Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Why Children's Books Are Like My College Reunion

I went back to college this weekend for my fifteen year reunion. I danced, ate pizza too late at night, and got to see some lovely folks I'd been missing. And had a revelation about why I write for kids.

It has to do with being known. Not famous, but known as a person, and accepted anyway. The best part about old friends is they've seen me dance, they know I'm a little too loud, they understand my inside jokes, because they know me. And yet, they stick around. Is there any better feeling than having someone be well aware of your most grating, most embarrassing habits, and like you anyway?

That feeling of having my innermost thoughts and anxieties and ideas being understood and accepted is the gift I hope to give children in my books. I want to write about the hard parts of being a child, the embarrassing parts, the confusion and the frustration, and to let children know that they are not alone; we all have been there, and it's going to be okay. At the winter SCBWI conference this year, Richard Peck spoke about books having the power to show us that "even our most secret sorrows are shared." I love when children think my writing is funny. I love when they say they worked hard to sound out the words out themselves. But I mostly love when something like this happens:

I was signing The New Girl...And Me in Bar Harbor, Maine. Two girls approached the desk. One started asking about the book. The other hung back. I explained that in the story, a shy student named Mia wants to make friends with the new girl in her class. The talkative one glanced through the book and said, "cool." When I looked over, the quieter one was just finishing reading. She clutched the book to her chest and came around the table to my side.

"She is shy," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I am shy, too," she said. "I like your book."

For my part, as a child, it was Judy Blume, as cliché as that sounds. She reached into me and wrote my life on the page and made it sound normal. Who was it for you?

6 comments:

J. Thorp said...

This post is lovely, by the way.

I've wracked my brain -- I had no one author or book that spoke to me on that level. Unless you count the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series or Encyclopedia Brown, which made nerds into crime-fighters and adventurers. Those books made me feel better about my size-8 melon ...

Jacqui said...

I think Encyclopedia Brown counts for making smart cool.

Wait until you see my son's head...

J. Thorp said...

Anybody else remember the Three Investigators? I so wanted a junkyard hideout, a secret sign, and name like Jupiter Jones.

Jacqui said...

I don't remember The Three Investigators. Wish I did, though.

lizard said...

What a wonderful post. (Though I think the best part about old friends is they known when you really need to read a teenybopper novel instead of a Classic Magnum Opus, and don't rag on you for it, and even send it to you, complete with chocolates.)

For whenever you all need a break from your impressive summer reading program, I just finished BEAUTIFUL BOY by David Sheff, a father's memoir about his son's rollercoaster with meth. Truly moving, though of course a train wreck. And I hope you are interspersing your classics with a "snack" of the new David Sedaris...

Jacqui said...

Mmm. New David Sedaris.

And yes, folks, if you're looking for brain candy, we have to recommend The Squad: Perfect Cover, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, about undercover FBI agent cheerleaders...