By Joanne Degnan, Staff Writer
ROBBINSVILLE — Ever since she quit her high-powered job as a Hollywood labor lawyer to write children’s poems, acclaimed author Janet Wong’s appeal has been not only her whimsical free verse, but also her willingness to travel to schools all over the country to inspire young readers to unlock their own inner poet.
”A good way to get your mind going is to say: “What if?” Ms. Wong told a room of wide-eyed 10-year-olds in Linda Biondi’s fourth-grade classroom at Pond Road Middle School. “It can be very fun to ask silly what-if questions.”
The genesis of “Once Upon a Tiger,” Ms. Wong’ new collection of poems about endangered animals, began the same way, she told the children.
”I thought, what if the first tiger was a lion who ate too many zebras and by eating too many zebras got stripes,” Ms. Wong said as the children began to giggle. “So that was my thought that started this poem.”
As Mrs. Biondi tapped away at a computer that projected the playful poems and illustrations onto a large screen for all to see, Ms. Wong began reading aloud about “the zebra-eater of lion legend/ way back when/ once upon a Tiger.”
Ms. Wong, a Princeton resident, has sold 22 books to traditional publishing houses, has been featured on Oprah Winfrey’s show, and has had her poems appear on posters in subway cars as part of the New York City’s “Poetry in Motion” campaign. However, it was Ms. Wong’s most recent foray into online publishing with her first e-book, “Once Upon a Tiger,” that brought the slightly jet-lagged author to Robbinsville by way of a literary conference in Borneo last week.
Ms. Wong and illustrator Sladjana Vasic, of Plainsboro, chatted with students about their book, answered questions, and even shared tips for jump-starting the creative writing process so that students can work with parents or teachers to self-publish their own stories and poems. Relatives can then download student-written e-books sold on Amazon.com or www.barnesandnoble.com to their Kindle and Nook e-readers. Free apps available online also make it possible to read e-books on the iPad, iPhone, Android or personal computer, they said.
Authors who self-publish can lop years off the wait for an approved manuscript to be published by a traditional publishing house, Ms. Wong said.
”It used to be that if you sold a manuscript, the book would come out in two to three years,” Ms. Wong told the students. “Now, my most recent book by Simon & Schuster, ‘Homegrown House,’ which was illustrated by E.B. Lewis, took nine years from the time it was sold until the time it came out.”
The publishing process for an e-book, however, takes a fraction of that time, Ms. Wong said. After the poems were written, revised and rewritten, and after all the watercolor illustrations were completed, Ms. Vasic’s husband, Milo, used his computer skills to upload the manuscript to Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.
”The book was submitted to Amazon.com and up for sale 24 hours later,” Ms. Wong said. “That’s the exciting thing about Kindle books and other e-readers.”
The speed of electronic publishing allows book sales to become fundraising projects that can benefit charities and other humanitarian causes, Ms. Wong said. Just as she and Ms. Vasic are donating a portion of the proceeds from sales of “Once Upon a Tiger” to wildlife conservation groups, student-authors also can use electronic publishing to raise money for similar endeavors, Ms. Wong said.
”There are only 3,000 tigers left in the world and about half are in captivity,” Ms. Wong told the children. “Over 1,000 of those captive tigers are in tiger parks in China where they are kept in the most horrible conditions.
”I came to the conclusion that what they are doing is just letting the tigers die so they can sell their dead bodies to make Chinese medicine,” Ms. Wong said. Tiger bones, for example, are highly sought-after in Asia to make “tiger wine,” which some people believe will make them stronger.
”When I found out about this it made me decide to do something about it,” Ms. Wong said, and that’s how the idea for the endangered species e-book project began to take root.
Fourth-grader Shriya Vankadara is an enthusiastic fan of Ms. Wong’s poetry, saying she liked the “imaginative” portrayals of all nine animals in the book. The endangered creatures included tigers, Asian elephants, polar bears, panda bears, mountain gorillas, the Sumatran rhinoceros, blue whales, the leatherback sea turtle and a Mexican “walking fish” known as the axolotl.
Sanam Thakur and Mohit Khandekar liked the author’s philanthropic bent.
”It’s really great that she’s not using the money for herself,” Sanam said.
”The best part of the poems was that they gave readers something to really think about,” offered Anna Dorval.
”I don’t want the animals to suffer or be endangered,” said Mahnoor Ahmed. “The poems inspire readers to save the animals.”
For more information, see http://onceuponatiger.com.

