James Preller’s Blog

Confession: I Finally Got Around to Reading “The Chocolate War” by Robert Cormier

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And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

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I’m not a ticker by nature. You know tickers, right, those bird-watchers who have the list in their back pockets, and are all too delighted at each new sighting to check another one off the list. Yellow warbler, good, that’s done.

I worry about those people. I sit up at night, fretting over the shallowness of that experience. Is that all they want, I agonize, just to check it off and be done with it?

I suspect that some readers are the same way. Read it, read it, read it. Done, done, done. What’s next?

Where’s the reflection? When did it become a race?

Better to read one book well, and deeply, than to race through a dozen.

That said, it felt good to finally get around to reading Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War, the book that rekindles the question, “Do I dare disturb the universe?”

By the way, you know where that quote’s from, right? Only one of the greatest poems ever.

I thought The Chocolate War was brilliant, expertly written, full of youthful rebellion, combativeness, anger, sorrow, energy, brutality — and still timely today. A stunner, frankly. There are not many times when I feel I could have written someone else’s book, and it would be misguided and presumptuous for me to say that here, but I did feel a kinship with Cormier. I understood him down to my bones, recognized his choices, knew exactly what he was trying to achieve.

Cormier’s book is darkly beautiful, the characters vividly drawn, sharp and jagged. There’s the cold manipulation of Archie Costello, the puppet-master. Jerry’s confusion and inner conflict, his unresolved emotions, the way events took on a life of their own beyond any decision or intentionality. And all that catholic school stuff, yes, I remembered that,  too. The 70s were my era, and the tone of this book rang clear and true. Cormier got it all right. The novel’s themes are closely connected to my own book, Bystander, but Cormier goes deeper, darker, older. If Bystander is right for middle school — a somewhat gentle introduction to bullying, a story that peers over the precipice but never makes that leap into the void — then The Chocolate War goes a step or two beyond, grades 8/9-up. It takes you into the black. Where I stopped short, by design, Cormier plunges bravely onward.

Stop it, stop it. But nobody heard. His voice was lost in the thunder of screaming voices, voices calling for the kill . . . kill him, kill him. Goober watched helplessly as Jerry finally sank to the stage, bloody, opened mouth, sucking for air, eyes unfocused, flesh swollen. His body was poised for a moment like some wounded animal and then he collapsed like a hunk of meat cut loose from a butcher’s hook.

On a different note, in my upcoming book, Before You Go, the main character, Jude, is a runner. I had to think about that, and describe his running, here and there, nothing much. A metaphor, for sure, alluding to deeper themes, but also something as concrete and specific as sneakers on the sidewalk.

Well, here’s a paragraph from The Chocolate War. A quick description of a minor character, Goober, who likes to run. Want to read a great passage?

The Goober was beautiful when he ran. His long arms and legs moved flowingly and flawlessly, his body floating as if his feet weren’t touching the ground. When he ran, he forgot about his acne and his awkwardness and the shyness that paralyzed him when a girl looked his way. Even his thoughts became sharper, and things were simple and uncomplicated — he could solve math problems when he ran or memorize football play patterns. Often he rose early in the morning, before anyone else, and poured himself liquid through the sunrise streets, and everything seemed beautiful, everything in its proper orbit, nothing impossible, the entire world attainable.

All I can add to that is, wow. Just slack-jawed wow. Poured himself liquid through the sunrise streets. Liquid! The portrait of Goober  goes on for another remarkable paragraph, where Cormier turns the phrase, “The neighbors would see him waterfalling down High Street . . .”

Waterfalling! The noun as verb, the image startling and yet crystal clear, natural not forced. Waterfalling down High Street.

Run, Goober, run. See Goober run. Liquid, waterfalling.

Damn. That’s great writing.

ADDENDUM:

A librarian friend chimed in with this comment, via email:

Saw on your blog that you finally read The Chocolate War.  Amazing book, huh?  It gets banned EACH AND EVERY year, as you can probably imagine, for being – and I quote from some of the language in the bans and challenges – “pornographic,” for foul language, for its “portrayal of violence and degradation of schools and teachers,” for its “blasphemy” and because it is “ humanistic and destructive of religious and moral beliefs and of national spirit.”  One challenge, in a Georgia high school, cited “ I don’t see anything educational about that book.  If they ever send a book like that home with one of my daughters again I will personally burn it and throw the ashes on the principal’s desk.”  And my favorite, from someone who wanted to ban it because the ending was…get this…too pessimistic.

A book like that, you just HAVE to read.

A Jigsaw Christmas

Maybe the worst part of writing a series is the nagging sense that, after ten books or so, nobody really notices if the books are any good or not. Especially not your publisher. Your editor cares, for sure, but everyone else . . . shrug. The sum of your work gets reduced down to a number, the notion of “quality” gets subsumed by “quantity” — and the book is as good as its sales figures. I know, I know: Real World 101. But still.

So as part of my continuing “Stories Behind the Story” series, I’d like to put the focus on Jisgaw Jones Super Special #4: The Case of the Santa Claus Mystery. It’s one of my favorites in the series and it’s probably out of print.

When I wrote the book, I really tried to create a great holiday story — a story with value and content that could stand up to any of the Christmas classics. So I decided to tackle a tricky subject: Jigsaw gets hired to prove if Santa is real or not. Now I knew that I had a range of readers with a varying beliefs, and I felt a keen obligation toward them, so I was determined that my book would not spoil it for anyone. In essence, I wrote myself into a box, locked the lid, and like Houdini had to squirm myself out of it.

Here’s an early scene in Jigsaw’s basement office:

Sally Ann’s mood turned serious. She stared hard into my eyes. Her arms were crossed. “I want to meet Santa,” she demanded.

I cracked open my detective journal. “Santa?” I repeated, scribbling down the name. “Last name?”

“Claus,” Sally Ann said.

“Santa . . . Claus,” I wrote.

“That’s the one,” Sally Ann said.

“Big white beard? Wears black books and a red suit? Last seen driving a sleigh led by, let’s see . . .” I flipped through the pages of my journal and pretended to read, “. . . eight flying reindeer?”

Sally Ann didn’t like being teased. She never cracked a smile. Instead, she rummaged inside her pink plastic pocketbook. She pulled out the head of a Barbie doll — that’s it, just the head. Sally Ann frowned and continued poking around. She pulled out some baseball cards, a tissue (used, I suspect), a handful of rocks, beads, a hammer (!), and other assorted junk.

“Here,” she finally said.

Sally Ann smoothed out a dollar bill on my desk.

Illustration by Jamie Smith.

She was serious.

Sally Ann Simms wanted to meet Santa Claus.

And it didn’t seem like she would take no for an answer.

I asked her why.

“We have business to discuss,” she grumbled.

And so the book begins, fueled by the mystery. Along the way, a number of  entertaining events occur — including a sly tribute to Dick Van Dyke. With the help of Reginald Pinkerton Armitage III, sort of standing in for the character “Q” in the James Bond series, Jigsaw planted a hidden camera on Sally Ann’s mantelpiece.

After Christmas,. the only thing left to do was to retrieve the photographic evidence from inside the camera . . .

By December 27, Eddie Becker had already left three telephone messages at my house. I didn’t return the calls. I already knew what Eddie wanted.

A photograph of Santa Claus.

He wanted to get rich. But I just wanted to get it over with.

Mila had said it from the beginning: “I don’t think we should mess around with Santa.”

I was finally beginning to understand what she meant.

After lunch I clomped through the snow to Sally Ann’s house to pick up the daisy camera. I brought Rags so he could play with Pickles. Sally Ann had built a giant snowman on her front lawn. Actually, it was a snowman and a snowdog. She even used a real leash.

I returned home not long after. I brought the camera into my bedroom and stared at it for a long time. I thought about a lot of things. About Santa Claus, about Christmas, and about what it meant. I thought about my parents, and Equinox, and the smiles on the faces of the people when we delivered their holiday meals.

I picked up the vase and turned a leaf, just as Reginald had showed me. A small camera popped out. I remembered his warning. If I expose the film to light, all the photos will be ruined.

“Whatever you do,” Reginald had said, “don’t pull these petals.”

Down the hall, I heard the phone ringing. Probably Eddie Becker again, I figured, eager for his big payday. I took a deep breath . . . held the camera under my lamp . . . and pulled on the petals.

Poof, no proof.

The film was ruined.

Some mysteries don’t need to be solved. I believed in Santa, and I believed in the spirit of Christmas, and I didn’t need to dust for fingerprints to prove it. My heart told me everything I needed to know.

I wasn’t going to mess with Santa. The big man deserved that much. After all, I figured I owed the guy.

Case closed.

A merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

NOTE: This book was dedicated to my editor at Scholastic, Shannon Penney (who remains a loyal blog reader), and also acknowledges the charitable work performed by the staff and volunteers at Equinox, a nonprofit community agency that seres the Capital District area of New York. Jigsaw and his family spend a brief part of this book volunteering at the very same Equinox.

Oh, hey, I might as well include this little scene, because I’m fond of it. Setup: It’s Christmas Eve and Jigsaw is trying to fall asleep. Remember that feeling, in bed on Christmas Eve, just wanting it to come. Jigsaw’s mother enters the room and rubs his back. He’s still just a boy.

“How did you like delivering those meals today?”

I was getting sleepy. “I liked it, I guess.”

“Is that all?”

“It felt like we were doing a good thing,” I said. “I guess that made me feel good, too.”

My mother bent down and kissed me on the cheek. “Funny how that works,” she said. “Good night, Jigsaw. You make me proud. See you in the morning.”

“Good night, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I was alone again. Now my eyelids were heavy.

I didn’t want it to end. Christmas Eve, the most magical night of the year. I just lay there, enjoying it. And then, drifting off easily, tired and happy, I slept.

Fan Mail Wednesday #131: Upcoming Books

Hello!  My name is Russell. I want to read all of your books. I am enjoying Bystander so much. I was just wondering what other books you have besides Bystander because I am reading it now? Please contact me back when you have free time. Thank you so much.

Sincerely,

Russell

I replied:

Russell,

Thanks, I’m glad you liked Bystander. Though I’ve written for many years, including 40 titles in the Jigsaw Jones mystery series, Bystander was the first time I set a book in a middle school. So I don’t have much that’s exactly right for you as a follow-up . . . yet.

My book, Six Innings, fits in with Bystander, in terms of reading & interest level. It revolves around a Little League championship baseball game (thus, six innings, not nine). It was named an ALA Notable and I’m proud of that.

Next summer, I have a new book coming out, Before You Go, that is probably grades 7/8 - up. There’s a little bit of mild language in it, some alcohol, but not much. I guess it’s up to individuals as to where they draw the line on those issues. The main characters are ages 16, 17. Essentially the setup is this: Opening scene, four unnamed teenagers drive on a dark road. The car spins out of control, hits a tree. One passenger dies. Next page, we rewind six weeks into the past, and gradually meet all the characters. The reader doesn’t know who is going to be in the car, or who will die. The book catches up to the accident about 2/3 of the way through. So the book is in two sections: “Before” and “After.”

I’m also writing a new middle school book, tentatively titled, Zombie Me. But I can’t really talk about that one until I finish it — it’s been an exciting book for me to write, but such a struggle.

Now study up, ace those finals, and enjoy a great holiday season.

My best,

JP

Santa Always Disappoints

A writer friend of mine, a relatively new mother, recently commented: “Every year I’m thrown by what an as*hole Santa is to Rudulph.”

I nodded in agreement. That movie, which I love, probably contains the worst characterization of Santa ever. He’s never seemed more small-minded than in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” He’s basically a bully, and Comet, a very disappointing dad.

All I can say to Rudolph is, hey, if you’re listening to me, little guy . . . it will get better.

I was pleased when a few years back Jack Johnson recorded an updated version of the song, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindoor.” It’s got the usual laid-back Johnson sound, with a groovy twist to the lyrics:

. . . well Rudolph he didn’t go for that
he said, “I see through your silly games.”
How could you look me in the face
when only yesterday you called me names?
Well all of the other reindeers man,
well they sure did feel ashamed,
“Rudolph, you know we’re sorry,
we’re truly gonna try to change.”

As a side note, after I wrote the above I came across this article from the Huffington Post. It’s all a little too much, granted. Why can’t we all just get along?

Note: Did an image search and came across this craziness.

“Bad Decisions Make Good Stories.”

I came across this wall photo on the web. I wasn’t too crazy about it, frankly, didn’t strike me as hysterical, but number 10 got my attention:

Bad decisions make good stories.

(Click on the image if you wish to make it larger. You know that, right?)

I think that five-word sentence serves as an excellent piece of advice to writers. Just as we don’t want to read about perfect people who always do the right thing, and think the correct thoughts, there is nothing duller than a character who never makes a mistake.

It’s the imperfections that make us human. The wrong turns that take us to unexpected places.

I recently received an email from a middle school teacher who complimented me on Bystander. However, she wondered about the scene late in the book when Eric snuck into Griffin’s house. She wasn’t comfortable with it, didn’t feel that Eric was modeling the appropriate behavior, sending the right message. My answer was simple. First, I reminded her, respectfully, that I wrote a story, not a thesis, and that I never intended for Eric to portray “all the correct responses” to bullying. And secondly, that I had no desire to write about a character who never experienced a lapse of judgment. More importantly, as a writer I understood and recognized Eric’s motivation — that part made sense to me, the urge for revenge, why he wanted to take back what was stolen from him — even if it wasn’t the “right” thing to do.

The lapse made him more human.

Again:

Bad decisions make good stories.

Just to be clear: I also dislike it when character do incredibly stupid things for seemingly no reason, or when they act in ways that are inconsistent with their character. The “bad decision” should (or must) fit in with the logic of the character as written.

Or so I tell myself.

The Picture Book Pledge

I discovered this great post from The Arts Room blog, where they are taking their 2nd Annual Picture Book Pledge just in time for the holidays.

Please follow the link above to read about the pledge, find some book recommendations, and see a charming video about the diabolically clever new picture book, Press Here, by Herve Tullet.

Well done, Arts Room! And you too, Monsieur Tullet.

Along those lines, my friend, illustrator Matthew Cordell, has been banging on a similar drum. But Matt’s drum, “A Children’s Book Challenge,” is on Facebook. Because he’s sooo New Media.

You can get to it by clicking like a madman here. Be sure to click the “like” button when you arrive.

By the way, and seriously, Matt is amazing — and so productive that I want to punch him in the face. (But in the nicest, sweetest way possible.) Just look at this list of titles — the guy doesn’t sleep! It’s especially great that Matt is now writing some of his own books. Here’s an upcoming one (January 2012) I’m particularly excited about.

Matt blogged on this topic in a post titled, “Reawaken Your Love for the Picture Book”:

The children’s picture book is not doing so well. People aren’t buying it like they should. I don’t have all the facts and numbers (I’m not that guy), but I know enough to tell you that. Maybe it’s because of tough economic times. Maybe it’s because of e-bookery or general gadget-y (short attention span) distractions. Maybe it’s because parents aren’t reading to their kids enough. Maybe it’s because education is accelerating young readers at a newer, faster pace, and rushing them over the picture book form. Maybe it’s because it’s been forgotten how important, irreplaceable, and (when stars align) how spiritual the picture book experience is to both children and adults.

A couple of paragraphs later, Matt issued this challenge (which is funny to me, because Matt is such not an in-your-face, “issue a challenge” kind of guy):

This is my challenge to you, dear readers. Go into a book store (not a website, but a store with a roof, walls, people, books you can hold and browse over) and spend some time in the children’s book section. Find something incredible (it ain’t hard). Then, when you’re all filled up, buy just one picture book. And in a week’s time, repeat. Buy one picture book a week for your kid(s), some other kid(s) you love, or for yourself or some other grown-up you love. I can identify that it’s hard to get, at first, but adults can also enjoy reading picture books. And if you absolutely can’t swallow that concept, you can’t escape appreciating them for the amazing artwork alone. It’s like buying amazing art that can sit on your coffee table (or wherever you keep your favorite books with your favorite images) for, like, 16 bucks or whatever. Someone you know needs more picture books in her/his/their life/lives. You need to experience, again, what you loved when you read picture books as a kid.

Lastly, in the spirit of sharing, here’s the most recent picture book I purchased. I discovered it on a school visit to my native Long Island and immediately thought — and upon closer inspection, still think — that this is a perfect picture book. Seriously. It’s flawless. And I don’t say that about many picture books.

Wait, whoops . . .

You know, I’ve never much cared for Dr. Seuss’s Oh, The Places You’ll Go, which has become the knee-jerk graduation present for every kid in America. My recommendation: give that graduate The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds, and encourage him to make his mark on the world.

Fan Mail Wednesday #130: My First Book

Here’s one I loved . . .

Hi,

My mom dug out some of my old books from when I was a kid, and I got my old copy of Maxx Trax: Avalanche Rescue back.  I remember loving this book when I was a kid, I was really into the artwork.  I remember seeing another book in the Maxx Trax series at some point, but can’t remember what it was called.  How many books were in this series?  The art is really great, very eighties in its sensibility.  I was reading through the book and got the impression that the trucks were left behind after an armageddon, since there were no humans, and the trucks had to cross over a pile of abandoned cars, and the snow seemed to indicate a nuclear winter.  I was just curious about your take and inspirations for these books, I am an artist myself now, and appreciate the vehicle designs, and interested in the origins of one of my favorite books when I was a kid.

Thanks!

Eli

Eli! Thanks so much for that letter. Maxx Trax: Avalanche Rescue was my first published book, back in 1986 when I was a mere pup, 25 years old — and that was the little book that launched this Incredible (Unstoppable! Unflappable!) Publishing Empire.

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Thank you, thank you very much (in Elvis voice).

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Actually, I have great fondness for that book. It’s been out-of-print for nearly two decades, but when it was first offered on Scholastic Book Clubs, they put it on the front cover of SeeSaw Book Club and it sold through the roof, eventually moving more than 1,000,000 copies. Crazy, I know. But because it was my first book, and worked in-house as a junior copywriter, I was paid a flat fee, no royalties, so I earned $2,500 on the deal. But I’m not bitter!

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The book began with a Star Wars-inspired introduction, epic and overblown.

It’s a little embarrassing, but also, I think, the tone we were going for.

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Even worse, when it came time for the sequel, Scholastic inexplicably fired the original illustrator, Joe Lapinski, who did such a pitch-perfect job on the original. He nailed it. But I suspect that Joe wanted more money for the next book, and corporate had other ideas.

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The illustrations for the follow-up book, Maxx Trax: Monster Truck Adventure, featured a new, experimental technique: computer graphics, and it did not turn out very well. I remember when my editor told me about it. I was like, “Why didn’t you just rehire Lapinski? He was great.” Oh well. The technology was too new, too primitive. Think early Pac Man but in picture book form. I looked at that second book and my heart sank. I knew that no kid would go for it. And that was the end of the series. (Buy, hey, on the bright side: corporate saved money on the illustrator!)

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Yeah, sure, a nuclear winter makes sense to me. I’m not sure if I understood the backstory in those words, exactly. Perhaps I didn’t even think about it that deeply. I just kind of accepted the circumstances as fact and told the story from there — a world seemingly without people, with trucks that communicate and perform . . . all sorts of . . . amazing . . . truck-ish type feats. With lasers!

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Here’s the killer. When I visit schools, which I do fairly often, I’ll sometimes pull that book out. Students always ask about my first book. And every time, the boys see it and freak out. They want to buy it right there, right now. And I have to say, “Sorry, I’ve got two copies to my name, that’s it. The book is out of print. You can’t buy it anymore.” If I’ve learned anything about the children’s book business in the past 25 years, it’s that I know Maxx Trax would sell today. It’s so cool, so much fun, so right for boy readers. Trucks and adventure.

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Quick, get Lapinski on the phone! Come on, Scholastic. Wake up, already. I’ve already got the title of the next — Maxx Trax: Tsunami Rescue!

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The Dawn of Maxx Trax must rise again . . .

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Seriously, Eli, thanks for writing. In every author’s heart there’s a special place for his first book. It was awfully kind of you to take the time to write to me. You’re a good soul. Good luck with your own artistic efforts — keep on believing in yourself, keep on feeding that brain of yours, and work hard. Send me a JPEG or something. I’d love to see what you’re up to.

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My best,

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JP

Mark Twain’s Library & Other Pleasures

I won’t make you wait for it. My apologies for the spillover into the sidebar, but it would require actual skill to adjust the size of the photo. So, like, that’s not happening!

This is Mark Twain’s first-floor library in his Hartford, Connecticut, home. How cool is that?

You can thank Emily Temple of Flavorwire for that shot, since she recently compiled a hot batch of photographs featuring the libraries of famous writers, inspired, in part, by the recent publication of Leah Price’s new book, Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books.

Below, a few more of my favorites . . .

Joan Didion, John Dunne, daughter Quintana Roo, and dog.

William Faulkner collected old books, apparently. Oh, wait.

Anne Sexton’s shelves look so . . . normal.

Norman Mailer lived in Brooklyn Heights, not far from my brother. But Norman had more books, and a better apartment. He also liked lamps.

This Rolling Stone gathers no moss, but collects books, obviously. If you are really in a Keith mood, go here for my ultimate “Keef Sings” mix.

Dream Guitar

I was happy to come across this article, “Revealed: The Real Guitar Heroes,” which features a new book,Instrument, by photographer Pat Graham. (Check out Graham’s awesome blog, here.)

In the article, various musicians discuss their favorite instruments. I particularly liked Peter Buck’s description of his beloved guitar, because it so closely matched what I’d already written in my upcoming Young Adult debut, Before You Go (July, 2012).

Before we get to Buck and his guitar, here’s a brief section from my book, written over a year ago. To set the scene: Jude and Becka are hanging out together for the first time after work; they’ve walked the Jones Beach boardwalk on a cloudy day and are now playing putt-putt golf. Becka tells Jude that she’s saving up for her dream guitar:

This could be what Becka’s dream guitar looks like.

“What kind of guitar do you want to buy?”

“Rickenbacker 330,” Becka answered.

“You like that jangle sound, huh?”

“John Lennon, Johnny Marr, Peter Buck, they all played Rickenbackers,” Becka said. “You know Guitar World in Massapequa? That’s where I’m going to buy it. I’ve got mine all picked out.”

“Tell me,” Jude said, tapping the ball into the hole. He didn’t bother to fill in the scorecard. Jude hated those ultracompetitive guys who took things like P.E. way too seriously. He and Becka randomly cut over from the third to the eleventh hole. Nobody was around, nobody cared, and this one has a fake pirate ship in the middle of it to enhance the awesomeness.

“You should see it, gorgeous guitar,” Becka enthused. “Semi-hollow maple body, fireglo finish, rosewood fretboard with dot inlays, single-coil pickups –”

“Wow, you know your stuff,” Jude said. “That’s not a cheap guitar.”

“Almost two thousand balloons,” Becka said. “My parents are willing to go halfsies.”

“Halfsies?” Jude laughed.

“You know what I mean,” Becka protested, a hint of color rising to her cheeks. “I’ve been staring at that guitar for the past year. It’s my goal for this summer. I need that guitar.”

Jude knew exactly how she felt. He was always coveting a new guitar, or considering a trade-in. Every guitar had an individual sound, a character of its own, something that most people didn’t understand. Jude and Becka talked guitars and music, compared iPods and favorite tunes, thrilled to have that connection. “I’d love to hear you play,” Jude said.

I know, nothing fancy going on here, just two characters finding common ground, the beginning of something more. But I do love the setting, Jones Beach. I spent so much time there as a kid — hanging out and, later, working at the concession stands and washing dishes in the restaurant.

Now, from the article, here’s Peter Buck, name-checked in the section above (as is Johnny Marr, who coincidentally wrote the foreward to Graham’s book), describing his beloved Rickenbacker 360 JetGlo:

Buck & his guitar, 1983.

I bought my first Rickenbacker in about 1980. I love the tone. I love the history, knowing that Roger McGuinn and George Harrison and Pete Townshend also played Rickenbackers.

That one got stolen eventually, I think in 1981, when I was doing a show for $100. So we went to a tiny little guitar shop and pulled a Rickenbacker out of a box. It was in tune. I played it, it sounded great, and it’s the one I’ve used on every single record I’ve ever made. I’ve played it on stage my entire adult life and on every REM record except the “Radio Free Europe” single, because I didn’t have it at that point.

NOTE: I just triple-checked my Lennon/Rickenbacker reference. I know I got it from somewhere, that he played a Rickenbacker, but with Buck’s mention of Harrison, I started to wonder. Here’s a good article for guitar geeks, “The Beatles and Their Rickenbackers,” by Bjorn Eriksson.

And here’s Buck & company for your listening pleasure . . .

Reading with Cisco

Through the miracle of Facebook, I’ve enjoyed the great pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with an old friend of my sister’s, Bruce Donnola. No, my sister’s name is not “Bruce Donnola,” but I’m too tired to get myself out of that messy sentence construction. “Bruce Donnola” is actually the name of . . . nevermind. Growing up, Bruce was once very much my long-haired elder, but I’ve closed the gap over the years. He recently sent to me a brief essay that was intended for my defunct but most awesome blog, FATHERSREAD.com, which, alas, died on the vine. The blog didn’t get the response I’d hoped for, but more importantly I learned that I just didn’t have the time to give it the energy necessary to succeed. Disappointing, but lessons learned. I still care deeply about the gender gap in reading, about boys and reading.

Here’s the father’s story that Bruce sent. I scanned it quickly upon first reading, the way hurried people read emails, and thought it was good. Then I reread it, taking my time, and just now reread it again with deepening appreciation. I gradually recognized how many deep, important truths about boys and reading were contained in this subtle narrative. The comic books, the reading for information, the parental disappointment (and, at times, disaprroval), and the boy himself — an alert, active mind picking his way curiously through the pages and statistics and cereal boxes.

My wife worries that our eleven-year-old son doesn’t read. This has been going on for a few years now. It started in second grade when we bought him easy readers like Danny and the Dinosaur. We read that to him many times, imagining that he would eventually enjoy finding a quiet time to sit and reread it on his own, just like us grownups. But Cisco never had the slightest interest. He enjoyed having us read to him (thankfully, he still does). But he would not read books from cover to cover on his own. “He won’t even read Danny and the Dinosaur,” my wife despaired.

That disinclination has remained unchanged over the last three-plus years. But my response to my wife has always been the same: Cisco does read — he just doesn’t read books from start to finish, unless they’re assigned in school. He pulls out books on things he’s interested in — Star Wars, Leggos, dogs. What he does on an almost daily basis is open a book, flip through the pages looking at photos, stop when something grabs him, read a caption, maybe a paragraph or two, then move on. He does this with books, with comic books, with toy catalogs and most recently with newspapers.

My son is totally hyperactive, with little patience or desire to sit still. The way my son reads is part of the way he is. But the truth is that I was not hyperactive as a kid, yet my reading habits were much the same as his. Despite growing up in a highly literate household where everyone read constantly, much of it heavy literature (my mom’s favorite author was William Faulkner, my oldest brother loved James Joyce), the truth is that I barely read any books from start to finish unless they were assigned in school. Just like my son.

Yet I read constantly.

I read comic books the way some people eat potato chips. I couldn’t get enough of them, bought every new issue of (mostly) DC Comics every month and reread old issues dozens of times. I had a huge collection of Classics Illustrated and, despite the derision often accorded them, developed a love for the great stories of western literature that remains to this day.

I also read other frivolous things as a kid. I had a subscription to Mad Magazine, with contents that ranged from silly to brilliant. I LOVED Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, a periodical that mostly focused on old horror films from the 1930s and 40s, with a strong appreciation of earlier silent films. It was also filled with truly horrendous puns which any boy would appreciate (it came from Horrorwood, Karloffornia). This wonderful and ridiculous magazine led me into a lifelong love of cinema history.

I also read Peanuts voraciously — in fact, I probably learned the word “voraciously” by reading Peanuts. I remember often going to my parents holding a Peanuts paperback, asking what certain words meant, trying to understand jokes about Beethoven, psychiatry, or World War I fighter pilots. The intelligence, wit, and incredible comic timing of Peanuts in the 1960s are still a marvel to me. How many words are in any given four-panel Peanuts strip? Yet how much depth is contained in those words?

I also found joy reading ephemeral things like toy catalogs. I literally spent hours poring through the legendary Johnson Smith catalogs, with their X-ray specs, trick black soap and plastic vomit. Each item that was for sale was described in probably one or two sentences. But I savored each one of those brief descriptions over and over, as if they were a perfect haiku. All the possibilities of the mysterious world ahead seemed to lay in that booklet of magic tricks and practical jokes.

I could go on but the point is simple: what a boy reads is not the issue. The number of words he reads is not the issue. The issue, assuming there is no reading disability and assuming he is in a home where the parents read, is: does he have access to the books, magazines, comics, catalogs, baseball cards — whatever — that are about things he loves?

I didn’t really start reading books from beginning to end until I was a teenager, and truly it was not until I was eighteen or so that I really fell in love with literature. But the foundation had been laid in my childhood: in a house of book lovers, with good and great books shelved and piles up in every room, my parents quietly encouraged me to read by providing every silly book, comic, magazine or useless piece of printed ephemera, no matter how few words or how unchallenging, that I craved. The result was I had fun reading. The result was I have always loved to read.

So now in my son’s room you will find, once you recover from seeing the astonishing mess, two bookcases packed with books that range from early readers to teenage titles; a few stacks of old comic books, mostly from my childhood era (unlike today’s comics, they were actually meant for kids); Leggos magazines, which are mailed to us free every other month; a couple of DK Eyewitness books on Star Wars that look like they’ve survived the Clone Wars; two books on dogs recently taken out of the school library (hint-hint); a horrible new teen music magazine (he’s got the hots for Victoria Justice), and at his bedside a copy of Danny and the Dinosaur. One night recently he pulled it out on his own and decided to read it before bed. And there it remains, reread many times since. At his age, eleven years old, it presents no challenge to his intelligence and no challenge to his reading abilities. He simply likes to read it because it makes him happy.