This is a project for my Libr 268 History of Youth Literature course at San Jose State University. Not for public sharing unless with permission.

1. How The West Was Won
How Deserts And Sense Of Place
Influence Children’s Literature
By Lauren Regenhardt

2. “Customarily we concur that to imagine a desert is to
picture nature in one of her most extreme aspects: in
her most rugged, scorching, barren, arid, and forbidding
form. Consequently our images o deserts usually
include vast, timeless landscapes whose principle
components are windswept sand and obdurate stone and
whose only growths are stunted shrubs and stubborn
cacti. Such images as these imply that deserts are
forsaken places eschewing human participation, places
to cross, but not to dwell, places fit only for toxic
creatures like scorpions and rattlesnakes.”
-Keith Polette

3. Sense Of Place
Sense of place is important in a child‟s development. Being
aware of place and location and its role in their lives can bring
them a sense of self and an appreciation for diversity. It
stimulates their imagination by connecting them to other
children‟s lives and places and gives them the ability to see
how place has impacted other children‟s activities, belies,
interests, and interactions. (Wasta, p. 189).

4. Sense Of Place
• “Children tend to assume that subject learning that doesn‟t
feel real to them isn‟t real, or that its relevance ends when
the school day is over” (Hutchison, para. 1).
• If a child doesn‟t see a place, how can it be real to them?
Their minds function on the visible and the seen, so it is
important to teach them at an early age about different
places and cultures so they can gain an understanding of
where they are.

5. Think About Where You Live…
• Is it a desert? Mountainous region? Urban city?
• How does that influence your
interactions, activities, traditions, morals, values?
• Now compare those to people who live in different places
and settings, are they similar?
• Setting is so important in a children‟s book-let‟s see some
examples!

6. This presentation will discuss three children‟s
books that take place in a desert landscape
setting and why the setting is important. I
chose this topic because being from Las
Vegas, the desert is what I know, and I wanted
to share that with my peers! I had the pleasure
of speaking with a couple Las Vegas authors
and am excited to share those experiences as
well.

8. Play In The Clouds
• Play In The Clouds by Mike Miller is just one installment in the Tomas
the Tortoise adventures.
• The book was selected by the state of Nevada
as the single book that will represent Nevada in September at the
National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., and will go into the Library
of Congress.
• Tomas the Tortoise visits many places in Southern Nevada, which is
known for its desert landscape, such as Red Rock Canyon, Mount
Charleston, and even a Ghost Town! His friends are all desert
creatures-a coyote, rabbit, owl, mouse, among others. The educational
aspect of the series illustrates the desert landscape with the
influences of the Southern Nevada culture and locations.

9. Play In The Clouds Con’t
• In Play In The Clouds, Tomas the Tortoise decides to climb
to the sky to see if the clouds are as soft and inviting as
they look. Chacko the Coyote joins him for some of his
journey but when he turns back, Tomas encounters Miguel
the Mouse, Snowshoe the Rabbit, a Snowman, and Hooty
Owl, who all help him as he makes his trek up Southern
Nevada‟s Mount Charleston. When he finally reaches his
destination, he is so glad that the clouds invited him to
play, and he has the most fun he‟s ever had!

10. My Interview With Mike Miller
I had the honor of speaking with the author of the Tomas the
Tortoise series, Mike Miller. Here I have summarized my talk with
him to offer a better look at Tomas the Tortoise.
• Mr. Miller moved to Las Vegas in 1962 after working for Disney
Studios at MGM in the animation department. He worked on
Disney movies 101 Dalmatians and Sleeping Beauty, among other
projects. He moved to Las Vegas ro do design and paint stage
scenery and stage shows, and chose to stay.
• He got into the commercial end of the business and opened up a
design and advertising studio.

11. Con’t…
• After doing dome political cartooning, a friend approached him
and asked him if he would illustrate a children‟s book with him.
When they went to find a publisher, Mr. Miller took the idea to a
client, Stephens Press. After finding out what the publisher
wanted in terms of children‟s books, Mike wrote up a separate
script and an idea and sent it back, and Stephens Press
accepted the pitch.
• There were some criteria, however. Stephens Press, located in
Las Vegas, wanted something uniquely set in Southern Nevada
that was geared toward kids. They wanted a Hispanic
influence, so Mr. Miller named all the characters with Hispanic
names.

12. Con’t…
• “The worst thing about writing and publishing books is finding a
publisher. When you write a manuscript and send it to a
publisher, if it is not solicited they will send it right back without
looking at it. In ten years, if they publish a book with even a
page that is similar, they can sue, so unless you‟re already an
established author, most won‟t even look at it. That‟s why I went
to the publisher and asked what they wanted, and that opened
up a discussion. They told me what they wanted, and it was
smooth sailing from there.”
-Mike Miller

13. Character Development
“Tomas the Tortoise needed to travel with friends. Part of the
learning process and action is the introduction of different desert
characters so kids can learn. The coyote‟s personality is very
whimsical. The lizard loves to just lay on the rock and put on sun
block. Rapido the Roadrunner is nothing but speed. The
characters all have diverse personalities, which all lend to the
storytelling and to the kids‟ learning because they all interact
differently. One of the things I do with presentations is that I say
to them, look around you, the five or siz people around you are
your friends. They are all totally diferent, none of them walk like
you, talk like you, act like you. That‟s what friendship is about-
diversity.”

14. The Writing Process
• The Tomas the Tortoise series is all written in meter, a form of poetry.
• To begin, Mike sat down with a yellow pad and figured out one scene at a
time. For example, one story had a flash flood, there‟s a lesson to be
learned, so he develops the story scene by scene, developing a sequence
with a story that has a beginning and an end. He draws first then describes
the drawings with the written story. That‟s when he has to implement the
poetry. Then it is all proofed and the copies go to the publisher and then the
copy editor, who moves things around and improves upon the text.
• Since the Tomas the Tortoise series, he has illustrated another 8-10 books
as well as seven books for the Public Education Foundation of Clark County.
• (personal communication with Mike Miller, telephone conversation/email
correspondence, August 6, 2012)

15. Thanks Mr. Miller!
• Mike Miller spoke with me over the telephone for 30
minutes from Southern California. It was exciting to get to
talk to him and I appreciate the opportunity to learn how
Tomas the Tortoise came to be and about the learning
process. Living in the desert and writing specifically about
the location and the animals found in this setting, Mike can
understand the importance of place in a children‟s book!

17. Holes
• Holes by Louis Sachar is a prime example of the desert as a
setting. Stanley Yelnats (yes, that‟s his first name spelled
backwards!) attracts bad luck like a magnet, so when he is
falsely accused of stealing a pair of shoes, he is sent to a boy‟s
camp as his punishment. There, he and all the other juvenile
delinquents are forced to dig holes all day, every day and are
told to give anything that they find to Warden Walker. Warden
Walker is searching for the buried treasure of Kissin‟ Kate
Barlow, and as Stanley and his new friend Zero put together the
pieces and actually find the treasure buried in the desert
sand, they realize that Stanley‟s past is directly tied to not only
Kissin‟ Kate, but to Zero as well.

18. Holes, Con’t
• The desert plays a huge role in the story and plot. When the
boys dig in the sand, they must encounter the desertous
landscape, between the sand, poisonous reptiles, and
unbearable heat. Without this setting, the story would have
been different and would not have been so effective.
• Winner of the Newbery Award and National Book Award
• Now a Major Motion Picture starring Shia
Lebeouf, Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voigt, and Patricia
Arquette.

20. Eve
• Eve by Anna Carey is a post-apocalyptic dystopian book, the
first in a trilogy. In a world after a plague takes the lives of
much of the population, the New America is underway. Girls
and boys are separated, with the girls going to school to
decide on their specified craft and the boys to work camp.
When Eve discovers that the schools aren‟t just for
teaching and education, she runs, meeting and falling in
love with a „stray‟, Caleb. When Eve is caught and taken to
the City of Sand, her life is forever turned upside down with
news that changes how she thinks and acts.

21. Eve, con’t
• The City of Sand is actually the ruins of Las Vegas. The
Stratosphere is the King‟s look-out tower, the Venetian
Casino office buildings, McCarran Airport the labor camps.
The New America‟s new capital becomes Las Vegas, the
surrounding area desert and barren land. Eve‟s journey
and her love takes her from California to Las Vegas, the
mountainous terrain changing to the desert. The setting in
the desert is important in the story, as it changes
everything for the main character of Eve, becoming her
new home, new life, new prison.

22. The Desert Awaits…
The sand…cacti…mirages…everything that is so stereotypical about
deserts is true. But that‟s only one side of the desert. On the other is the
beautiful sunsets, the thunderstorms that shake the earth, the comforting
sound of the cicadas and crickets. Each side of the desert offers a
different but equally as important glimpse into the desert life, and I hope
that each example given illustrates how the desert‟s beauty can be equally
enchanting and deceiving.

23. Bibliography
Carey, A. (2011). Eve. New York: Harper.
Folette, K. (1997). Desert voices: Southwestern children‟s literature. Children‟s Literature in Education, 28 (3), 163-
175.
Hutchison, D. (2007). Drawing on children‟s „sense of place‟: The starting point for teaching social studies and
geography [Research monograph #8]. What Works? Research Into Practice. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/Hutchinson.pdf
Miller, M. (2004). Play in the clouds. Las Vegas: Stephens Press.
Personal Communication with Kevin Janison via telephone, June 26, 2012
Personal Communication with Mike Miller via telephone, August 6, 2012.
Sachar, L. (1998). Holes. New York: Frances Foster Books.
Wasta, S. (2010). Be my neighbor: Exploring sense of place through children‟s literature. Social Studies, 101
(5), 189-193. doi: 10.1080/00377990903583745

24. Appendix: Interview with Kevin
Janison
• When I first started this project, I wanted to focus on Las Vegas
children‟s book authors. I knew Kevin Janison was an author
from here, as he is a weatherman/meteorologist on our local
news channel! When I got further along on the project I realized
that there wasn‟t much research to be done on my subject so I
had to switch gears a bit, making my interview irrelevant, but I
wanted to include the interview so others can see!
• He wrote a picture book series called Deputy Dorkface, but the
setting is not really in Las Vegas or the desert.

26. • What are your inspirations for Deputy Dorkface? How did you come up with the
idea? What kind of morals do you try to teach in your books?
The stories began as bedtime stories I used to tell my children. When
they were young it was next to impossible to get them to take a bath, so
that‟s how they all started. Each night the story would be modified, it
wouldn‟t be the same story. It would be the same gist of the story, it
might have a different ending but still each night they want to hear a
Deputy Dorkface story. Even if I was tired, I‟d just lay on the floor and let
it go. At sleepovers the kids loved it, and I got to speak at classrooms.
• Did you get any inspiration from Las Vegas and if so, how did you implement
that into the storyline or characters?
No, not really. The only thing would be Las Vegas kids using the
classmates of my childrens‟ as guinea pigs to see if they enjoyed the
stories. Other than the fact that the original story takes place in the
Mojave Desert, that‟s the only connection to Las Vegas within the three
books.

27. • What is your favorite children‟s book and who is your favorite children‟s author?
I would go to the Nevada reading week and visit schools and read to students. I would
read Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. I really enjoy the book and obviously there is a
weather tie-in so it‟s a great story. I had to segue from Cloudy to our stories because I
wanted to see if the kids liked my stories as much as they liked Cloudy With A
Chance. In a perfect world I would want to make a movie for my books. We're hopeful
something bigger will come down the road. It just takes a lot of work and a lot of luck.
• Do you have any plans to branch away from Deputy Dorkface and venture in the juvenile or
young adult genre?
You know, I really enjoy doing the picture books. I like to think that we have enough
elements and a complex enough story line that they aren‟t just „A is for Apple, B is for
Boys‟ books. There‟s a plot, the kids are involved and are eventually heroes or solve their
own issues. I‟d like to think we can come up with a few more of those, and by that time I
might be too old to be doing anything more than picture books. I would like to do this
while I‟m still young enough to be able to go out and share them with students. Even with
these books I like to take time to come up with different elements to make a few events
memorable in each books. Something would have to give.

28. • Please explain to me the process of writing a children‟s book.
What I normally do is I come up with ideas based on something I‟ve seen or
experienced maybe in my house that I think is funny, like not taking a bath or
kids being too full for dinner but not for dessert. I come up with an idea that‟s
highly fictional that gets the message across that one might have an idea, but
it‟s not always the best. I figure out what kind of mayhem could be caused by
their actions or inactions and I'll outline three or four elements. I‟ll write them
out and take it to the elementary school students to use as guinea pigs to tell
what they like and don‟t like. It‟s kid-tested, and then I submit it to the
publisher for additional editing. I like to take focus groups to get impressions
and see if I‟m going in the right direction. Do kids laugh when it‟s funny and
look intense during intense moments? Or are they fidgety and bored? That‟s
why I like to test drive it on the kids.

29. Thank You!