Madison author’s new book chronicles the incredible life of Jane Goodall | Entertainment

when Jane Goodall recently spoke at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dean Robbins in the audience at Shannon Hall. The former Isthmus editor and current On Wisconsin magazine co-editor had to camp out for hours to get an expedited ticket to see the 89-year-old naturalist and author speak.

This is worth it. Robbins was even more motivated to meet Goodall in person. On April 4, his children’s book “You’re a Star, Jane Goodall” is published by Scholastic Books. Although Goodall didn’t meet her when he was in Madison—and, as far as he knew, she didn’t even know about his book—he said the experience of seeing his biographical keynote was a powerful one.

“It really felt like seeing Gandhi,” Robbins said in an interview at the Memorial Union Hall at the University of Wisconsin, not far from where he saw Goodall. “The spiritual power emanating from her was just overwhelming. Everyone around me felt it. I was wiping tears. She was so eloquent and funny. Humble. You’d think a secular saint wouldn’t be humble, but she It’s just so grounded.”

His book on Jane Goodall is the latest in a series of biographies aimed at younger readers. he wrote several books It inspired people the average reader might not have heard of but whose stories inspired him. He wrote books about suffragette activist Alice Paul (“Mrs. Paul and the President”) and NASA scientist Margaret Hamilton (“Margaret and the Moon”).

He changed the script slightly for his “You’re a Star” series, looking at the lives of big names like Goodall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Malala Yousafzai. His editors assigned topics to Robbins, and he used his journalistic background to peruse books and articles on his subjects to uncover interesting, colorful details of his life that other biographies might miss.

For example, you probably know Goodall as the world’s most famous chimpanzee expert. But did you know that as a girl, she puts her cocker spaniel, Rusty, in pajamas? Or when she was a young woman working in an office, she would take her pet hamster, Hamlette, to work? Robbins also told the story of how Goodall wore her signature ponytail.

“It’s very easy to see these people in a new light,” Robbins said. “You read all the other children’s books—for example, there’s a lot about Jane Goodall and Martin Luther King, but they’re almost identical. They tell the same anecdotes with the same earnestness.

“I’m not saying it’s bad, but they’re pretty much the same. If you read Jane Goodall, she’s funny. There are so many weird, wacky details in her life. She’s very playful.”

These details and anecdotes humanize someone who might seem legendary to younger readers. Robbins writes in the first person, and the pages are crammed with sidebars and double-panel comics filled with amusing details.

Robbins said he kept thinking about the young people who picked up his books and what made them turn the pages. “You’re the Star, Jane Goodall” opens with a literal cliffhanger, with Goodall hanging over the edge of a mountain in Tanzania while observing a group of chimpanzees.

“A lot of times what I find in children’s books, the story just sits there,” says Robbins. “They’re just sitting there, like a Wikipedia entry. I try to focus on the dramatic stuff, like what happens next. I think the format really helps put in a lot of fun, fun, Interesting, unusual details that even adult readers might not know about Jane.”

Robbins said he has submitted a draft of his next book on Yousafzai, which will be published in 2024. He’s also writing a biography of Wisconsin-based jazz drummer Viola Smith, titled “The Fastest Drummer,” and a non-fiction book on cartography, titled “The Shape of Things: How Cartographers Painted Our World, ” is also slated for release next year.

He is working on his first non-fiction book for adults with Wisconsin Historical Society Press. “Wisconsin of the World” will collect portraits of people with ties to the state, whether they were born here or later came to Wisconsin.

“It’s very similar to writing children’s stories, because my position as a journalist is to tell stories,” Robbins said. “How do you get people to read the first sentence and want to keep reading? So after each paragraph, it’s like, ‘What’s going to happen in the next paragraph? “That’s the challenge.”