that happen? But not one single kid did. So, you know, like a lion walked into the library. I don't remember your first sentence. Maybe you do. What was your first sentence?

[Michelle Knudsen]

One day, a lion came to the library.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Okay. So good thing that one of us remembers that. And, you know, I mean, kids could ask, what was the lion doing in Ithaca or wherever the story takes place? And why is he walking to the library? Who let him in anyway? How do you get into the university? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? Does he have sisters who studied at the Cornell, but the kids just. They just would walk into the story.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So essentially what happened was he kept narrowing, narrowing, narrow, until, knock, knock, who's there? And that's. That's how the story starts, I think, Which.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Which is perfect. Yeah, that's the. That's the moment. I think you're right. Kids are. Kids are ready to just be in the story as soon as you're ready to take.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah. And in Israel, there's over 50,000 books in print. Not a single kid has asked me, where's her mother? Who let her out? What's she doing? So they're smart.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah. It doesn't. None of that seems necessary because that's not the. That's not the heart of the story. Right. And that's this. Did you start, like, in your early drafts, did you have that, like, were her parents visible? Or you had more of an explanation of where she came from?

[Mel Rosenberg]

I never had. You see, and I was always. I kind of felt guilty. I should. I should have. And there was kind of. There was a glue, you know, in Emily. Forgot her name, actually. She was. She was Julie for a day and a half.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Ah, okay.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And then I. I picked Emily, I think, because Emily's a very strong name for a girl, and it's a little bit like Nellie. And, you know, Emily's a little bit out of our graphical.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah. It also just has that nice. The three syllables. Works nicely. Like, it. It. The sound of it works.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah. And so she became Emily quite quickly. And. And there was all kinds of glue, you know, it was the. It was windy, it was snowy, it was. She was cold, she wandered this way, she walked that way. And like, over time, it just, you know, it, it. It's kind of an allegory and kids will appreciate it as an allegory. So it's obvious that she's on the outside looking in through the whole story. I don't need to add the wind and the, you know.

[Michelle Knudsen]

No.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So it became, it became bare bones over time.

[Michelle Knudsen]

And I feel like I'm trying to envision that. And I feel like it would have. It would have taken away. Right, because then you would have. If you're talking about the weather, we'd have to see the weather. And it would. Like, that's not, none of that's important. Now I want to ask you because you just sort of mentioned this and I've been wondering. So I read. So like, you know, I read the. I read the book and I thought of some questions before I read any other interviews or anything. But then I wanted to see, like, well, what else have people, you know, asked you about? And one interviewer mentioned the adults behind the doors who speak to Emily. And I was like, oh, like I. So what my question is going to be like, who is speaking to her behind the door? But my first reading actually was that the doors were talking to her. That the doors were sort of representative and the voices were coming from the doors themselves, which I now think is incorrect as much as someone's interpretation of a book can be incorrect. I don't think that's what you intended. But now I'm wondering what you did intend, because I didn't originally think, oh, it's grown ups. It's grown ups talking to her. But is that what you meant? Or is it meant to be open?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Who's speaking in my kindergarten teachers in various guises, I suppose. And again, I'm waxing metaphoric. But yeah, these are the mean people in my life, for example. So in my mind they were adults behind the door. But you see, Orit did something. She's brilliant. She's a genius. She did something very clever. And in the story, in the illustrations, which are fantastic. I'm going to show you another one while I have you on the line. This is another favorite. The Jungle Door. Oh, yeah, the Jungle Door. They want her in. They're ready to welcome her because the tigers and snakes haven't had their breakfast yet. And I was worried that the, you know, the kids might be frightened. But I think the kids like to be frightened. Your monster story is Full of boxers and your library line story, you know, you have all these fantasies and, you know, kids like a little bit of the scare.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Well, and also, Emily doesn't. You know, it's fun to watch her be like, I don't think so. You know, and she doesn't go in that door. And to see her, you know, kind of, there's a little bit of danger, but she successfully skirts around it.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Now you're doing what I do. And that gives me a feeling that there's something good about the story. Because, like you, I have imposter syndrome. And you talk about Emily as if she exists. And for me, she's begun to exist. I talk to her sometimes. We have coffee together on occasion. It's a bit weird. Right. But you know what I'm talking about.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah, I do.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So what was the question? Yes. So in my mind, there's somebody behind the book. One of the great things that happened in this book by accident, for which I can take no credit, is that it's open to misinterpretation, which means it's open to other interpretations, which means that it has a healthy reader response, which means that people can misunderstand what I intended. And at the beginning, I was very offended. A reviewer wrote that this is the door of socialism, and this is the door of that. And I'm thinking, what the. I didn't mean that. And then, like the publisher initially said, who cares? You know, you've written a book that people can interpret in their own way, and the doors speak to them, and the people behind the door. No, read in her brilliance. She didn't. She didn't show us behind the door. So we see the whole book from Emily's exterior eyes. We never are privy to the voices behind the door. And for all intents and purposes, it could be the doors talking. And if you see the doors talking, that's wonderful. I have no problem with that now.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah. I think it's like another version of what you have to do to let the illustrator do their job. Right. It's that letting go of, like, you've put this story out in the world, and now people get to get to sort of meet you halfway, and they bring their own meaning to your story. And that's wonderful. People can have their own interpretations. Like, your book will mean something different to every reader, which is. Which is nice. Right? You want to think you're having a personal relationship with your reader.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Well, we talked about this, too. And, you know, it's great to be interviewed because now I get to Talk also from the other side of the. Of the. Of the door. Yes. The big problem or challenge or wonder of a picture book is that if you're successful in selling it, then you lose ownership to the editor, to the art director, sometimes to the publisher, basically, to the illustrator is pick. Usually you don't. You're not the one who pick. I didn't pick for it. I didn't know her. But I was very touched. And the best thing that we can do as authors is. And I learned this from my wonderful mentors, Mike Malboro and more recently, Alderdam, is that you have to leave a lot of space for the illustrator. Because all the years that I was writing in Israel and publishing, not traditionally, I made the mistake that we often make, which you don't make, but everybody else does, which is not. Say, people have to know it's my book. It's my book, not the illustrator's book. And I remember one of my previous books, it was terrible. Too much text on the page. And the editor said, you know, can we cut down the text? And I said, well, how will they know that I've written it? The picture is so beautiful. It'll detract from people recognizing me as the author and how terribly stupid and idiotic and infantile that is.

[Michelle Knudsen]

No, but that's. I think we all go through. I mean, I certainly also, like, now I feel like, yes, I am much better at. At sort of just leaving lots of room and. Because I'm so. I've had so many good experiences with illustrators, and I know what's the magic that's gonna happen. But certainly in the beginning, it was very difficult. You know, I would. I mean, obviously, I still write long, but I would have even more words trying to describe everything, like wanting to control, like, no, it's gonna look like this. And this is what I'm picturing. And it's really important that exactly what's in my head is what's in everybody else's head. I think we all must go through that because it's. You know, the story starts inside you, right? And it's this thing you want to share, and it's hard to let go of that control. It's not. I don't think it's juvenile. I think it's just a natural part of the.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Well, you make. You make me feel much better. But anyway, it's. I think that one of the things that I had to learn, and I think I learned it also by interviewing so many authors like yourself, is that you have to Let go. You have to let go. In the editorial process, there were two beats in the story that I changed. There was a publisher who wanted to. You want to ask me that question? Because I kind of segued into it. Mel.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Mel, was there anything that you changed during the revision process?

[Mel Rosenberg]

That's a great question. Thank you, Rochelle.

[Michelle Knudsen]

I did have that question on my list, you know.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Of course you did. So there were two things. So it was with the searching publisher and the end. We didn't publish it. But the editor there. Brilliant. Who I'll call R.V. you know, there's a thing where Emily goes through, like, a land of doors, and she's been rejected and dejected and disappointed, and, you know, nobody wants her, and there's doors that she doesn't want. And actually, at the beginning, all the doors insulted her and refused her. And then at some stage, I said, hey, you know, Emily. That's not Emily. Emily's, you know, spiritual, spunky little kid. She has a personality. She's going to have doors that wants her, like the door for liars or the door for crocodiles. And she's going to be able to say, no, no, this is not the world that I want to live in. Anyway, she goes through this land of doors, and in the original story, she takes out of her curly hair a couple of crayons and starts to draw a door of her. And editor Arvey said, mel, that's a little bit contrite, isn't it? And, yes, of course, I knew it was contrived, but sometimes we hide our blemishes, hoping that it'll go through the editorial process. And it didn't. Actually, that was with your thumb. That was the second one. So I'll come back to that. You see, I act nervous. So what the editor, RV Said in the original story, Emily, she draws her own door, and she goes in, and that's the end of the story. And I was very proud of myself, Michelle, when I had that idea that she. She creates her own door, I cried. And I remember crying. I said, okay, I got the ending to the story now. And this editor says, I think maybe the story isn't really over. I said, what? When something like that happens and it's almost accepted and they say, oh, yeah, but you have to. I learned this for many years being a scientist and all of my interviews and so on. You don't say no to editors.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Sometimes you do.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah, but you curse them under your breath and you say, okay, let me think about this. I'm not in where you Are. This is my debut traditional published book in Israel. Now in the States, I have two more coming out. But I'm right at the beginning.

[Michelle Knudsen]

I mean, I'm going to let you finish. But you didn't disagree, right? Like, you feel like they pushed you on these two beats, but ultimately you feel like they improved the story.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Oh, at the beginning, I was pissed off. Like, when she said, the story isn't over. Like, I was like, you know, who are you to try? Okay, okay. And I learned. I said, okay, I'll think about it. But, like, I was cussing. I said, what does she think? That's normal. That never goes away. Yeah, I cuss like a ventriloquist, you know, But I'm in the car on the way home. I said, oh, my Julius, of course it's not over. There has to be some other kid knocking at Emily's door asking to come in. And Emily said, of course the door is open. And it was. And bang on the way home. And we talked about this. The editors are brilliant when they show you what is missing, they don't tell you how to fix it. They say, so that was our V. And then Yotam, he said the thing with the taking the crayons out of her hair was contrived. And this drove me crazy. This is like the best boutique publisher in Israel for children's books, and they want this story. And they compared me to wonderful authors and like, and, and. And right in the middle of the story, when she goes to the land of doors, she what? She takes these and. And I knew it was contrived. It took me about a month to figure out that she has to see a. A game of chalk on the. On the ground and then realized that she. So I. I needed that. That beat.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah. And I think that's always very hard. I struggle with that same moment in picture books. It's like that. It's that moment of kind of before the revelation or the twist or the climax. Like, there's like a reflection beat sometimes or something. And I think it's very hard to get at. And I do. I mean, I agree that it works there so much because you need that moment of her kind of having that lowest point of like, you know, she's been rejected all these times.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I'll repeat it so well, she sits, like, near the hopscotch game and starts to draw with the chalk, and then the next spread. Bang.

[Michelle Knudsen]

It's such a good representation of how, like, we get inspired and get ideas. Right? Like, she's. It's takes Her a minute and she's playing with the chalk and like, and then it, you know, something happens in her brain and she's able to have the next idea. I love it. I love it.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Thank you. It took me about a month, but.

[Michelle Knudsen]

I do, I do want to say that it is important. Just I don't know if you have aspiring writers or early writers listening, watching. You can say no to editors, they are sometimes wrong, or they have an idea that just doesn't. That's great idea that doesn't feel right to you. You always have to at least consider. You can't because initially I think all of us are like, no, you know, no, no, no. This is for. Don't tell me to change things. I don't want to change things. But you always listen and like often most of the time they are right that it needs something, there's something off. But sometimes they have an idea that's not, you know, that that is too much of a change or the wrong kinds of change. And it still usually means that there's something you have to figure out. But like, it is okay if you are. If it really doesn't sit well with you, I think it is okay to like, just be like, after you think about it. That's all I'm saying.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I'm still in the process of listening and not pushing back because, you know, keep in mind that if you start the ground running right, you got this amazing job, assistant editor at Random House, if I remember correctly. And, and then you, you morphed into a, into a children's author, as it were. But, you know, it took me, I started taking it seriously in my 60s and it took me 10 years to break in. So I'm, I'm listening very carefully. I'm at that stage yet maybe when I'm in my 90s, yeah, I'll tell an editor, you know, go, go suck a pipe. But it hasn't happened yet.

[Michelle Knudsen]

You don't say that. You just say, you know, that's a really interesting idea. I'll think about it. And then you come back with something different that you, that you like better.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Ah, okay. That sounds, That's a, that's a plan.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yes. So how, how did, what. So you've wanted to write children's books for a very long time. When, what, where did that initially come from? Like when you, you know, how, when you knew that this was what you wanted to do. Like, how did you, how did that, how did that start.

[Mel Rosenberg]

You remember I asked you if you were stuck as a 12 year old in your life? Well, I was stuck as a five year old. I think that all us children's authors were stuck at some point in our lives. And then we write to. There's a word in English that I don't know how to pronounce. Assuage. Like we, we. We spend our lives trying to comfort that. Yeah, thank you. That's what happens when you leave Canada when you're 17. You know words and you can't pronounce them like the Knuts and Knutson thing or the Hanukkah. So where were we? So where were we, Michelle?

[Michelle Knudsen]

You were stuck at five.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah. So I write to my five year old all my stories and, and I started I guess in my twenties, when I was five. Up until the age of five, my parents used to read children's books to me and I grew up on Madeline Ludwig Bennett, which I love, and Peter Pan and the Golden Books. And I love them. And you never think of being a children's author as a career. But in my early 20s I met a kid and he asked me what I did and I said, I grow bacteria. And I said, you know what? When I get back from Tel Aviv, I'm going to write you a book about what bacteria are. And actually I wrote him this book that was recently republished after 30 years. Oh, wow. Which is a nonfiction in mostly in a verse called Bacteria Galore by Sunday Ash morbid in Hebrew. So it's the. And I couldn't translate this into English so I wrote a completely different book about two years ago which illustrates the changes that I've had in my life. Going to very serious writer, telling the truth, the children, yada, yada, yada. Just saying. Okay. I just want to write fun stuff. So just last night and my second book was announced and it's about bacteria, but it's the opposite of this one. It's called we're being Discovered. And on the dated bacteria discovered by Antono in 1676, the bacteria are bickering with each other. Who deserves to be discovered first.

[Michelle Knudsen]

That's amazing. I love it. Wait, so what. So that was just announced that the.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And that's four in the morning here. Yeah.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Oh, well, congratulations. When do. And when do. When is that going to. I mean publishing schedules are long, but like when will we be able to see it?

[Mel Rosenberg]

I Hope late in 2027.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Okay.

[Mel Rosenberg]

With Tilbury and Sarah Rockett and illustrated by the phenomenal Kyla G. And I'm very excited, but we're just, with the. We're just at the inception.

[Michelle Knudsen]

I mean, that's probably the most exciting. I was gonna say you have to celebrate all the parts, but that's probably the most exciting part when, you know, like, when you have a book and you know it's gonna be a book, I think. I don't know. Do you have a favorite part of the process so far? Yeah, like, the biggest moment of celebration. Like, what was the most exciting part? Like, this whole journey.

[Mel Rosenberg]

The whole journey. The most exciting part. So. So, so how did Emily happen in the space? So, as you know, I've interviewed hundreds of authors and illustrators and editors and agents, and I always ask, would you take a look at my. In my book? Know, you know, is it good? Whatever. Yeah. Advice, help read it. If it's an agent, you know, consider me. And I had the one amazing interview, my longest interview with Liza Flig. The war had just started, and this was a very good way to, you know, to find refuge for. For an hour. We spoke for over an hour. One of the best interviews. Wow. She was so candid. She was really candid. And I said to her afterwards, I said, liza, would you look at this PDF a story that been published in Hebrew? And in retrospect, I'm pretty sure that she was just being nice when she agreed to look at it, because agents see thousands of manuscripts from Shiga to people like me. And then about a week or two, she said, who owns this book? And I told her the publisher, and can I show it to people? And I checked and yeah, show it to whoever you want. And then she phoned me. I don't remember when it was. Maybe November or the spring of. I don't know. And she says, are you standing up or sitting down? But she phoned me, right? Or I phoned her. And she says, if you're standing up, sit down, because I think I just sold your book to Annie Kelly at Random House Studio with the illustrations. And I'm like, so that would have to be the peripatetic moment.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah, that's a. That. I think that is the best. I think that's the best of all the good moments. But, like, when it actually comes out is also a pretty good moment. So I'm glad that you are having a launch that you're going to celebrate.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah, that should be fun. Look, we had a celebration in Israel, and it's done very well in the Hebrew. But this is not a dream, Michelle. This is like. Because I could never dream that this, you know, book would hit the shores of America with such a great publishing House. And so I'm. I don't know whether you can see that I am beside myself. This is not me. This is me beside myself.

[Michelle Knudsen]

I do. I can see. I feel it. I feel your excitement coming in. Well, we've jumped all around and I, I want to see what else I didn't get to ask you. I asked you that I was going to ask you about the five year old, because I did. I was listening to some of your other interviews and you would talk to Sarah Aronson about this. This was like two Novembers ago. Asking her like, what age, you know, was that age for her? And did you, I mean, did you say why? It was five. Like, why do you think five is.

[Mel Rosenberg]

The age for me? Yeah, so I, I skipped that. Thank you for pointing that out. And as you see, as an interviewee, I'm a. And reprehensible because I jump all over the place. I should go back to being an interviewer where I have to force myself to be a little linear. At least a bit linear. So. Yes. So I had this idyllic childhood until I was five and we did picture books and life was good. And then something happened at 5 at home and also at kindergarten where they tried to force me for a year to write with my right hand. They didn't succeed. I'm a stubborn little bastard, just like Emily. And the other thing is, I had to pretty. Jesus. Can you imagine a public school in Canada in the mid-50s?

[Michelle Knudsen]

Wow.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And even the Jewish kid had to pray to Jesus. And the kindergarten teacher said to me, if you close your eyes, you know, pray. If you don't, if you open your eyes during prayer to Jesus, something terrible is going to happen to you. And I mean, I, I knew, you know, it's. Jesus is not, he's not. I mean, he was Jewish, but he not, you know. Right. He's, you know, he's there, whatever.

[Michelle Knudsen]

So of course, one religious thingy in the Jewish. In the Jewish.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yes, thank you. You put it so well. Um, so of course, during prayer one day I opened my eyes and she was right. There was something terrible. She was looking at me and I remember this moment, you know, this moment I remember like crying for a whole year while they tried to force me. Why force anybody to, you know. So I was short and fat, the name Melvin, with the Y and Jewish and, And left hand. And I realized.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And I, I realized at the age of five that I was never going to fit in. And I, it, it was hopeless. But I realized something else and that is that I could not trust authority. So I went through my whole life. You know, sometimes I was very good students, sometimes I was very disciplined, sometimes I wasn't. But I knew that at the end of the day, if a teacher or some person with authority tells you something, it's not necessarily true.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Which is, I mean, which is a good lesson to learn at some point. But 5 is too early to learn that lesson, I think.

[Mel Rosenberg]

See, so I'm. This is, this is my little five year old Melvin, and he's deep inside my Kishkis and I, I write to.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Him and that, and that is what. It makes this book wonderful. And it's going to make all your books wonderful because that's, you know, if it comes from something real inside you, like an emotional center like that, it's going to be, it's going to be a story that speaks to other young readers, you know, that like, finds them where they are and like. Yeah, exactly. It's the upside of like having to experience that pain as a child, right? Like having these things that like imprint themselves on our souls and we have them forever and like, then you get to use it in your books and make great books.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Okay, so I'm gonna ask. You had some traumas when you were 12 that we didn't really, you know, I didn't force you to talk about them, but you forced me today, which is okay. But wouldn't it be better if we didn't? I mean, like, I didn't have to be Melvin with the Y and they didn't have to force me to change my hands and you know, I mean, it's, it's been a difficult world in that sense.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yes. Yeah. And I'm not trying to make light of it, obviously.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And being Jewish in a very anti Semitic neighborhood in Ottawa, so these were these painful memories. Stick with me. I'm 74 and probably, wow, 70 years and they don't go away.

[Michelle Knudsen]

No, it's true. I mean, I would, I would much prefer that we didn't have to have those experiences. I just think at least we can, at least we can use them.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And I would have been a shitty writer and I would have stayed a professor of microbiology and that would have been. Okay.

[Michelle Knudsen]

I will say that my, you know, my, I don't want to make it a big miss. My 12 year old stuff was just, it was just, it was mean. It was people who pretended to be my friends at camp who were not my friends. Uh, and I fully believed they were my friends. And then. Oh, and I get like, even now talking about it, I'm like, I want to be upset. Uh, I was talking to my stepdaughter about this the other day. Like, it just. It never goes away, like, these betrayals. You know, I'm a grown woman. I have. I have plenty of real friends that I know are my friends, you know, but, like, there's still that little part of me that's always going to be like, does this person really like me? You know, like, are they going to turn out to just be faking it this whole, you know, like, I don't know. And that I know better intellectually, you know?

[Mel Rosenberg]

But imagine my best friend, great Ken, coming to me one day and said, my parents found out you're Jewish and you can't come over anymore.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Oh, my God.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So, you know, anti Semitism isn't something that's. That's. That's new. So anyway. But I mean, you know, I had a great life, and I feel so incredibly lucky because I tell everybody the chances of getting published are one in a thousand, one in three thousand, and we've done it. And no matter how well you write and the stories and so on, you still have to have an incredible amount of muzzle of luck and fortune and meeting somebody who's interested in that kind of book that you've written, et cetera, et cetera.

[Michelle Knudsen]

That is definitely true. But you have also. There's that expression, you have to make your own luck, right? Like, you have put in the work. You know, you have spent all this time, like, learning and talking to people, interviewing people. I know you worked with Harold Underdown.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I still do.

[Michelle Knudsen]

He's wonderful.

[Mel Rosenberg]

He's gonna have to throw me out. I worked with him for five years, and I have the time of my life, like, because I'm always writing stories, right? And. And my agent, he can't read all my stories, but Harold can. And every week we have this love fest, and I read him stories, and most of them require revisions after revision after revision. And I kind of mostly enjoy suffering on his behalf. And I think that my writing has really, really improved. And it's a lot of fun.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah.

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[Lowe's Announcer]

@Onepalaton.Com this Friday, Crime 101 hits theaters.

[Michelle Knudsen]

What is it that you do?

[Mel Rosenberg]

I take high value items and make them disappear.

[Michelle Knudsen]

So you're a thief.

[Lowe's Announcer]

One crime connects them all.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I'm getting close, I know it.

[Lowe's Announcer]

But only one will walk away.

[Michelle Knudsen]

I underestimated you.

[Lowe's Announcer]

Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghan and Halle Berry.

[Michelle Knudsen]

We're good at this.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah.

[Lowe's Announcer]

Crime 101, directed by Bart Layton. Rated R. Under 17 on a minute without parent. Special sneak previews Monday, everywhere Friday.

[Michelle Knudsen]

I mean, both, I think both those parts are necessary, right? You have to enjoy it and you have to be willing to work hard.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I, I love it. I mean, I, I, I, I, I really am reborn. I, I, I feel like a 74 year old, 5 year old.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Um, trying to think of what else. How much time do we have? We're good.

[Mel Rosenberg]

We have as much time as you want. You're the, you're the host today.

[Michelle Knudsen]

What? Well, so you mentioned how you were a scientist. You've had like, you've worn many hats in your life.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah, because I'm gold.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Jazz musician. When was this that you were a jazz musician?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Well, I still am to a certain extent. I played classical piano when I was a kid and then one day I told my teacher, I'm playing Beatles now. You want to teach me to play Beatles song. And then when I came to Israel, there was a great jazz musician with me on the kibbutz and I gravitated to jazz, but I was never really technically that. But at the age of 40, I started to play saxophone, to learn saxophone and to sing. And I took it very seriously for a while. And I released two albums and I reached, yeah, I performed a lot, including festivals in Israel and I reached the highest level I could, which was a certain level that you can reach when you start playing Saxophone when you're 40 and start singing when you're 40, you're a musician, you know what I mean? But I love it. Yeah.

[Michelle Knudsen]

You still play?

[Mel Rosenberg]

I still play, but I play piano and I've gone back to jazz piano and I play all the old standards and, you know, same Broadway stuff. And I learned to comp, you know, to sing at the same time, which is dg and I just love it.

[Michelle Knudsen]

That's very cool. That's very cool.

[Mel Rosenberg]

If we meet in New York, bring the piano and I'll play for you. We can sing from Bring the Piano Gilbert and Sullivan song.

[Michelle Knudsen]

That would be amazing. I wish I had a piano to bring this. We could find one.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I wish I Remembered the Gilbert and Sullivan song. Ah. To make the punishment fit the crime. The punishment fit the crime.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Oh, is that Mikado? I think that's Mikado, which. I don't know. You know, Pirates is the one I can. That I love the most. See my friend's sadness, My friend's great sadness who had to come see me in it, like multiple times in different communication, community theater productions.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I. I want to see Library Lion. I mean, I think it's. It's incredible.

[Michelle Knudsen]

You have to see it. It's amazing.

[Mel Rosenberg]

This makes me very jealous in a good way. Like, I dream now with, you know, maybe someday Emily. You know, I've have two songs, two Emily songs, one which written by Jennifer Byrne, and I wrote the music to her lyrics. And I have an Emily song that I've written. And you can dream about having your book put to the stage and you have that.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah, that is. I mean, that's pretty incredible. You should tap it. I think it'll be back next January and hopefully. Yeah, this was its second. We're not supposed to talk about me, but I'll just say very fast. This was the second run of the Library lion musical by Adam Theater, Big lion puppet by Jim Henson Company. Like, just incredible. So they're. I think hopefully it's going to go to more places, but it, you know.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I want to come see it on Broadway. And I think that you should talk about. Because, you know, you should. I mean, Michelle, of all the people you know, you were the person I asked to interview me. I just love, you know, my granddaughter, when she heard I was interviewing you, she says, what the, The, The. The lady who wrote Ali Basifriya, Library Liar. What? You're interviewing her? You know her. One of my favorite books.

[Michelle Knudsen]

That's so nice. I was so honored that you asked me to interview you. I hope I'm doing okay. You feel like it's going well?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Okay, it's going very well. I mean, like, for me, it's going well.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Okay.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Is it going well for you?

[Michelle Knudsen]

I think so. I'm having fun. Is that, Is that a good measure? Am I allowed to just enjoy myself?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah, it's a problematic measure, you see, because I'm looking for a co host. Ah.

[Michelle Knudsen]

So it's dangerous, high risk. What. What else did I want to ask you? What do you have, like a typical writing day? This is kind of a boring question, but I always. I'm so interested because I feel like I am still trying to figure out my writing process. So I always want to hear how other writers do it. Like if you write every day, if you have like a ritual, I don't know, how do you do it?

[Mel Rosenberg]

So look, I do other things. I teach some crossover courses at university on popular music. I have a new course coming out on being left handed, which I'm excited about. But most of the time now I write or I do things that are associated with writing emails and blogs and interviews. And the interviews take a lot of time, but people think it's altruistic, but it isn't. I mean, look, I improved so much. I, I love talking to people. I love learning the process. It's my tikkun. I try to shut up and let other people talk, which is also difficult for university professor. And I just love it. So that takes up a lot of time and you know, editing and fixing and Harold and answering emails and so on. So when I'm in a creative mood, I like to go to certain places, certain parts of the house. I can sit at the university for hours and stare at a white wall and write. Certain coffee houses, there'd be places that I can sit and zoom in for two or three hours. So I like to do that. And when I'm not in that creative mood, which is usually, then there's stuff to fix and edit and write, which is also part of the process. Look, I suffered in the trenches for 10 years, maybe 300 rejections and angst and why am I doing this? What is this itchy scratchy thing that, you know, I mean, I'm never going to be, I'm never going to succeed. I'm never going to have any problems knocking at every door. Much more doors than Emily and finally finding one. So Emily, she saw a door, but Emily actually opened the door for me. And the end. Kind of ironic that. So these days if I can, I write and if I can't, I do stuff in the vicinity of writing.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah, writing it. Writing adjacent. I have a, I have a, in my Google calendar, I have a, I have a writing adjacent thing that like I'm like scheduling time and I know.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Okay, wait, you see, I, I don't, I don't have a day job anymore. And whenever I just have time, I have my laptop and I just sit down and if I don't have a muse, then I, and I do the, what do you call it? The adjacent stuff.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Writing adjacent. Yeah. So like emails and. Yeah, all this, all this that you have to do, that's part of the writing job.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And then we talked about this. Don't have an idea. Oh, I got A great idea, you know about this. Chipmunks that want to go to university and study dentistry, but the chip. Anyway, and I said, oh, I can't screen against this. It's so funny. Chip Malvin. And I, and I sit down and I write the first trap. And then I look at it the next day, says, O.J. i wrote, I wrote this shit.

[Michelle Knudsen]

But then you don't, you don't delete it, right? You save it. Right. You always should oversee.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I'm like you. I mean, I'm not like you, you know, you're highly esteemed and so on. And I am micro esteemed. But yes, I keep things, I keep everything. Not necessarily the handwritten stuff, but I also have the handwritten books that sometimes I remember to write in. I wrote for Storystorm last week and I said, you know, shower, you know, you have shower moments and you know, let your mind go free. But make sure that if you have a shower moment, you have a waterproof notebook. And somebody wrote to me. Yeah, somebody wrote to me and said, well, when you get one of those. Yeah, it could be, could be that.

[Michelle Knudsen]

I mean, if, if it doesn't exist, somebody should make that. Writers would buy it.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I'm sure that spies have them.

[Michelle Knudsen]

That's probably true. Or you could just. Well, I guess you don't have to necessarily. I have, I, I, I think of ideas in When I'm, I don't drive that much, but if I am driving, I will have an idea in the car. And so I just send voice texts to myself while I'm driving, which don't always make sense later.

[Mel Rosenberg]

But sometimes in Israel that's illegal, by the way. This is part of my problem. You have this, like, you're dreaming. You have this idea or some man, you're dreaming with a shower, driving the car. You have this great idea and then you say, oh, I'm not going to write down. I'm going to remember. This is also a great idea. I'm going to remember. And then I get home, I wake up in the morning and I can't remember the idea.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah, I can't remember if I have a thought and then I walk into the next room. I'm not going. Like, if I would try to.

[Mel Rosenberg]

You're just saying that to make me feel.

[Michelle Knudsen]

No, it's true, sadly. Lots of moments of like, why am I, what did I, what was I.

[Mel Rosenberg]

How.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah, I write everything down. It was like post notes everywhere.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So I can, like, I write whenever I can. I write on the computer mostly. And that's my Life right now. I mean, there's just family and kids and grandchildren and Israel and so on. But whenever I have time, I write.

[Michelle Knudsen]

And what are you, can you tell us what are you working on right now? What your next. Well, we know what the next thing is going to be is the bacteria story, right?

[Mel Rosenberg]

In the bacteria story, I'm working on a bunch of stuff with Harold. I will tell you there's another book that's going to come out next year in Israel. So I can say a few words about that. That's about a girl. I figured that I should write something different than Emily, about a girl who's completely different. This is a story about Penelope and she has a running dialogue with the illustrator. He cannot or she cannot do right by her know her hair's not right. This is not right. This is not right. Until she gets him so upset that he thinks that he turns the tables on her, but he creates a character that turns the tables on both of them.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Okay, that sounds amazing. I love that, that interactive sort of setup.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah. And. And now the illustrator's going to have to bring this to light. So imagine a story where you have the character who's changing with the illustrator. And this is also, it turns out it's not dissimilar from Emily. Like I said, I write something, she's going to be the office of the family, but she's not because she also wants a different world. And there's also this meta, meta world of the illustrator coming in and of creating a reality from drawing within the book. So people are going to think that I took this from Harold in the Purple Crayon.

[Michelle Knudsen]

No, I don't think so.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I don't think so either because when somebody wrote me that, I didn't, you know, because in Harold and the Purple Crayon he does draw a door at some stage. Right. There's other books in which people draw a door. As it turns out, I didn't invent that. But 10 years before Harold and the Purple Crayon, there is a Disney animation of a Betty Goodman chu called Owlcat. Join in. And in that animation, which everybody should see, like you have the music of Benny Goodman. It's great. And from the get go, the illustrator, you see the pencil as it were, like the animated pencil drawing things as you go along. And there's one scene where he draws this girl and her Goethe's is too wide and the guy doesn't want to dance with her and she looks at the illustrator, or she looks at the camera, if you will. The Animation camera. And he takes the illustrator, he takes the eraser and makes her skinnier, shall we say. So this is the 1940s, you know, nobody would, but. And to look back at this, I think this is a huge inspiration for me, this hilarious five minute animation where you see, as it were, the illustrator working on the animation while the animation is running. And of course, it's all. It's all cartoon, right? Genius.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah. No, I. I mean, I just, I love how there's so many ways to kind of look at. I mean, obviously that's a very literal, you know, look at like the illustrator's job, like, while the illustration is happening. But I don't know, I feel like your idea for your story is reflective of sort of like that back and forth relationship too, with the. Not that we get to work directly with. I mean, I assume I should ask you. You didn't get to work directly with your illustrator, right? Like, she.

[Mel Rosenberg]

It was like you and your friend, right? Where she would say to me, I have some drawings that you want to see. I said, oh, yeah, yeah. No, don't show that.

[Michelle Knudsen]

No, no, because you want to let her do her thing.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah. The only thing she showed me was Emily. And you know, I. Wow, her. Emily is like such a empathy magnet, you know, with a little purse and her. I don't know what it's called, coat and her hair. And it was like a wow moment. And like you say, it was something I could never imagine. Emily being such a chick, little spunky character and.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Looking at her right now, that's why my eyes are up here. I'm like looking at my picture PDF and like her collar is like kind of up here.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And as the. As she gets ejected, progressively she humps over, she drags her purse along and. Wow, right?

[Michelle Knudsen]

Things that you would never think of as the writer to, like, put in yourself.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So that's a huge gift. A huge gift. So, you know, and then you see the more or less finished. I had a tiny tweak in my. In my head. But basically it's the magic that happens when you are so lucky that your illustrator takes possession of your story, makes it her story or his or theirs. And this is a magical thing. And you say, oh, my goodness, I didn't mean. Okay. Wow. Wow. I think it's like I just saw a movie about Rogers and Hart. Right? So you're a musician. So imagine Gilbert and Sullivan or Rogers and Hart or Rogers and Hammerstein. And you know, I've written. I've written lyrics, but I have no idea what kind of music, you know, Richard is going to come up with. Oh, wow. Wow. Where'd you get that from?

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Or a tui. And you have to write lyrics to the Tudor.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Well, we get that idea.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And this, this. This is the magic of. Of collaboration, which is so important for picture books and basically why I love it so much.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah. Because it ends up with something that's. That's more than either one of you individually. Right. You've created this thing together.

[Mel Rosenberg]

If you. If you allow it to be less.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yeah. That's a great way to put it. Well, is there anything else that you want to. That you want to say about the book that you want us to know that you. I. I don't know what to think.

[Mel Rosenberg]

No, you asked. You're brilliant, and it was wonderful. And just that I am so fortunate that I cannot describe how I feel. And it's, you know, at the age I'm at, at the situation I'm in, to have this. This book and the interest and this interview with you is. It's a kind of a miracle. I'm not a big believer in miracles, but in a sense, it's. It's something that I could never have dreamed of. So I think that I feel for all of the people that are on the way, and I want each of them to succeed. But part of the journey, and maybe I should end with this, at least for me, after 60 years of not getting it right, is the understanding that it's not just taking a pencil and writing a story, it's studying. It's studying and studying and learning and writing and revising and taking courses and hiring mentors and learning and failing and failing and failing and failing. Failing. Then sometimes you get lucky.

[Michelle Knudsen]

I think that's.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And I got lucky. So I'm grateful to hundreds of people, Michelle. Hundreds of people, including you, who helped me along the way. It's incredible as a scientist, what scientists help other science.

[Michelle Knudsen]

It's not like that.

[Mel Rosenberg]

No.

[Michelle Knudsen]

The children's book community, I think, is very special in that way. There's a lot of, like, paying it forward. There's a lot of, like, reaching back and helping people because somebody else helped you get to where you are. And there's, you know, which is.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Which is why I think you should consider being a host of the Children's Literature Channel. So. So listen, this has been great, and you can sign off and I will help you. Hi, I'm Michelle. Mickey Knudsen. Knudsen.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Oh, actually, hi. Once again, I am Michelle, or Mickey, if you know me. Knudsen because my family dropped the K. But the pronunciation of the K when they. In one generation. I don't know how.

[Mel Rosenberg]

But you know, there's a story there. There's a story there.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Maybe. So what happened to the. Where's the K? I mean, the K is still there. It's just silent. Who silenced the K?

[Mel Rosenberg]

The special K? Will we be sued by Kellogg's?

[Michelle Knudsen]

Hold on, let me write this down on my post it note. Okay. So.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yes. Yeah. So I am.

[Michelle Knudsen]

So I am Michelle Nietzsche. I have been honored to interview Mel Rosenberg about his U.S. debut picture book, Emily Saw a Door, Beautifully illustrated by Orit Mo Magia.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Magia. Great. Well done.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Okay, so close. And I have. I loved getting to talk to you.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And perhaps we'll meet in New York and continue. But in the meantime, you forgot to say that you're the guest host today.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yes, I am the guest host.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Your debut.

[Michelle Knudsen]

This is my debut on the Children's Literature Channel on the New Books Network. And it has been my honor to be here today.

[Mel Rosenberg]

The honor was mine. Thanks so much and hope to see you soon.

[Michelle Knudsen]

Yes, I will see you in New York.