Today we are very excited to share an interview with author Gwendolyn Wallace!
Read on to learn more about the author, the book, and a giveaway!
Meet the Author: Gwendolyn Wallace
Gwendolyn Wallace is an award-winning children’s literature author and PhD student at MIT in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society (HASTS). Her picture books include Joy Takes Root, The Light She Feels Inside, and the forthcoming Imagine New Suns. Her work for children focuses on Black environmentalisms, cultivating radical imagination, and the past, present, and future of social change.
About the Book: Dancing with Water
An intergenerational story about a nonbinary child who learns the tradition of well digging in this picture book about community, hope, and protecting the Earth’s water.
As soon as Kit’s old enough to ride in Grandpa’s truck, they begin joining him to dig wells for their community. Grandpa is magic. He can feel the weather in his bones, and he’s able to dance with water. With just a tree branch in his hand, Grandpa sways and spins over the land until he finds a spot to dig a hole into the waiting earth. When the water springs up, Grandpa and Kit jump for joy.
As new hotels and factories pop up across town, clean water becomes harder to find. Sometimes, no water flows at all. Kit is sad for Grandpa—and for Earth. But one day, Grandpa senses that Kit is ready to dance with water too. Grandpa reminds Kit that the energy and strength of their people flows through the water. As they wait and watch for fresh, clear water to flow up from the ground again, Kit recognizes the power shared between themself and Earth.
~Author Chat~
YABC: What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
I read the account of a water diviner in Michele Lee’s Working the Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing and immediately wanted to know more about the practice. While the tradition of using dowsing rods to find fresh water underground isn’t exclusive to African-Americans, I thought it took on a special meaning in a Black community in the American South (like where my family is from). As I say in my backmatter, “To be Black is to have a complicated relationship with water,” and I wanted to use this book as a chance to talk with children about the planet, freedom, justice, and queerness through water. While on the surface Dancing with Water may seem like a story about digging wells, it’s really about so much more. The book is about Kit’s journey to feeling empowered in their body through this intergenerational relationship, a community (like so many Black communities) that is experiencing environmental racism, and the importance of learning about and understanding other ways of knowing besides those supported by Western bioscience. It was also so incredible to work on this book with illustrator Tonya Engel, whose grandfather, Hubert Singleterry, was a water diviner!
YABC: How do you know when a book is finished?
When it comes to my picture books, I rely heavily on my agent (the incredible Wendi Gu) and editors to let me know when we’re done. From my academic writing to my picture books, I’m a firm believer that a piece of writing is never finished; there’s just a moment I decide to stop editing it. I tend not to be too precious about the first draft of a new manuscript that I send to my agent. I think often of this Jordan Peele quote: ‘When I’m writing the first draft, I’m constantly reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.’ The first go before I get anyone else’s feedback feels a lot like just getting sand in a sandbox to me.
YABC: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Since I was born! I loved telling stories for as long as I can remember. I’d often enlist my parents to control different stuffed animals as I directed a long play for them. I remember writing a story that took up multiple composition books about a girl and a dragon. I wanted them typed up, but couldn’t type well yet, so my mom had one of her friends come over and type up this story for me. One of my minor claims to fame is that in eighth grade, I won my school’s “Poet Laureate” award.
Though towards the end of high school, I decided that I didn’t want to be a writer. Writing lost its fun for me; I felt a lot of competition with my peers, and I developed a strong interest in biology, which made me feel like I had to choose between STEM and the humanities. I didn’t write creatively again until my junior year of college, when I started to remember why I loved it. That’s also when I started writing my first picture book, the manuscript that would eventually become The Light She Feels Inside.
YABC: What type of scene do you love to write the most?
I definitely love to write any scene where my main character is feeling a connection to the environment. Developing a reciprocal relationship with the natural world has taught me so much about myself and the values I hold dear, so I always treasure a moment to describe a character completely caught up in the feeling of the sun on skin, or watching the movement of a stream, or listening to leaves rustle in the breeze.
YABC: What word do you have trouble overusing?
I unfortunately love an unnecessary transition word and comma, ie. Even so, meanwhile, finally…But I’m working on it!
YABC: What is your favorite reading space?
Sitting on my picnic blanket in the park on a sunny day! Ideally, I’d also have a smoothie (containing mango) with me.
YABC: What is your favorite holiday or tradition and why?
I was born on Christmas Day at 6 pm. My parents’ solution for us to celebrate Christmas and my birthday is that on December 25th, before 6 pm it’s Christmas, and after 6 pm it’s my birthday. We open Christmas presents in the morning and then usually go to a relative’s house. But then at 6 pm on the dot, my family sings happy birthday to me over a pie (I don’t like cake), and then I open a few birthday presents. This is my favorite holiday tradition because I think my parents came up with a very creative solution for a sticky holiday situation.
YABC: What’s up next for you?
Imagine New Suns, my next book and the first picture book biography of Octavia Butler, is set to come out in 2026 with Simon & Schuster! The book follows a young dyslexic Butler as she finds her voice through books about science, robots, space, and aliens. I also have some works in progress: two picture books and a middle-grade novel. I don’t want to give any details away about those, but hopefully they’ll be on the shelves someday!
Book’s Title: Dancing with Water
Author: Gwendolyn Wallace
Illustrator: Tonya Engel
Release Date: August 12, 2025
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers; Kokila
ISBN-13: 9780593617908
Genre: Children’s picture book
Age Range: 4-8 years
