Rebecca Kai Dotlich fosters imagination in young readers. (Frank Espich for The Star)

Rebecca Kai Dotlich writes children's books in her home office, She credits her children and grandchildren for much of her inspiration. Her work has been featured on PBS' "Reading Rainbow." (Frank Espich for The Star)

A sampling of some of the 15 books written by Rebecca Kai Dotlich represents her successful career after 12 years of rejection by publishers. (Frank Espich for The Star)

Childhood rules.

That's the premise behind everything Indianapolis children's book author Rebecca Kai Dotlich writes.

Dotlich has published more than a dozen children's books to date, all with major publishers such as HarperCollins or Henry Holt.

She credits her own children and grandchildren for much of her inspiration.

And she fondly recalls her own childhood growing up in Eagledale on the Westside.

"I was pretty used to the '5 o'clock Dad came home, we had dinner, Mom was with us all day, we ran in and out of the screen door and went to the neighbors and made dandelion chains and chased fireflies and jumped rope' and that kind of thing, a pretty typical childhood in Indianapolis," Dotlich recalled.

"I loved it. I had one of the best childhoods. People who didn't have that just don't know. It was another form of Camelot."

Dotlich's work has been featured on PBS' "Reading Rainbow" and has appeared in magazines such as Ladybug and Highlights. She has been a poetry adviser and contributing columnist for Creative Classroom and Teaching K-8 magazines.

When did you start writing children's books?

There are so many different answers to that question because you think: When did I want to (be a writer)? When did I start loving books? When did I actually start writing?

I actually started getting into the business professionally when I published my first book about 17 years ago. Before that I wrote the entire time my children were growing up and sent out and got the rejections and that sort of thing. So that was going on for a good 12 years."

How did that make you feel?

Everybody gets rejected. I tell children this when I do school visits. Everybody gets rejected in some way. It's a job, or it's a team or it's when you're young or you're older. Everybody gets rejected in some way. It always makes you feel bad, but I tell them I let it make me feel bad for about 10 minutes and then I said to myself I'll just do better or I'll keep trying or it's going to happen.

Does having children make a difference in being a children's book author?

In high school, I wrote a lot -- essays, poems to my friends and families, more adult kinds of things, about the war and love and sorrow and that kind of thing. In college, I took a creative writing course, anything to do with the word. But it was more adult. I wasn't writing for children at all because I don't think at that age you really think like that. Not too many people when they're in college or high school think about pleasing children or writing whimsical children's type things.

What happened is when I had children of my own, I was reading a lot of children's fairy tales and poetry picture books to them. I spent so much time doing that, I found l loved them as much as I loved reading to my children. It actually made me feel happy and made me feel more childlike. My writing started to evolve that way. I started writing more of the kinds of things I was reading to my children.

How did you find the time to write when the kids still were at home?

A lot of people say I would write a book or I would write a children's book if I had the time. Nobody has the time. When my children were young, I would get up at the crack of dawn or I would stay up half the night after they were asleep. Now I just try to make sure I write at least a couple of hours every day.

Do you write to educate, or to entertain, or some combination?

My hope is definitely to entertain. If you do first and foremost want to teach somebody something, I don't think it's ever going to be as wonderful or as inspiring or as entertaining as it could be if you simply want to write a good story or a good poem and hope that it entertains.

You're a pretty successful author. What keeps you here in Indianapolis?

Family. This is where I was born. I can't imagine living anywhere else. I get by with doing the things I need to do with editors and agents by going to New York a couple of times a year. But with our world today, fax, e-mail, FedEx, you do a lot of it through that. But this is where home is to me.

What do you like to do when you're not writing?

Besides writing -- reading, being with my family, my grandkids and walking. I'm not going to say I don't watch TV. I watch TV every once in a while. I like mostly things like "Inside the Actor's Studio." I'm awful for "American Idol." I do watch "American Idol."

What do you like about "American Idol?"

I like the success story that ends up coming out of it. That's always fun. I get a kick out of Simon Cowell. From what I've read, he's not mean at all. He's got a good heart. I think he's funny. And I like to see the talent. I like to see it evolve, and I like to see how the people evolve, how they start off from the very first time, and how they end up changing their look, their sound. I'm just very interested in the creative process.

If you weren't a writer, what would you be?

I do think I would have done something creative. I always loved art, and I was fairly good at it. But not good enough to be, I don't think, a true artist unless I would have studied for it, which I did not. But I think I would have loved to do something creative. Or the only other thing I think I would have liked to do is something maybe in nursing or teaching, because I love children and I just love to take care of people.

**You made front-page news in Indianapolis in 1974 when you were taken hostage at the old Weir Cook Airport. (The hostage-taker was shot in the face by airport police while he held a meat cleaver to Dotlich's neck.) How long did it take you to get over that?**

I feel this is something important to talk about. I think it was the only hostage negotiating situation that the airport had. I don't think you ever lose that little bit of a feeling. You're more aware, when you're walking around, if someone is a little too close to you. I'm definitely over it. But the first few months were a little hard, especially going back to work (at a real estate office at the airport) where it happened. Those things happen, but they're rare.

Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Age: 56.
What: Children's book author.
Home: Born in Indianapolis. Attended IPS !61 and graduated from Northwest High School; attended Indiana University.
Recent books: "Peanut and Pearl's Picnic 8Adventure," "Castles: Old Stone Poems" 8(co-author), "What Is Science?"
Web site: www.rebeccakaidotlich.com

- Interview by Abe Aamidor | Photos by Frank Espich | The star