Reflections, Observations, and Inspirations: Authors Speak

Reflections

Unwilling to wait for September, I recently ordered from the UK Reflections on the Magic of Writing, an upcoming collection of the late Diana Wynne Jones’s thoughts on life and her writing process. I began considering a post about books of essays on writing, and then The Enchanted Inkpot came out with a great post on books about writing fantasy for children and teens, so I’ll just refer you there for those (including my quick note on DWJ’s book). But really, the books I’m thinking of are a little different. They’re the books that have inspired me as a children’s writer, and they’re not how-to books. They’re one of two things: interviews with and stories about children’s book writers or essays and lecture transcripts from notable children’s book writers.

Apart from Reflections, most of these books are a little older. I figured I must have simply missed the boat and that there had been other such essay collections since I acquired my batch of inspirational writing about the making of children’s books. Well, as it turns out, not so much. There’s one I missed and have now ordered: On Writing for Children and Other People by Julius Lester. In addition, I will point out that Leonard S. Marcus has become the de facto chronicler of the world of children’s literature. His latest is Show Me a Story! Why Picture Books Matter: Conversations with 21 of the World’s Most Celebrated Illustrators. Marcus’s Dear Ursula: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom and Golden Legacy, a history of the little Golden Books, are just fascinating. And as a fantasy writer, I love-love-love his book, The Wand in the Wood: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy. Some day I’ll read the others. They all look good.

But why haven’t more children’s book writers come out with collections of lectures and essays in the past decade or so? One thought, of course, is that the market doesn’t support such books. Another is that most children’s book writers are too busy writing books for kids to spend time compiling books for older readers about process and craft. It may be that this task is left to elder statesmen and/or really big names in the field. All of which explains more or less why the incredibly lovely books I’m about to share are mostly out of print.

These are books for people who are absolutely nuts about children’s books or the works and thoughts of certain authors, or those who are children’s book writers themselves. They are also a way of getting to know some very fine, idiosyncratic creative minds. Reading these books won’t just give you ideas about writing for children, it will give you ideas about life and what it means to be human.


Reflections by Diana Wynne Jones

Oh, sure, you can read a really long analysis of Tolkien’s work called “The Shape of the Narrative in The Lord of the Rings” in this book. I’ll admit I faltered a bit there, though I read “Reading C.S. Lewis’s Narnia” and even her letter to the editor of The Times Literary Supplement titled “The Value of Learning Anglo-Saxon” with some relish. But most of the essays in this book are about writing, and many of them incorporate stories from Diana Wynne Jones’s childhood. You will find some repetition, of course, since writers tend to use the same (very good) anecdotes when presenting at different conferences, and more to the point, certain experiences really do shape us as individuals and as writers.

Reading Reflections is like getting to know Diana Wynne Jones (why does one hate to say simply Jones? But DWJ works!), and she is just as you might expect from reading every one of her books—brilliant, creative, a little acerbic, dry in a bright and witty way, and reluctant to allow the world to be simply ordinary.

You will also discover, if it’s something you didn’t already know, that DWJ had a pretty horrific, neglected childhood that somehow contributed, not only to her imagination, but to her skill with character. Have you noticed that all of DWJ’s characters feel so real because they are flawed, and that her adults in particular (and I do mean in her children’s books) tend to be flawed in amazingly honest, complex, and selfish ways?

Diana Wynne Jones also explains that her own approach to writing is almost never to outline, though the mythological bases of Fire and Hemlock were so intricately layered that she did relent and outlined part of the book sometime after completing a first draft. In fact, when you hear how many myths DWJ alluded to in writing Fire and Hemlock, you will be vastly impressed; I know I was, though I have read the book more than once.

I can't forget to mention the wry humor in Reflections, most notably when DWJ describes the worst of her school visits: hair-raising! And yes, though it isn’t funny, the semi-hanging incident in The Time of the Ghost comes from DWJ’s childhood, when she and her next sister came within inches of hanging their younger sister, who wanted to play Peter Pan in the rafters. (Their parents were nowhere to be found. They hardly ever were, including when it came to feeding and clothing their offspring.) And in Aunt Maria, the manipulation of feminine power was surely drawn from DWJ’s mother, who was jealous of her own daughters simply for being girls.

Another interesting aspect of some of these lectures and essays is that they trace the evolution of fantasy, showing how it became more common in the years following Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books and, though often filled with odd rules, eventually opened up—though one reason DWJ mostly stuck to writing children’s fantasy was that it seemed much more inclined to accept an “anything goes” approach, at least in comparison to what was being more rigidly expected of adult fantasy writers. (See “A Talk about Rules.”) Diana Wynne Jones was a rule breaker, or perhaps more accurately, a rule ignorer. She was busy traveling new ground even as she carried a bundle of myths like useful herbs in a fantasy healer’s pack.

DWJ speaks of writing for children as a great responsibility because of the power a good children’s fantasy book can have in a specific child’s life. She tells of the heroic ideal and her own odyssey. She offers hints on writing and reviews a book by Mervyn Peake. She creates an apt and beautiful analogy in “The Children in the Wood,” comparing the games of let’s-pretend that children create to writing fantasy. And she warns children who want to write: “Most teachers will tell you that you need to make a careful plan of your story before you start. This is because most teachers do not write stories.”

I’ve said before, as have others, that the best children’s books are subversive. Look at Maurice Sendak, for example—a born mischief-maker. And you just know that Mo Willems is partly his character, Pigeon. The best books surprise and challenge young readers, demanding that they see the world aslant, whether in beautiful ways or perfectly silly ones. DWJ's books are certainly among them.

I’ll just close with what came to be the most influential motif from DWJ’s childhood, a locked garden:

The garden that everyone saw was pleasant enough, though somewhat boringly laid out around a large square of grass. The Other Garden was quite different. It was like that garden in fairy tales where the king has counted all the apples. It was across a road, walled away from everyone, a blaze of manicured lawn leading to a tunnel of roses ending in an inlaid wood summer house, where espalier apple trees of types that are no longer grown surrounded plots of fruit, flowers, and vegetables. The bees had a plot of their own because they did not get on with the visionary gardener. Something about this garden caused him to build little shrine-like places in the wall niches and ornament them with posies and old Venetian glass.
     My father would not let anyone go there. He kept the large, old key to it in his pocket and it often took several days of pleading to get him to release it to me, grudgingly, for an hour or so. When I got there I simply wandered, in utter bliss. I talked to the bees, who never once stung me, although they pursued the visionary gardener once a week, in clouds, and occasionally turned on my father too; I ate apples; I watched things grow; and I never once connected it with the garden in the piano-playing picture, though that was more or less what it was.

Meet the unusual, delightful, and thoroughly subversive Diana Wynne Jones in her book, Reflections. 

Note: UK cover shown above.



Other Books from or about Children’s Book Writers


INTERVIEWS AND SUCH

The ABCs of Writing for Children, ed. Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff

This book is a kind of encyclopedia of quotes—mostly 1-3 paragraphs—from children’s writers on a variety of topics. It’s just decadent with ideas!

Quote from Marilyn Singer under "Pacing":

When you’re doing a novel, it’s a mistake to follow a quiet chapter with another quiet chapter. When people talk about books being too quiet—a book can be about emotion and not be quiet. If one chapter is more dramatic, then the next chapter can be more quiet.

Origins of Story: On Writing for Children by Barbara Harrison and Gregory Maguire (yes, that Gregory Maguire!)

These essays started out as Children’s Literature New England lectures given between 1988 and 1996. The writers include such luminaries as Sharon Creech, Maurice Sendak, Susan Cooper, Tom Feelings, Madeleine L’Engle, Virginia Hamilton, Margaret Mahy, Ursula Le Guin, and Katherine Paterson.

Quote from Sharon Creech’s essay, “Leaping Off the Porch”:

When I begin a book I feel like that “smoothbeautifulhorse” of e.e. cummings’s poem “the little horse is newlY.” I know nothing, but feel everything. All around me is perfectly a strangeness of light and smell, of a world that is welcoming me in, a world full of smoothbeautiful folds in which lies the breathing and silence of that someone—that character who is about to break her silence.

Worlds of Childhood: The Art and Craft of Writing for Children, ed. William Zinsser

Long essays from six marvelous authors: Jean Fritz, Maurice Sendak, Jill Krementz, Jack Prelutsky, Rosemary Wells, and Katherine Paterson. This is the book which told me that Maurice Sendak’s wild things were based on his Jewish relatives, for example.

Quote from Rosemary Wells’s essay, “The Well-Tempered Picture Book”:

I had written a picture book that summer. I put every ounce of love, wit and lyricism in my jittery soul into that book. It was a real loser. I had wanted to write about an old woman who digs in her heels and hangs on to her house in the face of avaricious developers who wanted to tear it down. It wasn’t that this was a poor idea; it’s just that writing about anything is a mistake. The only books that work are those which fly through the air—the ones you let happen, not make happen.

ESSAYS, LECTURES, AND THOUGHTS

Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children by Susan Cooper

This book is a collection of essays from the author of the Dark Is Rising sequence.

Quote from her 1976 Newbery acceptance speech, “Seeing Around Corners”:

[Cooper was writing “a family adventure story” for a contest.] I invented three children called Simon, Jane and Barney, and a rather vague plot about villainy and hidden treasure. I wrote a first chapter in which they traveled down from London to Cornwall by train for a summer holiday, as my brother and I had done as children.
     And then a funny thing began to happen. The story, somehow, took over. My children were met at their destination by a very strange great-uncle named Merriman (why did I call him Merriman? I didn’t know) and before I quite knew what I was doing, the plot began to change completely. I forgot all about the E. Nesbit prize and the family adventure story—and the deadline. And I found I was writing a fantasy, full of images which had haunted me since childhood but which I’d never thought to put into fiction. In the final version I even cut that first deliberate chapter.

Dear Mem Fox, I Have Read All Your Books Even the Pathetic Ones and Other Incidents in the Life of a Children’s Book Author

The title says it all, doesn’t it? This is largely an autobiography of the vibrant teacher, reading advocate and author of Possum Magic, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, Time for Bed, and many other picture books. Some of the later chapters do address craft, however.

Here’s a quote from the chapter called “Growing Up in Africa”:

There used to be a thorn tree near the bus stop, where people would gather for the meager shade. I heard unearthly sounds coming from there once—it was close to our house—so I leaped onto my bike and raced round to see what it was. A small crowd of Africans had gathered to watch a woman writhing at the base of the tree, to which she had been tied with strips of cloth. White froth spat from her mouth as she moaned and screamed.
     “What’s happening?” I asked.
     “Never mind, Merri,” said one of my friends. “She’s having a fit. She’s mad but she’ll be all right soon. You go home now.”
     I couldn’t go home. I was transfixed.

The Spying Heart: More Thoughts on Reading and Writing Books for Children by Katherine Paterson

Paterson grew up in China as the child of missionaries, and her work is influenced by themes from the Bible, e.g., in her book Jacob Have I Loved, which is about sibling rivalry and envy. See also her books of essays The Invisible Child and A Sense of Wonder. (The latter consists of two previous books, The Spying Heart and Gates of Excellence.) Note that Paterson has been criticized for her imperfect characters (e.g., the title character of The Great Gilly Hopkins) and difficult themes. Her books have won every major award you can think of, including two Newbery medals and a National Book Award.

This is a quote from a chapter (and lecture) titled “Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?”

It was, therefore, with fear, alarm, and timorousness that I sidled up to the title of this lecture, “Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?” Certainly not. I hardly dared disturb my springer spaniel. But, then, I had a sneaking suspicion that I was looking at quite a different universe from the one Prufrock was referring to. The universe that confronted me was no sleeping spaniel. It was a universe already greatly disturbed. What could I do, puny creature that I was, that would make a perceptible stir in such a whirlwind? Better, I thought, to gather my children about me, double-lock the doors, bolt the windows, and huddle together against the elements. The trouble with this metaphor is that I knew full well that my husband and probably my children would be out there somewhere battling the storm. I have never figured out just how Chicken Little managed to get herself married to the Man of La Mancha, but there you are…. Perhaps writing a book is a form of timidity.
     The irony, of course, is that try as I may, I cannot escape the universe. And in the end, the books I write must mirror it in all its terror as well as its grandeur.

Telling Time: Essays on Writing by Nancy Willard

Nancy Willard’s 1981 collection of poems, A Visit to William Blake’s Inn, won the Newbery and the Caldecott. Willard has written poetry and adult fiction in addition to children’s books.

This quote is from a chapter called “High Talk in the Starlit Wood”:

The fear at the heart of the ghost story is the fear of meeting our own fate; shall we not all, in the end, lie down in darkness and leave nothing behind but our bones? When I was a child, I used the word spooky to mean “terrifying.” I used it, for example, to describe my encounter in a dark church one night before a Christmas pageant in which I was to play an angel…. One by one, the children had been picked up by their parents, and I was left alone to wait for my father while Miss Blaine, the Sunday-school teacher, turned off the lights. I stood barefoot on the stone floor before the altar in my cardboard wings and thin white gown, waiting. Both of us had unsteady nerves. Neither of us knew that sickness would keep me out of the pageant and out of school for a month. Neither of us knew that Miss Blaine was on the verge of a nervous breakdown that would send her to an institution for a long recovery. A ghastly light from the street filtered in through the dark windows, which at this hour showed me none of the friendly saints whose company I enjoyed on Sunday mornings.
     Suddenly Miss Blaine took my hand. “Cold hands,” she observed. “I love little girls with cold hands.”
     In that moment she seemed to me a ghost come from the grave to take me with her, acknowledging that I, with my cold hands, was a willing victim. The cold floor, the darkness, the unsettling presence of a woman on the verge of madness—these natural phenomena I erroneously called spooky. I would not call them so today.

Take Joy: A Book for Writers and Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood by Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen has written poetry, picture books, middle grade, nonfiction, novels, anthologies, and young adult fiction. She is known for her fantasy and was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 World Fantasy Awards. I especially like the premise of Take Joy, in which she argues against what the flap copy calls “the cult of the despondent writer.” Then there’s the enlightening way she discusses the tropes and traditions of fairy tales, folktales, and fantasy in Touch Magic, e.g., the idea of what she calls Tough Magic: “It is the old bargain principle. One cannot receive without first giving. Every miracle requires an initial disaster. Magic has consequences. That kind of wisdom can be found in the best of the old tales….”

And here’s a quote from Take Joy:

Even when it is not being taught in the classroom, a children’s book is teaching its young reader something. Ursula Nordstrom, the great editor at Harper, said something instructional to a new writer worried about writing what had already been written. “The children,” she said, “are new, though we are not.” 

Everything in a good book (perhaps even in a bad book) is a new truth, a new revelation to a child whose experiences are, as yet, so limited. Therefore writers for children need to be extra careful about preaching, about filling in those empty spaces for the child.

Now, you may be thinking I chose the above quotes very carefully, they’re all so good. But no, I flipped a few pages and picked something easily from each book because they are simply chock-full of quotable quotes, rich ideas and wonderful anecdotes. You may have to track these books down at the library or order them used on Amazon, but however you manage to find them, you’ll be glad you did.

Update: Jennifer of Jean Little Library has two more books to add—Eleanor Cameron's The Green and Burning Tree and E.L. Konigsburg's Talk Talk. Thanks, Jennifer!


Update #2: Catherine of Cath in the Hat has two, too! Celebrating Children's Books, ed. Betsy Hearne and Marilyn Kaye (essays by Lloyd Alexander, Paula Fox, Arnold Lobel, and more) and The Zena Sutherland Lectures, 1983-1992, also edited by Betsy Hearne. Thank you, Catherine!


Update #3: Ruth Donnelly recommends Library of the Early Mind, a documentary about children's literature that includes interviews with the likes of Maurice Sendak and Jack Gantos.

Grieving in Picture Books

Earlier this week a few friends and I, teachers all, were making plans to get together for lunch during winter break. One friend reminded us that she's not available on one particular date because it's her son's "death day," the date he and his wife and little boy were killed in a car accident several years ago. She will be spending it with her other children.

For my part, I can assure you that our Christmases haven't been the same since my father died nearly five years ago. The old traditions don't seem to work anymore, and new traditions are still half-formed. Sometimes I'm not sure they'll ever grow into anything at all.

Another friend recently confided in me that she doesn't know what to do about her mother, who can't handle the holidays since her younger daughter died just last year.

Because the holidays are a time for family, they may remind us of family we have lost. And they may not feel particularly frolicsome for other reasons. There are many kinds of loss, including plain old loneliness. Today I am missing my home teaching students. Four of the five will be going back to school in January and I will be assigned new ones—our last day was yesterday.

Books for children about grief or loss—whether of a pet, a grandparent, or even oneself—tend to be didactic or overdone for obvious reasons. Here I will try to highlight the handful of books about death that avoid over-sentimentalizing loss, treating it with respect, compassion, and a subtle human pain.

The first book is new, and it's one I've been wanting to share with you for a couple of months. Australian author Mem Fox is best known for her book, Possum Magic, and for her efforts to promote children's literacy, especially reading with your children. Possum Magic and other books by this author are so cheery that it's almost a shock to come across this tender, solemn tale. The Goblin and the Empty Chair is a demanding book because it unequivocally expects you to read between the lines. Here we have a family consisting of a mother, a father, and a daughter. They are seen through the eyes of a lonely goblin who is basically spying on them, worrying about how sad they are. The goblin has his own problem—he hides his face from everyone because of his horrible looks.

It will make things more clear when I tell you that the book is illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. This story reads like a fairy tale, with some evocation of the tradition of the helpful brownie or household elf. In the Dillons' illustrations, the goblin and the people have a quiet elegance; they certainly aren't cute. The empty chair of the title has two meanings—it represents both the family's loss (see the family portrait on the wall) and the place that may be waiting at the table for a new friend. The Goblin and the Empty Chair isn't the kind of book that tops the bestseller list, but it's one of those hidden gems, especially for a family that has suffered the loss of a child. It's the subtlest, strangest book I've ever seen about death and grief, and I highly recommend it.

The Tenth Good Thing about Barney is Judith Viorst's classic book about the death of a pet, illustrated by Erik Blegvad. In it, the small boy narrator tells about the death of his cat, the funeral in the backyard, his argument about heaven with a neighbor girl, and his list of good things—ending with a new idea about Barney now that he's "in the ground." Viorst doesn't discount the idea of heaven, but takes a pragmatic approach to the mystery. Her depiction of this boy's experience is frank and simply told, touching without being contrived. One reason the book is so effective is that the narrator's parents handle the situation calmly and supportively. I'll let you read about the ten good things for yourself, but here's an excerpt from the funeral:

In the morning my mother wrapped Barney in a yellow scarf. My father buried Barney in the ground by a tree in the yard. Annie, my friend from next door, came over with flowers. And I told good things about Barney... At the end of the funeral we sang a song for Barney. We couldn't remember any cat songs, so we sang one about a pussywillow. Even my father knew the words.

There's a reason the book has been in print for decades!

Badger's Parting Gifts is perhaps the most didactic book I'm spotlighting today, but I think it works. Again, the tone is matter-of-fact, which really helps. Those who don't believe in an afterlife might dislike the fact that Badger is shown going down a kind of tunnel when he dies, and there's a hint of "he's looking down on us from heaven," although this is never stated overtly. But mostly, what's nice about the book is the way it shows how natural death is for the elderly, how sad those left behind will feel, and how sharing memories can bring some comfort. In this case, author-illustrator Susan Varley particularly focuses on what Badger has taught each of the other animals, the "parting gifts" of the title. Nice to know you can communicate the concept of "legacy" to kids without once using the word! The watercolors in this book may remind you of Ernest Shepherd's illustrations for The Wind in the Willows, as they did me. They are just right for telling the story.

The next two books are out of print, so perhaps you can find them at your local library or order them used. Both are about the loss of a grandfather. Jane Yolen's book, Grandad Bill's Song, is illustrated by Melissa Bay Mathis. In it, a young boy asks different family members and a family friend, "What did you do on the day Grandad died?" Every person answers a different way, and the following page gives us that individual's memories of Grandad Bill in "photos," often when he was much younger. So the entire book is a dialogue, but Yolen has written each section as a poem, with the utmost mastery. Here's an example:

Mama, what did you do on the day Grandad died?
I looked in the mirror, and then, son, I lied.
I said to myself that my daddy's not dead.
But the mirror looked back at me, shaking its head.

Isn't that just beautiful? By the end of the book, we realize that the narrator is a little worried about his own reaction to losing his grandad. But his father has an answer for him, and it's a good one. Grandad Bill's Song is a powerful book about how different people react differently to a death, and how that's just fine.

The Magpie Song by Laurence Anholt, illustrated by Dan Williams, has more of a narrative feel, although it, too, is structured, in this case by a series of letters between a little girl and her grandfather. Carla, who lives in the city in an apartment, exchanges letters with her grandad, who lives in the country. Carla's parents are struggling financially, and her grandfather is having some health problems. The motif of the old rhyme about magpies is used to tie the grandfather's letters together, and he even carves a magpie for Carla. The endpapers give us the complete rhyme, with themes echoed by different parts of the story ("One for sorrow/Two for joy/Three for a girl...").

In an age when the tie between grandparents and grandchildren is sometimes undervalued, this book shows how important that relationship can be. It's a fairly sophisticated story and the ending jumps chronologically, but I think The Magpie Song is worth a little extra thought. Events are handled subtly; for example, Carla starts writing little letters that just say, "Why haven't you written?"—and readers will realize that her grandfather is seriously ill. Considering that the grandfather's death is evoked rather than described, The Magpie Song is a surprisingly effective book about loss. The author also manages to touch on the connection between the father and the grandfather and even what it means to be true to yourself, all without being heavy-handed or derailing his narrative.

Now, I teach children who are recovering from surgery or seriously ill, and sometimes they die. The last book I'll mention is about the death of a child. It's a small book called The Purple Balloon, and it's by Chris Raschka. The author-illustrator chooses to represent people as balloons. Very few people could make this work, but the incredibly talented Raschka pulls it off. The book begins, "No one likes to talk about dying. It's hard work." First we see an elderly balloon who is going to die, and then we read about a young balloon who is very ill: "There is only one thing harder to talk about than someone old dying—someone young dying." Raschka emphasizes the many people who gather around to offer companionship and support. That's really the focus of the book: "Good help makes dying less hard." I looked through Amazon for alternatives to The Purple Balloon and didn't see anything else with this matter-of-fact quality. One thing I've found as a home teacher is that kids who are dying don't like being fussed over by people dripping with sympathy. They do like plain old, garden-variety human attention, however. (It's surprising how normal you feel when your teacher gives you math homework.)

We all know loss is part of the human condition. Most of the time, the children in our lives won't have to deal with it, at least in the form of death. But when they do, I hope you'll think of these books. Because, unlike platitudes, a good story can offer true comfort.


Suggestions from the Comments:

--Always My Brother by Jean Reagan, illustrated by Phyllis Pollema-Cahill
--Bird by Zetta Elliott, illustrated by Shadra Strickland (for older readers, about losing a brother to drug addiction and then death; African American family)
--Michael Rosen's Sad Book, illustrated by Quentin Blake (some find this too dark; see debate in Amazon customer reviews)
--Tess's Tree by Jess M. Brallier, illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds (about the loss of a favorite tree; can also be used as a metaphor for other losses and the grief process)
--Wishes for One More Day by Melanie Joy Pastor, illustrated by Jacqui Grantford (about a Jewish family, two children who lose their grandfather)