Short Books Shouldn't Be Stupid

Patricia Polacco came to Stamford recently. I went to her presentation at the Ferguson Library.
Before it started, and while families were milling around, I noticed a young woman with a huge satchel. She knelt down and started taking out new copies of many of Polacco's picture books and spreading them on the floor in front of her. Immediately, a bunch of kids clustered around.

As I watched, the woman let each child choose one book. It was for them to keep and to have Polacco sign at the end of her presentation. She must have handed out two dozen books. I had to find out what it was all about. So I asked her.

Her name was Ilana, and she was a librarian. She told me she'd started an after-school reading program at a community center located in a low income housing project in town. I asked if she needed volunteers. She did. I volunteered.

Last Wednesday, I read with my first two children. A first-grade girl and boy. Both were African American. The only faces I saw at the center were African American. It was chaotic; the kind of rabid energy and noise level you'd expect from a bunch of kids who've been cooped up in school all day.

I sat with each of my kids, one at a time, on a sagging couch in the library. The library was a glorified storage room, lined with bookshelves and books. Several middle school girls hung around, laughing and making noise. Ilana was showing younger kids how to make finger puppets out of construction paper at a round table in the corner.

The little girl's name was Dani. She was sharp as a tack and whipped right through her math homework. Then we started to read. The selection was slim. Dani picked a Fancy Nancy early reader. In those books, Nancy uses sophisticated, exotic words. I guess it's part of the books' attraction, but Dani couldn't make hide nor hair of them. There wasn't much of a plot that I can remember, but maybe it was because those sophisticated words kept popping up and interrupting everything. Dani's attention slowly drifted off so I told her to pick another book.

This time, she picked Ballet Barbie. Blond-haired, blue-eyed Barbie and her little side-kick, blond-haired, blue-eyed Kelly, dressed in costumes from various famous ballets. In this book, there was absolutely no plot. It was "When Barbie plays a good fairy, she dresses in white" and then an illustration of Barbie in a white tutu. When she plays a fire bird, she dresses in red. You may be able to see where this is going. I didn't.

Not until we came to the page that said, "When Barbie plays a bad swan .... she dresses in black." And there was bad swan Barbie in a black tutu and elaborate black headdress.

That was kind of a low moment for me. Once in which I wondered what I was doing there and what possible difference I could make, and how a sweet 6-year-old African American girl could learn self-pride if the only books she's offered to read have blond-haired, blue-eyed characters who wear black to designate badness.

Then I read with Darryl. He's in the first grade, too. He did not want to sit still, and insisted on picking a book that was far too difficult for him, and whenever I tried to help him sound out a word in it, he got very indignant. He basically told his own version of the story, which is pretty typical of emerging readers and is fine, if that's the stage they're at.

Then he picked an early reader about the Lion King because he recognized the lions on the cover. This one made absolutely no sense. I couldn't follow the silly, truncated story. I couldn't tell one lion from the other, or figure out what on earth was going on, and neither could Darryl. But it was Lion King and he'd seen that in the movies. The connection was enough.

Except, it wasn't and it's not.

Even very short books have to be about something. What they're about has to matter to the children who are reading them. They have to have plots. They have to have characters who want something, but who can't get it, for whatever reason, so they try and try and eventually, something good happens.

They can be silly. Silly is good. But what they're about has to matter.

Early readers and chapter books are among the most important books in a child's reading life. If you don't hook a child early, if you don't show them that what they'll find in books is the stuff of life, that books matter and can help them because they reflect an understanding of the reader and their world and what is important to them, then children turn off as readers.

Just because something is short doesn't mean it can be stupid.

Children can turn off to reading as early as first grade. Second grade and third grade are critical. Ask any teacher and she'll tell you that many boys drop off the face of the reading earth, starting in the fourth grade.

I'm going back to read again today. I went to the library and got some books to read to Dani and Darryl. All, except for one, have African American characters. One's about a little girl on her first day of school. Another's called I Lost My Tooth in Africa, and is written by Penda Diakite. Another is Max Found Two Sticks, written and illustrated by the wonderful Brian Pinkney. There's one called Princess Grace, and, yes, she's African American.

The only one that's not is Piggy Pie Po by Audrey & Don Wood. I picked that just for the sheer joy of reading the silly rhyming words. It's just plain fun to read. Easy, too.

The only trouble is, they're all picture books. Emerging readers are very proud people. They don't want anyone to think they're reading baby books. I'll be interested to see how this goes.

I want Dani and Darryl to be able to see themselves in a book. I'm hoping their eyes light up and that they grab those books and want me to read them all the way through. But I know there's at least a 50-50 chance they'll turn up their noses for being too young.

We shall see.

All any of us can do is try.

A book courtship ritual

This sounds odd, what I'm about to say. At least, I think it does. I wrote this blog entry once and deleted it because it didn't come out right. Several friends emailed to say, hey! what happened to that thing? So I thought, what the heck? It's my blog. I can say anything I want.

I started off by saying that I love the heft of books. The weight of them in my hands. And I do. But what I meant to express is that it struck me the other day, rather forcibly, that I do an entire getting-to-know-you ritual when I pick up a book for the first time. It never varies. I perform the same series of actions every time. Having realized it, I know that it stems from a lifetime of reading. I can spot a potential good book from looking at the spine. I get a feeling, an impulse, a response to type, color, title - even the name of the author can attract me.


But until the other day, when I spotted The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell on the new book shelf at our library, I'd never realized it. I'd had that book on reserve for a few weeks. I didn't expect to get it for several more weeks. To discover a copy that had somehow slipped through the system was thrilling.

I took it off the shelf. Oh, my God, I thought. I have a book ritual. It goes like this. Every time:

I pick the book up. I feel the weight. I notice the edges on the pages; smooth, or ragged in that nice old-fashioned way? That Charles Dickens might have been here, sort of fashion.

I look at the cover. Run my hand over it. What does it tell me about what I'm considering reading? Book covers - when they're good - are extraordinary. Bad? and be you six or sixty, they can kill a book just like - snap! - that.

Next, I turn the book over. Did any writers who I admire like it? What did they say about it? How come so many people who I don't know seem to be endorsing books these days? If I don't know any of them, I may well put the book back on the shelf. Sad, but true. If there are review excerpts from places like The Guardian or The Independent, I'm excited. They give the book an advantage. I have to admit to a slight prejudice in favor of writers from Great Britain. Another sad truth.

I flip to the back, inside flap. What does the author look like? What else have they written? Won any awards? How come most of the writers selling books these days are either ridiculously young or incredibly pretty? What's with that?

I turn the book back over to the front cover. I open it. I read the title page. The copyright page. The dedication. The act of slowly turning the pages is a pleasure. The paper, the color of the paper, the weight of it - all combine to inform me about the book.

I get to the first page. I read the first sentence. I'm in love, or I'm not. It comes home with me, or it doesn't. Ruthless, ruthless reader.

Like a single woman in a bar, being approached by a stranger. One look, one word out of his mouth, and he's either a dead man or not. I remember those days. I never realized how ruthless a process it was. But now, at my age, having picked up Mitchell's book and recognized the bald-faced courtship dance I perform ...

I fell in love this time. I was right to. Wonderful book. Amazing writing. Incredible story. God only knows what might have happened if our first meeting had taken place in Gleason's on the corner of Columbus Avenue and 78th street in Manhattan, oh, so long ago ...

What Arthur and I Have in Common

I'm so glad. Even Arthur Levine has a hard time keeping his blog up to date. I don't know why I say "even," now that I think about it. He's an editor, a very successful editor (maybe even a Publisher? He has his own imprint, that I do know), who has a lot more to do than I do.

But I'm glad, anyway. He started off a new blog two weeks ago and hasn't visited it since. We bloggers set out with the best intentions in the world to keep posting, keep on being interesting and thought-provoking (I think that's the aim), and soon discover that it's very hard to keep up that level of commitment.

Or maybe I need a concept here ... one along the lines of the woman who cooked every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook. Her name escapes me. Julie Something.

Sorry, Julie.

What I'd doing on this last day of the 3rd week in July is thinking about beats. Those snippets of action or thought that an author uses in order to break up long passages of dialogue. It's a theatrical expression, I believe. I have nothing more profound to say about them today other than the fact that Hilary McKay, an English writer who is one of my favorite children's book authors, handles beats extremely well. Anyone trying to write would be wise to read several of her books.

Take that! she thought to her non-audience. Then clicked "Publish Post" and disappeared.

Perfect Sentences all around

I love this sentence. It describes how a man's children respond when they hear him coming home:

The children would all rush off like water down the sink.

It's from an adult book called THE MAN WHO LOVED CHILDREN by Christine Stead. Here's another sentence I read years ago and still remember:

He stood up like a struck match.

That's from THE BOOK THIEF, by Markus Zuzak.

Perfect sentences are everywhere. I keep meaning to write down each and every one and, more often than not, forget.

A Lesson in Pacing

I'm not big on craft books. Oh, I read a few when I was earning my MFA at Vermont College in which the author expressed something in a way I'd never heard before, and it hit the spot. I found it illuminating. But for the most part, they're one-step removed from actual writing, to my mind. Reading them is like reading books about how to paint with water colors.

One or two, and start painting.

Every writer has his or her own mantra, obviously.

For me, reading an actual book is the best way to learn. And one I read yesterday (yes, in one afternoon because I couldn't put it down, so adept was the pacing, the sentence length, the plot) is a fantastic book to read if you're struggling with the pacing of your novel.

THE FORESHADOWING by Marcus Sedgwick. It's a YA. Wendy Lamb Books. 2006.

How come I didn't hear about it?

Sedgwick is English. He writes like a bomb, as they would say. Everything about this tightly-plotted story of a 17-year-old girl during WWI, and her ability to see the future, which leads to much trouble and distress during wartime, is a lesson about good writing.

The sentence length. Not too long; not gratuitously short. (There's lots of that going around. It's a stylistic thing.) Same with the chapters.

Characterization. Perfectly done with a minimum of fuss. Compelling people we care about.

Pacing. It gallops. It jolts. It moves in more way than one. Like dominoes, one thing leads to another to another to another, without ever giving the reader the sense that they're being manipulated. I have rarely read a book that made me want to find out what was going to happen more.

It's good. It's very good.

Sluggish plot? Pivotal scenes taking a long time to get to? Your characters seem to be talking to much and doing too little?

Read THE FORESHADOWING. Carefully. Read and learn.

A Great Time to be a Male Writer in the Children's Book World

It's a very good time to be a male writer in the children's book world.

I just read an article in PW about a panel of male YA authors at the LA Times Festival in CA a few weeks ago. Neal Shusterman moderated. The authors were Gordon Korman, Pseudonymous Bosch, and PJ MacHale.

I don't know MacHale. I know of Bosch. I had dinner with Gordon Korman in April when we were both making school visits in Alabama. So much talent, I thought wistfully as I read the article, directed at older readers. (In the same PW, I read that Louis Sachar has a new book. The protagonist is 17.)

I'd love to run into Gordon again. I'd say, "Gordon! Direct some of that magic, that humor, that quirkiness of yours, to younger readers. Little boys would be rolling on the floor if you wrote for them the way you write for your middle school readers."

Gordon knows this, I'm sure. He has two boys of his own.

There are few things in life more enjoyable than watching small children (and especially boys, because capturing them through reading, and getting them interested in books, is no small feat) get completely wrapped up in a book. Especially a silly book. They adore silly. They don't hold back. They don't read under cover of darkness. Give them a fart or a pair of underpants and you have them rolling in the aisle.

I recently read my newest book, an early chapter book, to a large group of first graders in Texas. They were the book's first audience. When I came to the word "belly button," there was an audible gasp. Plenty of giggles. I wasn't expecting it. I hadn't planned it. The words worked in the story, that's all.

Now I want to liberally sprinkle all of my books with belly buttons and poop and anything else that'll make them react that way. Because making children laugh is so much fun. More importantly, it goes such a long way in convincing them that books are fun. Coming from me, however, those words could end up sounding gratuitous. I usually don't write that way.

But men do. Some men do. Men who remember how hilarious it felt to be a little boy. Having raised a son myself, I have a great appreciation for a boy's love of silliness; for that sweet and constant desire many of them feel for life to be exciting! and wild! and so much more than just sitting at a desk, being good.

I want that panel of YA male authors to write for the 5 and 6 and 7-year-olds they were.

And then I want to put my name on their books and watch my royalties soar.

Writing groups: the same and different

Sorry, blog. I disappeared. A weeklong Mother's Day visit in Connecticut.

While I was there, I read the picture book manuscript of an old friend of my mother's. My mother is Constance C. Greene. She wrote children's books in the 70s and 80s. I'm very proud of her.

Her friend, Mary Jane, was one of the members of my mother's first, and last, writing group. They started in Darien, CT 50 years ago. To every meeting, they invited an editor from New York. It was one such editor who identified my mother's first manuscript - A GIRL CALLED AL - as the one my mother should pursue.

Writing groups sure have changed over the past 50 years. Imagine getting an editor to come to yours.

Anyway, Mary Jane is 85. She has had breast cancer. She lost her husband and daughter to cancer. Her picture book manuscript is told from the pov of Ellie, a little girl whose father is at war. She and her mother are living with Ellie's grandmother in a very small house.

We know the mother is upset because Ellie tells us, "She threw her shoe at the wall. It left a big mark."

We feel the delirious joy of their happiness when they learn that the father's coming home when Ellie says, "We threw oranges out the window because that's all we had."

It was all about "show, don't tell" in those days, Mary Jane told me. I think those are two pretty fine examples.

I guess some things about writing haven't changed in the last 50 years. Kind of reassuring.