Children’s book is the latest from versatile Cranston writer

Writing isn’t easy for most people. Even talented writers might struggle to write a book that captures the imagination of children. Add to that a full-time job, two children, several grandchildren, and life in general, and where do you find the time to create a half-dozen children’s books?

Somehow, Ruth Horowitz has managed to do just that.

Her latest book, “Are We Still Friends?,” is the sixth for the Cranston resident who has a master’s degree in library science and a background in newspapers.

Published by Scholastic Press, “Are We Still Friends?” is the tale of two great friends – an apple grower and a beekeeper – who have a spat, as friends sometimes do. In the end, they remain friends, because friendship trumps petty arguments.

The apples and honey theme came from Horowitz’s own experience of taking her young children apple-picking. There was always honey for sale at the orchard, she said.

“It was always a natural pairing in my mind,” she said, because the trees need the bees. And so the story of the two friends who need each other developed.

 “I write books about getting along in the world. Getting along with people and with other creatures,” Horowitz says.

The overarching theme of her books is getting over your differences, and Horowitz says, “to me, that is a Jewish theme that is more important than ever.”

The New Jersey native has written books about bugs and bats and horseshoe crabs, all aimed at children. She’s written for adults, too. She’s even written a few columns for The Jewish Voice. But it’s her children’s books that are near and dear to her heart.

She began writing them in her spare time while living in Vermont with her husband, Dave Christensen, and two children, Sophie and Sam. Horowitz worked as a freelance writer and then at Seven Days, an independent newspaper based in Burlington.

She and her husband moved to Rhode Island in 2007.

It takes quite a few tries to create a book that merits publishing, she says. She tells of starting a book when one of her children was “a baby in a stroller.” The book was finally published when that child was in elementary school. The first version of “Are We Still Friends?” was written in 1991. It was published in March.

Horowitz estimates that she’s written about 50 short stories and books. In addition to the six published books, six of her short stories for adults have been published.

According to Horowitz, the process involves a lot of rewriting, giving up, and rewriting again.

“You do it because you love it,” she says of writing. “If you get published, it’s icing on the cake.”

Editor’s Note: Ruth Horowitz will be signing her books at Bank Square Books, in Mystic, Connecticut, on July 1, and at An Unlikely Story, in Plainville, Massachusetts, on July 2.

FRAN OSTENDORF is the editor of The Jewish Voice.