RAR #262: Every Question Is a Doorway, with Jonathan Auxier

Read-Aloud Revival ®

Sarah Mackenzie

Books, Homeschool, How To, Read-aloud, Kids & Family, Teaching From Rest, Reading, Education, Parenting

4.9 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2025

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today, one of my very favorite authors returns to Read-Aloud Revival.

You know him as the author of Sweep, The Night Gardener, the Peter Nimble series, and The Fabled Stables. That’s right–Jonathan Auxier is back!

This time, we’re talking about the much-awaited conclusion to the Peter Nimble series, The War of the Maps. In our conversation, we delve into the guiding questions he explores during the writing process, and how each of these questions becomes a doorway for discovering who we are, whose we are, and what our work is here in the world.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

Why Jonathan often explores the tension of the end of childhood in his books
How trying to solve a guiding question shapes the narrative of Jonathan’s works
The best way to write a story

Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:

Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/jonathan-auxier-is-back

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	When you're a little bit younger, you have the time and the space, the sky really is the limit.
0:04.0	You really can ask any question.
0:06.2	And questions aren't threatening to your sense of identity.
0:09.1	Yes.
0:09.6	I think they become later.
0:11.3	The older you get, the more dangerous questions should be.
0:15.2	And really no question should be dangerous.
0:17.0	Every question should be a doorway.
0:30.6	Hey, hey, Sarah McKenzie here. You've got a new episode of the Read Aloud Revival Podcast. This episode is a video as well as audio. So if you're listening to this in your
0:35.9	podcast app, but you'd rather watch
0:37.7	the video, go to readalouda Revival.com slash video. Now today, Jonathan Ogsieh is back. He is one
0:46.1	of our favorite guests at Read Aloud Revival. You might know him as the author of Sweep,
0:52.1	that's my own favorite, the Night Gardner, Peter Nimble and his
0:55.8	fantastic eyes, Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard, any of this ringing you about the fabled
1:01.5	stable series? Today, I invited him on the show to talk about his brand new book, The War of the Maps,
1:08.1	which is the final book in the Peter Nimble trilogy.
1:12.0	And I'm pretty sure I heard some shrieks out there in the world.
1:15.0	As soon as some of you heard, there's a new Peter Nimble book,
1:18.4	because you've been waiting quite a while and Jonathan really delivers.
1:23.0	One of the things that Jonathan and I dig into is this idea of what happens inside the
1:28.0	writer when they're writing a story and how the questions that arise, this guiding question
1:33.5	that he doesn't know the answer to, but that he's exploring with each one of his books.
	...

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