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by Diana Wynne Jones
This is not about my own school. I prefer to forget that. This is about how a large part of the job description when you write for children is the remorseless visiting of schools. When I was young and strong, I was required to do this almost once a week. Half of the time, the visit was entirely rewarding: the children, as always, were lovely; the staff, enthusiastic; and I could find the school entrance. Even when I lost my way (or, on one memorable occasion, when a silly old man jumped off the moving train and someone had to pull the emergency cord) and I arrived late, this kind of visit was always wonderful. On the occasion of the man jumping off the train, one of the boys actually gave me the idea for my book Howl’s Moving Castle.
These visits kept me going for the other half of the time, in which there was never any problem with the children, but the adults behaved atrociously. At the very least, the Headmaster would rush at me as I arrived, wring my hand in a crunching grip, and say, “I haven’t read any of your books, of course.” I was always too busy shaking my right hand and wondering when I’d recover the use of it to ask the obvious questions: “Why haven’t you? And why of course?” Headmistresses were less predictable. Here the common factor was that they regarded me as an intrusive nuisance and were liable to have arranged for the whole school to do something else. I would arrive at the school at the stated hour, having allowed time to hunt around the buildings for the way in, to be met by the School Secretary saying, “The Headmistress has them all in Maypole Dancing practice. Do you mind waiting an hour and a half?” It often took strong resolution not to simply turn around and go away.
The visit which caused me eventually to decide not to visit schools anymore was arranged as part of a citywide book festival. All schools in the city were supposed to participate. I was escorted to this particular school by two nice but nervous librarians in a small old car. As we chugged up the forecourt to the dark and forbidding school buildings, an obvious School Secretary came rushing toward us, holding out one hand to stop us. We stopped. “No Supply Teachers today,” she shouted. “We don’t need any extra staff. Go away!” Somewhat shaken by this welcome, we explained that we were not in fact spare teachers but an Author Visit arranged by the city. “Oh, then come in if you must,” she replied, “but the Deputy Head won’t be pleased.” The said Deputy Head, whom we encountered at the entrance, seemingly standing by to repel visitors, was indeed not pleased. She told us brusquely that we had better get ourselves to Room Eleven then. After some hunting about, we found this room. It was large, anemically lit, and full of empty desks. Scattered about at the desks were seven or so depressed-looking girls and boys. The skinny, angry-looking teacher in charge said to us, “The rest of the class have gone to a Latin lesson. You wouldn’t want them to miss their Latin, would you?” I suppressed a desire to tell him that, yes, I thought they might miss their Latin just this once, because the librarians by now both looked as if they might cry. Instead I sat where the man told me to and started to get on terms with the remaining children. After six or so minutes, we were beginning to loosen up and enjoy ourselves and the kids were starting to ask questions when the door burst open and the Deputy Head reappeared, energetically ringing a large brass bell. “Everybody out!” she shouted. “Children, go home. The rest of you go away. We’re on strike from this moment on!”
There was nothing to do but go. The librarians and I went and had coffee and stared at one another limply. Schools, I thought, would be fine if it wasn’t for the adults running them.
Diana Wynne Jones’s latest book is The House of Many Ways (Greenwillow).
From the September/October 2008 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.
Our Fanfare choice Button Up: Wrinkled Rhymes by Alice Schertle and illustrated by Petra Mathers has been awarded the 2010 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award. Congrats, Alice!
And now, to paraphrase Nicki Grimes on Jerry Pinkney, just give Petra Mathers the damn Caldecott medal, already.
I was a member of the ALSC Distinguished Service Award committee this year, along with Cynthia Richey (chair, and a new friend), Joan Atkinson (an old YASD--yes, that old--buddy with whom it was great fun to work again), Peggy Sullivan (who I've known since library school), and Terry Borzumato-Greenberg (from Holiday House; the youngest person in the room but who I also feel I've known forever), and with great pleasure we selected Margaret (Maggie) Bush, professor emerita at the GSLIS of Simmons College, as the winner. I knew Maggie slightly before I came to the Horn Book in 1996, but once I was in Boston I realized she was the Zena of New England, sending generations of children's librarians out into the world to continue her good work. Congrats, Maggie!
The new issue of Notes from the Horn Book, featuring an interview (excerpted from the forthcoming March/April issue of the Magazine) with our new Ambassador, Katherine Paterson, is out. Also: stormy fiction, picture book bios, animal tales and the Five Best Books by Katherine Paterson According to Me.
I'm sorry to have to tell you that our cherished Claire Gross is soon to depart these glamorous environs for the delights of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, home of many Horn Book friends including Betsy Hearne, Christine Jenkins and Deborah Stevenson. So now you will have to subscribe to BCCB. As well. It is a first-rate school for first-rate Claire, and if I've done nothing else in this job I can die content knowing I helped bring Claire into the noblest profession. But our days will be a little poorer and considerably more disorganized in her absence.
So SLJ is in trouble with some of its readers over their cover photo of some boozin' bloggers. Honestly, you never know what's going to bring in complaints--and Letters to the Editor are far more frequently objections than compliments. As Monica Edinger (first reprobate to the left) points out, you might expect objections to the Sex and the City cast of the cast (all good-lookin' white girls) but who expected this? And too often, when you want to start a discussion--as I did with the Nikki Grimes article about black people and the Caldecott Medal--you get zip.
But here is one of the treasures from our archive, ripped from a subscriber's magazine, label carefully removed (coward), and mailed to me in an anonymous envelope:
Beavering away here at our Fanfare list, which will be announced FIRST in Notes from the Horn Book, so sign up, you slugs. And we--that is, Lolly, mostly--are finishing up the January issue in glamtaborous full color and new features. Lolly has really knocked herself out working on it and the editorial staff has given her plenty of good stuff to design. Right now I am at the point in my editorial where I have to makes choices between things like " . . . the Horn Book" and " . . . The Horn Book." And how is your day?
Years before I had this job, I remember listening to Anita Silvey worry over writing the HB editorial and while I made all the polite responses, inside I was thinking really, how bad could it be? It's only six times a year. I have apologized to Anita for this, publicly and in my head, many, many times in the last fifteen years.
Inspired by our Martha, Jonathan Hunt has a good post up over at Heavy Medal about the possibility of a picture book ever winning the Newbery Medal.
On October 3, the Eric Carle Museum is sponsoring a panel discussion about the legacy of NYT children's book editor Eden Ross Lipson along with a display of books from an exhibition Eden had been planning for the museum, "The Silent Cat." While it is NOT true that the Caldecott Committee awards extra points for unexplained feline wanderings in illustrations, it is definitely one of the more offbeat but persistent tropes of the picture book. Mordicai Gerstein will be on hand to discuss and sign copies of his and Eden's new picture book Applesauce Season (in which a dog performs the cat role en travesti.)
Very sorry to read of Karla Kuskin's death last week; there's an informative and appreciative obituary in the New York Times. I was lucky enough to work with Karla ten years ago when I asked her to write something for us about reviewing picture books, a craft at which she excelled.
I'm going to New York next week to help select the new National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and I'm taking names. Here are the criteria:
Author or illustrator of fiction or nonfiction books
U.S. citizen, living in the U.S.
Excellent and facile communicator
Dynamic and engaging personality
Known ability to relate to children; communicates well and regularly with them
Someone who has made a substantial contribution to young people’s literature
Stature; someone who is revered by children and who has earned the respect and admiration of his or her peers
Most important, he or she will have to follow in the big clown-shoe footsteps of Jon Scieszka. Who do we like? Leave your suggestions in the comments.
Former New York Times children's book editor Eden Ross Lipson died this morning. She was the editor who first hired me to write for the Times, and she taught me a lot in regard to how to write for a general audience about children's books. We became pals over the years and I'll miss her. For our November, 2000 special issue on "the Future of Children's Books," I asked a couple of dozen writers and critics to name one book to put into the time capsule for future child readers, and you can read about Eden's choice here.
I don't envy Lois Lowry her BoB choice between Kingdom on the Waves and The Hunger Games. According to SLJ's poll, public opinion is hardly divided: ol' Octavian has eleven votes while Katnip has 157 and is the top vote getter by far in the pool of sixteen.
I'd go with Kingdom (to short-title a short title), but then I got used to the Roger-Hates-Kids meme back when I was SLJ's YA columnist and let slip that I thought library-sponsored YA kissing contests were stupid. Be strong, Lois!
Harper Lee! Listen to a mockingbird in her honor.
I think I neglected to tell you that the new Notes from the Horn Book is out. So, Notes is out! You know, we started Notes as a more parent- and consumer-friendly alternative to the Magazine, so tell your friends, family and patrons about it. Special deal this week: free.
I was sad to hear that Judy Krug, ALA's longtime boss-lady for intellectual freedom, has died. She was quite a force, an irresistible one to be sure, with that unbeatable combination of an iron will and tons of charisma. Years ago I interviewed for a job with her and was completely intimidated.
I'll be in Ohio for the next couple of days for the Media Source board meeting, where I have to do my first Power Point presentation. Just two slides, thank goodness. Has anyone read Edward Tufte's broadside against the medium? Here's an appropriately formatted outline of his points.
From Work with Children in Public Libraries by Effie L. Power (ALA, 1943):
"Nationality and race influence mode and type of reading and therefore library selection. Jewish boys and girls are inclined to read serious books on mature subjects, and Italian children who live most naturally out-of-doors under sunny skies read reluctantly but enjoy picture books, poetry, and fairy tales. German American children make wide use of books on handicrafts which Jewish children largely ignore and from which Italian children choose few except those related to arts, such as wood carving, metal designing, and painting. The Czech children read history and biography. Probably the greatest readers of fiction are found among native American children."
I do like this:
"Girls, like boys, are seeking life, but in a different way. They need some so-called boys' books with moving plots and an adventurous hero to take them out of themselves and to keep them from becoming too introspective; for the opposite reason boys need some of the so-called girls' books, for their suggestions of self-analysis and wholesome sentiment."
The most arcane thing I've found thus far is a small LP from 1963 called "A Message from Lois Lenski: The Making of a Picture Book." Who's got a record player?
I'm weeding the Horn Book's collection of professional, scholarly, and other adult books about children's literature, and damned if I didn't find a strange little trend. Along with the many out-of-date bibliographies and childhood reading memoirs by the foremothers (don't worry, I'm keeping those) are lots of coffee table books devoted to the work of Rackham, Nielsen and Dulac, all published in the 70's and designed with the same disco-deco look of this here Bette Midler record. You used to see these books on remainder tables in bookstores all over; if anyone is feeling nostalgic just come and grab 'em from the discards shelves outside my office.
Rachel presents the Ultimate Web Watch (the new overlords may have something planned but we don't know just what yet).
And don't miss the Cynsational interview with Groundwood publisher Patsy Aldana. That is one lady who tells it like it is:
Over the course of your career, what are the most significant changes you've seen in the field of publishing books for young readers?
The abandonment of the once great British and American houses of the tradition of the editor-driven list for a new reign of TV tie-ins, merchandising, and the need to make more and more money.
and frequent commenter here is interviewed over at Cynsations. The photo is graciously intimidating and makes me think Lawzy has the potential to become a true dragon lady. Oh, but when we were young . . . never mind, let's leave something for the memoir. On thing I'll share, though, that Elizabeth did not: as a child, she asked for and received a gift subscription to The Horn Book Magazine.
Newsflash--I was interrupted in my posting by the surprise visit of Marianne Carus, founder and editor-in-chief of Cricket Magazine. She was in the building with her husband Blouke visiting Jackie Miller down at Reach Out and Read. Marianne is Great Ladydom in spades.
Gertrude Stein by Robert Indiana
Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson's opera
The Mother of Us All is a wildly fantasized biography of Susan B. Anthony, who, wondering and worrying over whether her celebrity has obscured her cause, asks of her supporters (in her tremendously moving final aria), "Do you know because I tell you so, or do you know do you know?"
You know. Go vote.
Word.
Seriously! And why is so much of her work out of print? I do not approve.
If I were the entire Caldecott committee, all these problems would disappear.
I dare not sign my name.