Victoria Oltarsh Weaves Wonder, Science, and Storytelling into a Stellar Children’s Adventure
PHOTO: Author Victoria Oltarsh, playwright, educator, and now award-winning novelist, celebrates the launch of her debut children’s book with pride and joy.
A Mother-Daughter Collaboration, A Lifelong Dream, A Middle-Grade Sci-Fi Fantasy
Victoria Oltarsh shares the heartfelt inspiration behind The Boy and the Secret of the Stars, blending teaching experience, cosmic curiosity, and family creativity into a celebrated children’s space fantasy novel.
Victoria Oltarsh is a master of many creative realms—an accomplished playwright, lyricist, director, educator, and now, an award-winning author whose storytelling reaches into the stars. With The Boy and the Secret of the Stars, she brings her decades of experience in drama, literary arts, and childhood education to a luminous new frontier. This middle-grade space fantasy, already celebrated with top honors at The International Book Awards and The Spring 2025 Book Fest, is more than just a story—it’s a heartfelt journey filled with wonder, science, and imagination.
Oltarsh writes with the soul of a teacher and the heart of an artist, capturing the essence of childhood curiosity and resilience through the eyes of Eli, a young boy who embarks on a celestial quest. Her work blends real astronomical science with a deeply emotional, personal narrative—an inner and outer voyage that speaks directly to the dreams of young readers and those reading aloud to them. Whether she’s guiding students on stage or leading them through the galaxy on the page, Victoria Oltarsh’s mission remains the same: to inspire, uplift, and remind children that their dreams—like the stars—are always within reach.
In our exclusive interview, Oltarsh shares the decades-long evolution of her debut novel, her inspirations drawn from life and teaching, and the powerful creative collaboration with her daughter that brought this magical story to life.
Oltarsh’s debut shines with emotional depth, imagination, and educational richness, proving her voice is a vital gift to children’s literature.
What inspired you to create the character of Eli in The Boy and the Secret of the Stars?
As a child, driving to Brooklyn, NY on the way home from the beach, I can remember sitting in the back of my family car gazing up at the night sky wondering what was beyond what I could see. The stars always evoked my imagination. In 1981 while rocking my baby daughter, LaLita, to sleep, the entire story of, The Boy and the Secret of the Stars, flashed before my eyes. It was as if the story was “given to me” to unfold and tell. As a single mother raising two daughters alone while supporting my family as a drama and playwriting teacher, it took 42 years, through several iterations, and the gift of time during the pandemic, to finally complete the book that came to me in a flash so long ago.
Are there any particular children you’ve taught who inspired parts of the characters or story? How did your experience as a teaching artist influence the way you wrote for a middle-grade audience?
My unique, fantasy story loving granddaughter, Aurora, now ten years old inspired me to complete my story during the pandemic. We had a routine of talking on the phone. She would ask for stories at bedtime, meal times, and during car rides. She kept asking to see the book and when it would be finished. Through the eyes of my children, my grandchildren, as well as all the hundreds of ethnically and economically diverse children I have taught for the last 35 years in NYC public and private schools, I saw firsthand a common fascination with the mysteries of the universe. My passion to capture that essence of wonder felt by children everywhere of “what could be out there.”
“It was as if the story was ‘given to me’ to unfold and tell.” — Victoria Oltarsh
Can you share more about how the theme of wonder and stargazing shaped the story?
When I decided to transition from telling the story in play form, and then in the form of a picture book, into a chapter book, I included a lot of research I found at the Museum of Natural History where I watched the movie by Neil Degrasse Tyson about black holes, visited the library, researched online facts about outer space, the planets, constellations, black holes, star creation, and the nature of stars to include real descriptions of the galaxy weaving them into my story. Even though my book is science fiction, I wanted to provide real facts about aspects in nature, so not to confuse the age group for whom I was writing. I wanted to capture that essence of wonder and connection to the universe, as well as provide excitement about exploration through fantasy. For the main character, Eli, there is both an outer and inner journey that goes hand and hand in pursuing his dream. My book tells the experience of an eight-year-old boy who suffers a loss, and after making a wish upon a star, is taken up on a journey where he discovers a connection to the universe inside himself, and gains self-confidence by feeling a connection to the galaxy through facing a quest. My hope is, in reading about Eli’s journey and the challenges he faced, the middle grade reader and the children being read to, relate, and feel the same desire within themselves to search for the answers they seek in their own life stories.
What was the biggest challenge you faced while transitioning from directing plays and teaching to writing a novel?
As a child, and later as a theater teacher, I always loved children’s classics, like Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, The Nightingale, The Secret Garden, and The Little Prince. Throughout my 35 year career, I had the opportunity to direct many classical children’s plays at art centers, summer programs, and in school settings with adult actors for children as well as with children learning to act. Being inside those plays, exploring the language and bringing famous characters to life had an enormous influence on my writing style. Many of the plays I directed were adaptations of famous children’s books by writers like JM Barrie, Louis Carroll, Hans Christian Andersen, Frances Hodgsen Burnett, and Antoine de Saint Exupery. My biggest challenge was to tell the story I wrote in book form using elevated vocabulary, in an exciting way, bringing Eli’s exciting space adventure to life in the mind’s eye of children reading and listening.
“My biggest challenge was to tell the story in book form using elevated vocabulary in an exciting way.” — Victoria Oltarsh
How did your collaboration with illustrator Lalita Oliva King and cover artist Ginger Marks come about?
Originally written as a children’s play, then a simple children’s picture book, in the style of, The Velveteen Rabbit, I received feedback at a writing group of professional writers, and a script doctor who had worked at one of the top book publishing companies in NY who said my book was straddling the line between picture and chapter book, so I had to decide. It was then my story became a middle-grade chapter book. By the time the book was complete, that little baby girl who I was rocking to sleep in the 1980’s when the idea flashed before my eyes, became a Parson’s School of Design Fine Arts graduate, and we became a Mother/Daughter, Author/Illustrator team. Ginger Marks is the publisher of DPKids.
What message or feeling do you hope young readers take away from Eli’s space adventure?
My book starts out in Central Park, NYC, where I highlighted key favorite spots for children to visit. It describes excursions in nature Eli took with his mother on Long Island, locations that appeal to children who love the natural world, collecting stones, identifying birds, and who love studying the planets, and constellations.. Middle-grade students aged 8-12 years and families who like to read bedtime stories to their mixed aged girls and boys who like space fantasy adventure, will hopefully be enticed, to answer the question, “What is your dream?” and hopefully feel the same pull Eli did within themselves as they learn facts about nature and outer space.. My hope is, reading about Eli’s journey and the challenges he faced through his adventure, the reader, and the children being read to will feel the same quest to fulfill whatever journey calls from within them and answer the question for themselves,” What is your dream?”
“Never give up. Even if you have to put your story aside… always keep your vision and dream alive.” — Victoria Oltarsh
How did it feel to finally hold your debut book in your hands after years in other creative arts?
Since the March 2024 book launch, I received thirty one 5 star Amazon book reviews, as well as two Readers favorite reviews after applying to the 2025 Book award contest. The Boy and the Secret of the Stars, won #1 in the children’s Sci-Fi category! I am very proud of the collaboration between my daughter and me and about the positive feedback we have received from children as well as the parents and grandparents reading to them.
What advice would you offer to other authors who are hoping to write their first children’s book?
Never give up. Even if you have to put your story aside, for however long, always keep your vision and dream alive in your mind. Take it out, and work on it through time, but never give up!
