Back to Featured Interviews >>

MEET E. ANDREW MARTONYI
by Bonnie O'Brian

What did you most like to do when you were a child?

E. Andrew Martonyi

We lived in a rural area of farms, open fields and woods, with a lake very close by. I loved the freedom of the country and loved the lake. My brother and I salvaged an old sunken rowboat and fixed it by putting a lot of tar on the bottom (big mistake!), and painted it with paint we got free from one of the farmers. It still leaked like crazy, but I loved to go out in the very early summer mornings, sometimes hunting for frogs, but mostly just enjoying the quiet solitude of the water and the sounds of nature all around me. We did a lot of swimming in that lake. In winter, we played ice hockey on it until it was too dark to see the puck.

What books influenced you most when you were growing up?

I loved books about nature and animals. JACK LONDON WAS PERHAPS MY FAVORITE--THE CALL OF THE WILD, WHITE FANG, TO BUILD A FIRE. I also read The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley, and basically anything to do with animals in the wild. These books taught me many practical things that I used later when hiking and camping. I even learned how to make fire without matches. Later, I read such books as QUO VADIS. The struggles of the early Christians in ancient Rome influenced my religious viewpoint, and also stirred my desire to see other lands, to meet and learn about other people.

Did you write stories when you were growing up? at school? Or at home as a hobby? As a young child, or as a teenager, or both?

I wrote poetry, and often found myself in class absorbed in the poem I was composing, surreptitiously putting it down on paper when I was supposed to be studying Math or English. It was a great distraction from my studies, so I tried to start using it to keep myself more focused. To that end, I would take lecture notes in rhyme and verse. Actually, though I did not realize it at the time, I was starting to explore the power of mnemonics.

What gave you the idea for THE LITTLE MAN IN THE MAP?

Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. I kept thinking that there had to be a better way to help kids learn and remember all the states. I felt this was a basic necessity if they were to become interested in geography.

What really triggers your imagination?

Insurmountable challenges that interest me.

Have any of your books earned special recognition?

THE LITTLE MAN IN THE MAP has won a Silver Award from the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards, a Silver Award for Book Of the Year, the Most Original Concept Award in the IPPY Book Awards, and has also received finalist status from the Indie Book of the Year Awards.

Do you enjoy researching or do you prefer working totally from your imagination?

I find doing the research fascinating.

Do you write every day and do you have set hours that you work?

I do most of my writing in airports, on planes, and in hotel rooms when I travel to give seminars.

When is your next book going to be in book stores?

Most of it is complete, and I expect to have it in stores early next year. I have been working on this one too for a number of years, so the satisfaction of finishing it will be great.

When you do school visits, what question do children ask you most?

The first question usually is, “Did you create The Little Man?” And I say to them, “No, the Mississippi River did that, along with the five states that border the river.” It really fascinates them that a “little man” is actually standing in the U.S. map, and that they have never heard of him before.

What do you most want the students to get out of your school visits?

If I can get them interested in learning the location of the states because it’s easy and fun, I hope they will become interested in learning more about each state. I believe, in order to get them interested in the geography and history of this vast country of ours, they first have to be able to put each state into context, fit it in among its neighbors.

Has anyone ever written you a fan letter that you’d like to share?

I get many, many letters and even drawings from the students. They make great comments, and their drawings of the Little Man are precious. It shows their interest in the subject and their ability to remember what they have learned.