{"id":169,"date":"2014-07-15T00:01:52","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T05:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/?p=169"},"modified":"2014-07-13T22:04:50","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T03:04:50","slug":"youre-dead-meat-mr-lewis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wildthings.blaine.org\/?p=169","title":{"rendered":"\u201cYou\u2019re Dead Meat, Mr. Lewis\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Author-illustrator Yuyi Morales, winner of the 2014 Pura Belpr\u00e9 Illustrator Award, visits with school children.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Children\u2019s literature may be the only genre in which authors are expected to head out with their bag of tricks and become an entertainer of sorts — talking to kids,\u00a0doing their dog-and-pony show at an\"5094268514_3c2b1ee789_b\"y number\u00a0of public\u00a0libraries, children\u2019s book festivals, and schools — whether they feel prepared for it or not. \u201cWhen\u00a0you write for younger readers,\u201d says author Sara Zarr<\/a> (pictured left), \u201cit seems like there’s an expectation that suddenly you’re not only a writer, you are or should be a child\u00a0advocate, a child psychologist, a teacher, an expert on whatever social problems that might crop up in your books, a protector of innocence while also being an activist for intellectual freedom, someone with a message but who shouldn’t preach, responsible for representing all races and cultures…the list goes on. Writers who write specifically for an adult audience don’t seem to have all of these extra layers of expectation put on them — they’re simply allowed to tell whatever story they want to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that Sara doesn’t enjoy school visits. (See below, in fact.) But even authors who enjoy them\u00a0(and book signings, sometimes a whole other<\/em> ball of wax) would probably admit to the pressure of which Sara speaks. Plus, well … two words: Fire. Drills. Authors who pen books for adults don’t necessarily have to worry about such interruptions on a regular basis.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cA fire drill alarm going off in the middle of an assembly can quickly turn a poetic moment into a memorable event,\u201d confirms children\u2019s poet Charles Ghigna<\/a>. Nor do they typically speak in gymnasiums, what author Carole Boston Weatherford<\/a> tells us below is the worst possible venue — but seems to be the most popular one for children’s book authors.<\/p>\n

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Perhaps Tim Egan’s Dodsworth is zooming to a school visit on his trusty scooter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are those who speak in only glowing terms\u00a0of things like school visits. Author-illustrator Tim Egan<\/a> says, \u201cThey\u2019re one of my very favorite things to do. I love hearing what kids think and showing them how books are made. Mostly, I love drawing for them, because they sometimes applaud when I\u2019m finished. I do a slide presentation and talk all about the mistakes I make in both writing and illustrating, and they seem relieved to know that I make so many mistakes. It\u2019s also fun getting them all excited and worked up. Then, just as their screaming reaches a crescendo, I leave. Great fun!\u201d<\/p>\n

And fans of Newbery Medalist Jack Gantos’<\/a> award-winning Joey Pigza novels know that, if it weren’t for author visits, we wouldn’t have Joey’s stories. Here’s how Jack put it in an essay over at Scholastic:<\/p>\n

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\nI got the idea for Joey Pigza when I was visiting a school in Pennsylvania, talking about writing. This kid was sitting in the front row (teachers tend to put the really active kids in the front) spinning around on the seat of his chair. He was really smart and having a blast. I would start to tell a joke, and he would figure out the punch line and say it before I could. He was finishing my sentences! He was having fun, but then he changed. He became quite worried. ‘Teacher, teacher!’ he called out. ‘I forgot to take my medication!’ She pointed to the door and out he ran. I could hear him slapping every locker as he ran down the hall to the nurse’s office.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’d known kids like this when I was a kid. We moved 40 times when I was growing up, and I was always changing schools. Because I was never in one place very long, I didn’t make a core group of friends. So, I ended up hanging out with the unusual kids. Some of these kids were very, very active. I liked them because they were smart and funny and clever and didn’t appear to have any dull moments in their lives.<\/em><\/p>\n

So, the spinning, locker-slapping Pennsylvania kid brought back some memories. I still write and draw in my journal every day. And when I got home from my school visit, I wrote a description of the ‘active’ boy in the front row. The next day, I read it and liked it, so I wrote more. And Joey Pigza was born!<\/em><\/p>\n

\"joey-pigza\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But no matter how you feel about school visits, working with children\u00a0requires a\u00a0moderate amount of flexibility — and sometimes things just don’t go as planned.<\/p>\n

When we began (the\u00a0first draft of)\u00a0Wild Things!\u00a0<\/em>about five years ago,\u00a0we composed a list of a dozen offbeat questions, which we submitted to several hundred contemporary authors and illustrators of children\u2019s books. Among the questions were:<\/p>\n