Tag Archive for Tony Abbott

One Question, Five Authors: “How do you feel about messages in children’s books?”

“A good place to start

is by continuing to make art

which begs questions,

sparks conversations,

explains stuff,

and provides catharsis.”

— Lizzy Rockwell

I remember being at the Rochester Children’s Book Festival a few years back. Jeff Mack turned to me and asked, only half-jokingly, “Do you remember when it used to a bad thing for children’s books to be didactic?” We laughed about that one. Ho, ho, ho. I was reminded of that moment while reading a timely, interesting article by Elisa Gall and Jonathan Hunt in Horn Book’s “Calling Caldecott” series, titled, ” What the Hell Is Didactic Intent Anyway?”

The time seemed right to bring back my ever-quasi-popular, “One Question, Five Authors” series, beginning with possibly the thorniest question I’ve ever asked: “How do you feel about messages in children’s books?It’s not a simple topic, and definitions vary — it’s not always clear we are talking about the same thing — which is likely why some responders gave longer, deeper answers than usual. Another reason for that: I made sure to ask this particular question to some of the more intellectual, thoughtful, experienced writers I could find. Today I’m honored to share this space with Lizzy Rockwell, Lois Lowry, Lesa Cline-Ransome, Liz Garton Scanlon, and Tony Abbott. Please feel free to add a comment or voice a complaint. The more voices, the better.

 

LIZZY ROCKWELL

Thanks Jimmy.  What a good question.  Having raised two grown sons, I know that there were plenty of messages my husband and I consciously or unconsciously delivered as they were growing up: Be nice. Be responsible for your actions. Pay attention to your emotions, and other people’s emotions. Use words to work out conflict. Take care of your body. Learn about the world.  Respect all living things (including ecosystems). Be creative. Be generous. Be honest. Know that you are loved. Books helped. Frederick and Swimmy, by Leo Lionni, Moon Man, by Tomi Ungerer, Medieval Feast, by Aliki, The Awful Mess, by Anne Rockwell, Donkey Donkey, by Roger Duvoisin, and Spinky Sulks by William Steig were some of our favorites.

Ours is not a religious home, but our ethics are in keeping with those of most religions.  Children’s books can support a society’s effort to help children grow into healthy, collaborative, expressive adults who distinguish between right and wrong, fair and unfair. But books are not just about molding successful and virtuous future adults, they are about providing art specifically crafted for children. A child’s need for art is every bit as great as an adult’s. Art is cathartic; it lets us identify and talk about our emotions.  Art is philosophical; it’s the best way to explore the big existential and ethical questions. But good art is never didactic. It is sensory and emotionally charged, so it gives us pleasure, scares us, makes us wonder, makes us laugh, connects us with others. Art is open-ended so it can be interpreted in a variety of ways. And art is subversive. It challenges the confines of social norms, and requires us to ask questions.

We are in a fascinating moment, where some very long-in-the-making problems are finally being pulled from the back of the closet and brought into the light. This moment is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. The legacy of slavery,  the genocide of indigenous Americans, the oppression of LGBT people, the subjugation of women and girls, economic inequality, European imperialism, gun violence,  drug addiction, and environmental devastation, are on the short list of problems we can no longer ignore. Solving many of these problems requires disrupting systems (patriotism, capitalism, transportation, policing, Religious orthodoxy, industry) which also are the armature of American society.  So how do we rebuild and improve, without completely tearing down?

A good place to start is by continuing to make art which begs questions, sparks conversations, explains stuff, and provides catharsis.

But let’s be honest, making art for children is not the same as making art for adults.  We have a responsibility to not overwhelm them with fear or guilt. Any story or work of non-fiction created for children, no matter how disturbing the problem, or open-ended the solution, should contain a message of hope. And I don’t have a problem with that message at all.

 

LESA CLINE-RANSOME

I write each of my books with a measure of intention and purpose.  For me, there is a need to accurately represent my culture and heritage and provide a counter narrative to the misrepresentations that have pervaded literature for too long.  I write stories that provide one depiction of black life that reflects its resilience, sacrifice, joy, enduring traditions and loving families.  Is it a message?  Perhaps.  But in a time of erasure and exclusion, I feel a message celebrating the fullness of black life, community and family is a much needed one.

 

LOIS LOWRY

I can’t comment on any trends because I simply don’t keep up with what’s being published (isn’t it ironic that Spellcheck wants “published” to be “punished”?). But my personal opinion about books with messages has not changed. A book with a blatant message…a book whose author has set out to instruct young readers and guide them to a higher morality…is a bad book. A book with intriguing characters who face complex problems and weigh difficult choices is a book from which a message will arise but it will not have been placed there by the author. It will evolve from the reader: from the reader’s circumstances and introspection and emerging beliefs.  When a student emails me and asks: “What is the message of (insert title)?” I always reply: “Whatever you want it to be.”  When a parent or grandparent hands me a book to sign and asks me to write: “For xxxx, in hopes that this book will teach you…blah blah” I always conceal a deep sigh and write: “I hope that you’ll love this book.”

As an old person myself I do sympathize with…and share…the yearning to be able to impart wisdom to the young. But if I’ve learned anything in my 83 years, it’s that wisdom is acquired through experience and through feeling one’s mind and heart opened…occasionally by a good book. Not a book with a message.

 

LIZ GARTON SCANLON

For me, the question isn’t so much whether books contain messages. I honestly think that’s a given. Characters learn and grow and have ah-ha moments. They navigate tricky times and grapple with moral choices. Metaphors telegraph meaning or theme. Beginnings pose questions that endings then satisfy with deep realizations. Books are full of messages.

I think the question is a more subtle one –- one of prepositions. I think messages in children’s books need to be of or from children rather than to or for or at them. I like to see them emerge with each page turn, from the small, wide-eyed perspective of a kid, rather than come down like an explicit, instructive hammer.

What if messages were more like discoveries than lessons? What if they were sometimes nonlinear or digressive or funny or wholly surprising – just the way they are for kids in the world outside of books? What if young characters and young readers alike got their messages in deeply felt and experiential ways? I think that’s how we give them the most important message of all – that we respect them, that we’re paying attention, that they matter.

 

TONY ABBOTT

While I’ve given this question a bit of thought over the last couple of years, it’s not been with any sense of tying it off with an eloquent flourish, so forgive clumsy lapses in logic. But, yes, I think we are seeing more and more books for children with simpler and simpler messages that try to appeal to the reader by defining, quickly, and in terms that reader will understand, what those books are about and why they should be read.

Part of this trend might stem from increased competition in the marketplace. The need for books for younger readers to be published with an engaging tagline — “would you be brave enough to . . . x y z?” is an attempt to land the besieged reader with a simple emotional hook. This is one response to a glut of shiny things to attract one’s attention. (Another might be a flashy cover.)

That’s all very fine, but I think this nailing-down-the-point notion might have worked its way down to the writer — it’s not difficult to see why it shouldn’t have. The writer wants to be read, so, sure, let’s lead with that phrase, however it simplifies my 300 pages. After time, we forget that taglines are something to be applied after the fact, and not during the composition of a piece. We have all seen how particularly “meaningful” lines or phrases from a book make their way into memes that are then used for corporate or personal promotion of the book. That a writer might write toward one of those simplifying lines is also easy to imagine. We would never admit so, but even unconsciously it’s easy to see how that would happen. And then we have the message book — the one that, more often than not, is a story of some kind of empowerment and hope. These themes follow obvious trends in the political, cultural, and emotional marketverse.

You can see, however, how after a time, this might be what the literature becomes: a sequence of very acutely directed essays aligning with (or scandalously denying) the current cultural touchstone. I’m certain I’ve been guilty of doing this, just as I’m certain it’s a bad thing. I’d hope other kinds of publishing aren’t like this, but my sense is that they are. [Let me also add that I don’t particularly see one’s editors as at the front of this trend; it’s a cultural current.]

This is one part of the cartooning of America, the shallowing of culture you can see just about everywhere — necessitated, in a way, because we as audience are also getting thinner and less able to work in complexities. No doubt social media has played a big part here.

Talking about this issue is, for me, likely one more aspect of sour grapes, so it can easily be dismissed. My last books have gone precisely nowhere, so I’m moving on. If you write a book, you have to allow yourself at least two years to get to a decent shape, often longer. To push through to completion is a bigger and bigger deal when you get older and other projects have been laid aside for too long. So you leave. Is there hope? I don’t think so. It’s a downward trend we’re seeing played out in every sphere of American life, starting at what we used to call the top. Yes, you know what I mean. Maybe it’s the same in every country. Another reason to build a big personal library and lock the door.

James Preller — that’s me! — is the author of the Jigsaw Jones mystery series. My most recent picture book, illustrated by the great Mary GrandPre, is titled All Welcome Here. And coming in Spring 2021, look for my new middle-grade novel, Upstander. Thanks for stopping by. Onward and upward with the ARTS!

       

 

One Question, Five Authors #7: “How does a book begin for you?”

Welcome to “One Question,” the world’s laziest interview series. In today’s edition, we’re interested in origin stories — or the origins of story — those interstices of time between books. An author casts about, open-minded and perhaps a little lost, wondering what in the world that next book might be. And then, hmmm, like a fish nibbling on a line . . . something appears.

My thanks to Matt Tavares, Tony Abbott, Keely Hutton, Greg Neri, and Aimee Reid for their contributions.

Matt Tavares

Every book is different, but I’ll tell you how Red & Lulu got started — with a suggestion from my editor, Katie Cunningham, in late 2011 that I do a book about the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. I loved the idea, and began working on a nonfiction manuscript about the tree. I envisioned a book along the lines of those great David Macaulay books (Castle, Cathedral…), where I would show how they find the tree, how they chop it down, get it to the city, decorate it, etc. I spent a while working on that, and submitted a manuscript to Candlewick. They told me they liked it, but felt like it needed more of a story. My editor suggested I add some characters.
Meanwhile, I had this whole other idea about cardinals. I often noticed cardinals in my yard, and was struck by how whenever I saw a male cardinal, if I looked around a bit, the female cardinal was usually nearby. I wondered what would happen if they ever became separated. I felt like there could be a story there.
At some point, those two completely separate ideas became one, and my nonfiction story about the Rockefeller Christmas tree became a fictional story about two cardinals who become separated.
So, long story short: It was my editor’s idea.

Tony Abbott

Different motives begin a new book for me. Denis Ever After began when I read a single word in the newspaper. It was “Toms.” I don’t recall now whether it was a piece about Toms toothpaste, or some other reference, but the idea of their being two “Toms” in the same family — brothers — started me thinking about twins. Almost immediately after birth the first boy, already named Tom, succumbed, so when the second came out, and lived, they named him Tom, as a sort of remembrance. Thus . . . Toms. The story changed leagues from that, but that’s how it began. Origins are one of the most pleasurable parts of writing for me. The whole universe of story seems capable of being encompassed in a new novel. This new story will be about love, dreams, oak tables, stars, dust, shoes, the rings of Saturn, hot chocolate, and the Gulag. Only when the pages pile up do its contours shrink and define. So. No shoes, no prison camp, and more joy than first imagined. Anyway, a way of saying reality seeps in. In my new novel, The Great Jeff, coming in March, it was the chance “sighting” of a character from a book published a dozen years ago. I’ve written about this before, but it’s probably true of all writers (and, they hope, their readers), that characters live beyond the book in some place and time, and that a story written about them is by no means all that that character is. So I saw a boy in a library, alone, reading, and I was convinced that this boy was Jeff, from Firegirl (2006). He’d reappeared, and I had to write about him. That’s how it happened. I hope it happens again. There’s something deeply satisfying in knowing that these people we seem to create are, once born, living on and on.

Keely Hutton

I never know when inspiration for my next book will strike, but I’m always on the lookout for subjects that spark my imagination. The spark for my upcoming middle grade novel, Secret Soldiers, started with some confusion while I binge-watched the BBC show “Peaky Blinders” two years ago. The main character, Tommy Shelby, runs his family’s criminal organization in 1919 England and suffers from PTSD due to his time as a soldier in WW1. My editor and I agreed that my next book should be in the same vein as my debut novel Soldier Boy, so I’d been researching wars and child soldiers. I hadn’t found anything that really grabbed my attention until I watched Tommy Shelby’s flashbacks, which showed him fighting in tunnels. I kept asking my husband, “Why are they underground?” After my third such query, my exasperated husband kindly suggested I Google it, so I did. A quick search revealed that thousands of sappers and miners tunneled beneath the battlefields of the Great War to undermine the enemy’s position and break the brutal stalemate of trench warfare. Fascinated, I researched whether any child soldiers fought in WW1 and was shocked to discover that over a quarter of a million underage British boys lied about their ages to join the war. When I learned that many of those young soldiers were used as beasts of burden on and under the battlefields, I knew I had found my next story and began researching and writing Secret Soldiers.

Greg Neri

My cousin the horse thief. Who would’ve thought? When I was growing up, I went to Texas once to stay on my uncle’s ranch. He had thirteen kids. Ten of them boys — strapping ranch hands and school wrestlers who liked to surprise-attack each other in the middle of the night out in the bunkhouse their dad built for them in the fields. To be a girl in that family, you had to be tough and willing to stand up for yourself. I could see that in my cousin Gail straight off the bat. She didn’t take no guff, and she could dish it out just as hard as her brothers — maybe harder. But inside, she was thoughtful and caring, and she loved horses. I had met Gail Ruffu only once when I was younger. Thirty-some years later, at a Christmas party at my parents’ house in California, I met her again. In the intervening years, I had occasionally heard tales of her exploits. The Texas part of the family, like the state of Texas itself, was always bigger than life. When I asked what she’d been up to lately, she paused and pulled me aside. “I’m a wanted woman, ya know,” she said. For the next hour and a half, she told me a whopper of a story of how she stole a thoroughbred on Christmas Eve and became the first person in 150 years to be charged with Grand Theft Horse — a case that went all the way to the California Supreme Court. When she was finished, I sat there, floored. My first thought was that would make a great book. So I wrote it.

 

Aimee Reid

One ordinary night, I was tucking my then 2-1/2-year-old daughter into bed. As usual, she asked what our schedule was for the next day. No matter how simple our plans—visiting the library, dropping in to playgroup, or simply playing at home—she always delighted in looking forward to them. After I shared my thoughts about what we would do together, she wiggled her whole body in delight and said, “When I grow up and you grow down . . . .” She proceeded to list the everyday activities we would do together if our roles were reversed.

Zing! Her words flew like a spark to my imagination. This is a story, I thought. Not long afterward, Mama’s Day with Little Gray was born (Random House). It is the tale of a small elephant who dreams of growing big enough to take care of his mama just as she has cared for him.

That story began by listening to my daughter. Sometimes, words for a story will surprise me and start running through my head. For an upcoming book, All the Earth (Penguin Random House, spring 2020), my brain fed me the first line of a lyrical text. Zing! Those words became a rhymed picture book about animal babies being cared for by their parents.

Ideas can come from anywhere. What the best book ideas have in common for me is that spark of recognition. Zing! Then I know: this is a story I am meant to write and share with the world.

Stay Home, Please. Don’t Celebrate Children’s Book Day at “Sunnyside” in Tarrytown, NY, 9/25

Just stay home. Please.

Find something else to do.

Each year I do this event, which features more than 60 amazing children’s book authors and illustrators, and it’s always such a disappointment. For starters, check out some of the people who’ll be there, and you’ll understand why I’m so bummed:

Tony Abbott, Nora Raleigh Baskin, Nick Bruel, Bryan Collier, Katie Davis, Bruce Degen, Jean Craighead George, Charise Mericle Harper, Susan Jeffers, Peter Lerangis, Gail Carson Levine, Carolyn MacCullough, Rafe Martin, Wendy Mass, Matthew McElligott, Helen Perelman, Wendell Minor, Gloria Pinkney, Lizzy Rockwell, Todd Strasser, Mark Teague, Jean Van Leeuwen, Eric Velasquez, Sarah Weeks, Ed Young, and more.

Why so down-in-the-dumps you ask? Because I never get to talk to any of them. I never get a chance to meet the new (to me!) people, like Will Moses (Mary and Her Little Lamb), Lena Roy (Edges), Daniel Kirk (Library Mouse), Peter Brown (You Will Be My Friend!) . . .

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. . . and Jerry Davis (Little Chicken’s Big Day). Who are these people? Might they become my new best pals? Um, not likely! Because they are sitting at tables forty feet away, surrounded by happy children, shopping grandparents, and strong-armed educators, hauling bags of books like Sherpa guides.

Best I can do is throw rocks at ’em.

And, oh, hey, look over there, it’s Jean Craighead George. She’s only a freakin’ legend. I can’t throw rocks at Jean Craighead George. She’ll throw them back — and her arm is a bazooka.

Oh,  wait.  Here’s old friends like Mark Teague and Helen Perelman and Peter Lerangis. Can I talk to any of them? Can we hang out? Maybe shoot the breeze? Commiserate?

Nooooooo. I’m too busy signing books, meeting young readers, gabbing with families, prostrating myself before the cheerful & smiling hordes.

Writing is a solitary business, folks. And it’s frustrating for me to sit there at gorgeous Sunnyside . . .

. . . just feet away from my peerless peers, and never have a free minute to chat with them.

So my dream is for just one year, nobody comes. No book sales, no signings, no musicians, no storytellers, no-bah-dee. Just us authors, finally (finally!) enjoying a few moments when we can hang out and complain about the crappy jobs our publishers do with publicity and marketing. It’s how we bond. We bitch and moan about Kindles.

So this coming Sunday, clean the garage, watch football, wax the car. But if you insist on coming . . . click here for full details.

As always, blue skies are personally guaranteed. It never rains on my parade.

Celebrate Children’s Book Day @ Washington Irving’s “Sunnyside” in Tarrytown, NY: 9/19

You should know that children’s book impresarios Susan Brandes and Beth Vetare-Civitello have put together another spectacular lineup of authors and illustrators for this year’s (13th annual?) Children’s Book Festival.

With more than 50 authors/illustrators on hand, the list is too excruciatingly long to include everyone. So I’ll only name my favorites:

JAMES PRELLER!

Well, it looks like we’ve run out of time. Sunnyside is a gorgeous location, with historic buildings nestled in beside the mighty Hudson . . .

What’s that? Hold on. I just got a text . . .

Tony Abbott: WTF??!!

Anyway, as I was saying . . .

Eric Velasquez: Punk!

Charise Mericle Harper: When I see you there, I will throw a CUPCAKE in your face!

Jean Craighead George: Die, die, die!

Rebecca Stead: How would you like to have a Newbery Medal shoved up your . . .

Whoa, whoa, people, CALM DOWN! Obviously, some of these “artists” — and I’m using the term loosely — have ego issues. Touchy, touchy. Seriously, I don’t even know these people. And I don’t want to know them! But, okay, here’s a few other names before I get into any more trouble (but believe me, I’m pretty confident I can handle Jean Craighead George in a tussle, if it’s a fair fight and she doesn’t carry a crude knife fashioned out of tree bark and a plastic spork; and as far as Ms. Stead’s “offer,” that may be as close as I’ll ever get):

Nora Raleigh Baskin * Judy Blundell * Katie Davis * Jules Feiffer * Susan Jeffers * Peter Lerangis * Gail Carson Levine * Wendy Mass * Wendell Minor * Jerry Pinkney * Peter Sis * Hudson Talbott * Ed Young * James Howe * Michael Rex * Nick Bruel * Bruce Degan * Diane Goode * and many, many more, including JAMES FREAKING PRELLER!

I’m also glad to see that my friend, Matthew McElligott, will be attending this year. His new book, Even Monsters Need Haircuts, looks pretty great.

Maybe I’ll offer him a ride . . . if he pays for gas.

And tolls.

Show time: 12:00 – 4:30.

Oh, yeah, one more thing. I’ll do something that these other children’s authors and illustrators are afraid to do. That’s right: I am personally guaranteeing a beautiful day. Blue skies, warm sun, good times. Trust me on this, people.  It’s my personal promise to you.

This year, I mean it.

So come on out and bring lots of money bring the kids!

Click here for full details, directions, etc.


Come to Children’s Book Day @ Washington Irving’s “Sunnyside” in Tarrytown, NY: 9/27

When I was a kid, I used to watch professional wrestling on television. This was before it went big time, before Hulk Hogan and the massive popularity of the WWF and big events on pay-per-view cable. I watched during the era of Bruno Sammartino, Gorilla Monsoon, Killer Kowalski, The Sheik, Ivan Koloff, Pedro Morales, Haystacks Calhoun, and other charismatic brawlers of yesteryear.

One of the events that I found mind-blowing — and happily recreated with friends on rowdy afternoons — was called a “battle royal.” While rules varied from match to match, essentially they would shoehorn about twenty wrestlers into a ring and the last man standing was declared the winner. They eliminated a wrestler either by pin or by hurling him over the ropes and out of the ring.

Like thus:

Good times, good times.

And that’s exactly what you’re likely to see at the 12th Annual Children’s Book Day at Sunnyside, in Tarrytown, New York, a veritable battle royal of sixty children’s book authors and illustrators. There will be petty jealousy, eye pokes, mule kicks, and plenty of blood (that’s right, I’m looking at you, Jean Craighead George).

This year the tag team of Susan Brandes and Beth Vetare-Civitello has put together a spectacular day-long festival for young readers, families, and friends. It’s a happy event in a beautiful location, and I encourage you to make the trip — meet authors and illustrators, get books signed, spend too much money, listen to music, watch performances, stroll the historic grounds . . .

. . . or simply fulfill your blood lust.

Come see Tony Abbott’s superkick . . . Katie Davis’s flying lariat takedown . . . Ed Young’s sleeper hold . . . Wendy Mass and her devastating forearm shiver . . . or the classic “El Kabong” as executed by Mark Teague.

Here’s some more illustrious names you’ll find in the ring: Pam Allyn, Nora Raleigh Baskin, Judy Blundell, Nick Bruel, Alyssa Satin Capucilli, Bruce Degen, Jules Feiffer, Dan Greenburg, James Howe, Susan Jeffers, Peter Lerangis,  Gail Carson Levine, Rafe Martin, Jean Marzollo, Barbara McClintock, Lloyd Moss, Bernard Most, Jerry Pinkney, Marisabina Russo, Peter Sis, Rebecca Stead, Todd Strasser, Eric Velasquez — and many more. Holy wow.

I’ll be there, too.

The date is Sunday, September 27th, from 11:00 – 5:00. For directions, click here.