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Interview With Author and
Illustrator Andrew Zettler
By Andrea Marvin
The story will make you laugh, smile, and reflect on your own childhood. It’s a relatable tale of family dynamics among younger and older siblings and has an undertone lesson about resilience, determination, and following your dreams.
Between the Chairs is a story about an 8-year-old boy attempting to fly a kite into outer space in hopes of making a name for himself around town and in his large family.
The author, Andrew Zettler, explains how his own childhood inspired the book series. Originally born in Anchorage, Alaska, he remembers daydreaming of ways to stand out as one of the youngest in a family of eight.
He describes his parents as having an adventurous, frontier spirit, where there were hard and fast rules governing the household at large, but that behind the scenes, it was an absolute free-for-all when they weren’t looking, and the book mirrors this by illustrating what it’s like to grow up in that type of household.
Andrew is a talented cartoonist, illustrator, and author who lives in the Washington, DC area with his wife and two daughters. A conversation with Andrew reveals his energetic, creative personality and love for good storytelling and playful illustrations.
He tells us how Between The Chairs, The Race For Space is the first book of a series.
Tell me a little bit about yourself. Where are you from and where are you living now?
I’m from a pretty large family, there was eight of us total - mom, dad, six kids, and of course tons of random pets we rescued along the way.
There was no internet back then, so if a stray dog or cat without tags wandered up and seemed lost, we’d just post up a bunch of notices around town for a week or so, but if we didn’t hear back by then, well, that animal just became a new permanent member of our family. At least that's how it worked for us anyway.
In terms of where I’m from, I was born in Anchorage, Alaska. My folks are originally from the Washington, D.C. area, but immediately after getting married headed north in search of adventure, so that’s where I eventually came onto the scene.
I still have family in Alaska, but I live in the DC area now with my wife and kids.
What was it like growing up in Alaska?
Well, my Dad used to always joke that everyone that moved to Alaska was either running from something, or running toward something. No one seemed to be there by accident back then. In our case, my guess is my folks were looking to start a family, but also run toward something.
The Alaskans of their era had a very self-reliant and frontier quality about them by necessity, and even though we moved back to the DC area while I was still young compared to older siblings, I think that mindset permeated the dynamic of our household and their parenting style.
One distinct memory I do have is that when I went to start school back here in the lower 48, my classmates very sincerely asked me if we had lived in an igloo. It wasn’t even a joke, they just didn’t understand that there were actually year-round houses up there.
The school used to even invite my mom to come in and show photos and artifacts from our time there to the classes - it was considered such an oddity to be from someplace so far away at that time.
Tell us about your career path.
I started as a political cartoonist when I was still in college, but you have to remember, by definition that meant I was always stuck in a cycle of waiting for missteps from politicians or scandals to hit the news as the basis for my material.
It dawned on me almost right away that I enjoyed finding the funny in regular, everyday life much more, so I quickly transitioned to creating a single-panel comic strip of my own, and that’s how I first started.
What led you to become an author?
In large part I think it was a natural extension of working as a cartoonist. If you think of it, every finished comic strip panel is really just some larger story frozen down to a single snapshot in time so a gag or punchline can be delivered.
I do love working in that format, but wanting to tell full-form stories with all of the layers and rich context in-between led me into the world of writing in full length novel form, as is the case with Between The Chairs.
Tell us about your new book, Between The Chairs. What is it about?
It's definitely semi-autobiographical, if that makes sense. It chronicles the daily life of an 8-year-old boy who struggles with the constant indignities of life at the bottom of the family totem pole as told through his first person narration and comic strip interludes.
So to the set the scene for him, he’s buried seven deep in a family of eight, surrounded as far as he can see in all directions by the cookie-cutter streets of planned suburbia, which is killing his soul, and to make matters worse, he sits every night at a table that was sold to his parents with only six chairs for some inexplicable reason.
It’s a numbers game based on seniority, so at every meal he’s forced to sit on a little stool wedged between older siblings who all outrank him.
He doesn’t exactly take it sitting down, I mean he’s constantly scheming ways to stand out and be noticed, and in this first book, Between The Chairs - The Race for Space, we find his latest scheme is to gain the attention of his whole town, and ultimately NASA, by flying a simple drugstore variety kite high above the clouds and into outer space.
Like most eight-year-olds, he truly believes one grand feat like this could turn his whole world around, so at the end of the day he’s trying to gain some respect, but also hoping it will elevate him to a seat at his own dinner table.
His attempts often fail spectacularly, but he always seems to dust himself off and try again. You have to give him that. And ultimately that’s what Between The Chairs is, it’s a story of resilience, family bonds, and the magic of believing in yourself pretty unfailingly.
How did you come up with the storyline? Did your childhood influence the story in any way?
I would say without a doubt my childhood was a major source of fuel for the plot line, but at the same time, I think it’s the story of anyone who feels trapped by their environment and is dreaming of a way out.
For Between The Chairs, I’m really just using my own childhood experiences as a vehicle to share the humor, frustration, love, and hidden dynamics that are bundled into the DNA of most large families.
Again, getting back to their Alaskan roots, my parents definitely had a very frontier spirit about them. Even though I was raised in a very traditional Irish Catholic household with a strict set of rules, there was still this undercurrent of lawlessness that was kind of permitted and encouraged as a means of toughening us up.
If you were getting picked on around the house and having a problem, unless it was really over the top, it was kind of like: "Well, you better get it figured out." Or “Oh, he's just trying to get a rise out of you, just show him he can’t get to you and eventually he’ll lose interest.” That sort of thing.
I wouldn’t trade my time buried in those family trenches growing up for anything, but day-to-day life when my parents weren’t around was a bit like a nature documentary playing out with predator and prey mingling under one roof – it was non-stop older and younger siblings competing for food and resources.
What’s the lesson of the book?
I think no matter what your age, but particularly if you're a child, the biggest lesson from the book is that nothing can prevent you from dreaming bigger than your circumstances.
Specifically for children though, the truth is your day-to-day outcomes are generally not fully under your control yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create your own voice, which is an underlying point of the book.
If you had siblings growing up, you just might recognize yourself in this book, that’s for sure.
How would you describe the imagery in the book, and who inspires you as a creative?
In terms of the imagery for the book and my own personal inspirations, I’d have to say probably my biggest influences growing up were Bill Watterson, who was the creator of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, and any and all of the old Disney animators.
I just loved that level of clean, fun, and playful illustration they brought to the table. So much so that in our house today, if I ever wander by one of the kid’s rooms at bedtime and I see them buried in an old Calvin and Hobbes book, I just quietly back away and automatically extend their time by 10 minutes when my wife is not looking. You have to!
For Between the Chairs, although it’s very much in the format of a novel told in first-person narration, it’s also heavily illustrated with comic strip interludes and whimsical illustrations throughout as we descend into the world of this 8-year-old dreamer.
Why children’s books?
I think when my own kids were born I definitely felt this inner imperative to make a contribution to the genre as a tribute to them, but at the same time, I also wanted to rekindle that same spirit in myself. Children’s books in my mind hold a special place above and beyond all others.
It’s the one genre of book that seems to directly attach itself to our hearts, so much so that if we bump into an old favorite years later as a grown-up, it's almost like a rush of euphoric nostalgia comes over us.
The memories of the pages and the illustrations are just so potent and pure. It takes us back to a time when absolutely everything was possible in our lives, and everything seemed larger than life.
Between the Chairs isn’t necessarily just for kids. But I do think they will certainly enjoy it.
When can readers expect the book to come out, and what’s next for you?
The first book in the series, Between the Chairs, The Race For Space, is scheduled to come out at the start of the New Year, but in the books that follow we’ll continue to chronicle the main character as he continues his plotting, scheming, and comic nonsense through middle school and his teenage years for sure.
Between The Chairs is a book that people of all ages can enjoy, as author Andrew Zettler takes us along the journey of a boy determined to stand out and make his dreams come true, no matter what the odds.
Zettler is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. He’s also the author and illustrator of The Teeniest Tiniest Yawn and illustrator of the books Alphabet Olympics, and Starless, Starless Nights.
For further information, visit: AndrewZettler.com
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