Six Questions with Lynn Street

Lynn Street is the author of The Blue Jays That Grew a Forest (Peachtree, 2025), a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. She is a science-inspired author sharing lively STEAM stories with young readers. Her writing celebrates nature and invites readers to slow down and explore, to become budding naturalists and citizen scientists. Lynn volunteers for nature organizations and is dedicated to environmental education and integrating art, science, writing, and nature for kids. Visit Lynn's website to learn more about her and her work.

1. Do you work on multiple projects at the same time?

Absolutely! With picture books, I think it’s possible to juggle a few manuscripts. As I started doing more nonfiction, I had to pare back the number of drafts I had going at one time. Keeping track of the research is a lot of work! It also helps to mix up projects for different ages. I have a longer-term project for middle grade that I can work on as I’m waiting for news on picture book submissions.

2. What are you working on? What’s next for you?

My next book is about birds — specifically birdwatching. It will be released in spring 2027. I was able to research and work on The Blue Jays That Grew a Forest and this birdwatching book at the same time, so that was really helpful. Because the second one is a biography, though, the structures are very different, and it took me some time to learn a new format.

3. What one piece of advice would you like to give to aspiring kidlit authors?

The biggest surprise for me in this industry was seeing how long it takes to write and publish a picture book. The benefit of that lengthy learning curve is that there is time to take a course or two, and to put your work in front of other readers, agents and editors you may want to work with. My advice is to use those early months -- and years -- to develop your writing and your goals. And experiment with writing many different manuscripts -- that's the fun part! Enjoy the writing for what it is without the pressure to submit.

4. Where did you get the idea for this book? What was your inspiration?

A photograph of a blue jay carrying an acorn in its beak inspired this book. I sensed a mystery -- and a story. That an oak can grow from a tiny acorn is amazing. That one bird caching acorns over a lifetime can impact the growth of forests is astounding. I drafted the manuscript as a free verse poem, and then I spent time working to balance the lyricism with the facts of the blue jays' acorn gathering and burying process.

5. What was the most challenging thing you faced while writing/researching this book?

The bulk of the research for The Blue Jays That Grew a Forest came from academic research papers and interviews with the experts who wrote them. There aren't any books written for the general public summarizing this research. This meant that I spent a lot of time on Google Scholar reading to understand the material and then figuring out how to relay the important details to young readers. I made some of my own observations as well. I watched blue jays in my backyard as they interacted with an oak just over the fence. From a second story window, I was able to see into the oak's canopy as jays pried acorns from the tree. Over several fall seasons, I spotted more and more of this acorn-gathering process in real time.

6. If you read this book to a room filled with kids, what message would you want them to leave with?

I hope this book will spark readers to observe the birds in their neighborhoods. What are birds eating? Where are they nesting? Can readers spot a blue jay? Blue jays have a wide range over the eastern and central US, and other jay species populate the western states. This nut-burying activity is going on all around us!

It would also be fabulous if kids could plant some oak trees in their communities. Oaks support a greater variety of caterpillars than any other native tree. And songbirds, like blue jays, need this source of protein to feed their young.