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by Liz Garton Scanlon

Recently, while discussing poetry with a bunch of 5^th graders, I discovered a word that’s pretty much left our daily vernacular: loafe.

Whitman used it in SONG OF MYSELF…

I loafe and invite my soul
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass

…but not a single student knew what the word meant. There were jokes about loaves of bread, and one girl thought she had it, but it turns out she’d gotten it mixed up with loathe. Which, you’ll agree, is another thing entirely.

Image via becuo.com

Once I defined the word for them, they loved it. I said, “Pretty great, right? To be given permission–even encouragement–to loafe about?!” and everybody laughed with relief. (Except for one boy who said, “I try to loafe about a LOT, but my mom won’t let me.” :-) )

So I stepped away from the session with kind of a two-part reminder to myself, and since it’s fresh on my mind, I’ll remind you, too:

1. Loafe about. Seriously. Creativity can’t be rushed. You need to absorb before you can express. You need to walk and garden and bathe and dream and breathe. These things are the stuff that art is made of, the places ideas come from, the source of a sustained head and heart. Really, loafing about isn’t just important when making picture books–it’s important when living life. Professor Omid Safi asked, in a recent column called The Disease of Being Busy, “When did we forget that we are human beings, not human doings?” We know this, right? Right. This is just a reminder.
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2. And here’s the other one. Let’s not let really great words like loafe go by the by. Let’s use them. I snuck the word kin into my book ALL THE WORLD, and strut into NOODLE & LOU. I used crimp in THE GOOD-PIE PARTY and hue in THINK BIG. These words are evocative and specific and rich and onomatopoeic–they’re too good to let go! And, as writers, it’s our duty to make sure that we’re not just left with a bunch of OMGs and LOLs on judgment day.

How about you make a list of words you used to hear and use, but never do anymore? What if you wrote down all the phrases your granddad used to say? And what if one of them gave you an idea? Picture books aren’t designed to dumb down; they’re meant to open up and out.   They’re meant to expand the words and the world that a child has at hand. Lucky us to be a part of all that.

So go ahead, make that list.

And then, what the heck, loafe about for a bit.

Liz Garton Scanlon is the author of the highly-acclaimed Caldecott-honored children’s book All the World, illustrated by Marla Frazee, as well as this year’s The Good-Pie Party, illustrated by Kady McDonald Denton. Other books include Happy Birthday, Bunny; Think Big, A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes, and more. Her next picture book (called In The Canyon) and her first novel for young readers, The Great Good Summer, are both due in 2015. Ms. Scanlon is also a poet, teacher and a frequent and popular presenter at schools, libraries and conferences. To learn more, visit her web site at LizGartonScanlon.com.

Liz is giving away two copies of her latest picture book, THE GOOD-PIE PARTY! (YUMMY!)

These prizes will be given away at the conclusion of PiBoIdMo. You are eligible for these prizes if:

1. You have registered for PiBoIdMo.
2. You have commented ONCE ONLY on today’s post.
3. You have completed the PiBoIdMo challenge. (You will have to sign the PiBoIdMo Pledge at the end of the event.)

Good luck, everyone!

by Liz Garton Scanlon

I have to be honest with you.
I think the word “idea” is a little grand.
And by grand, I mean daunting.

An idea is a huge thing, right?
It requires freshness and originality, it encompasses possibility, it is—not to get all god-like here, but—the beginning of everything!

Meanwhile, we’re always being told, “There are no new ideas!”

Poet Audre Lord said, “There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.” And there are all those books and lectures that tell us there are only about seven plots available on the whole entire planet. And you guys. There is even a web site called “no new ideas” and it is just a blank page!

So. Phew. That’s out of the way.
No new ideas.
We can’t find what isn’t there.

But, this puts us PiBoIdMo folks in a bit of bind, doesn’t it?
What are we supposed to do for the rest of the month?

Well, personally, I think we should try for something smaller.
Not a whole new idea everyday—just a new perspective.

(And, guess what? The Greek origin of the word idea is idein, which means “to see”! Which means I’ve got support from ancient sages here, so let’s go with it.)

What if all we need is a new way of looking at things?
And what if that way is a child-like way?

A child, said author Olive Schreiner, “sees everything, looks straight at it, examines it, without any preconceived idea.”

Have you ever noticed what kids want to do when they’re riding a down escalator? They want to run up it!

Kids don’t look at things as if they’re static or rule-based or already defined. Surprise and experimentation are everyday affairs. Freshness and originality and possibility—all those things I found so daunting above? Ha. Child’s play.

And children, you’ll remember, are our audience.

So, what if we look straight at life today and examine it?
What if we let our preconceptions slip away and see things as children see things?

What if we imagine that socks are pockets (A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes) or that the whole wide world could fit in a book (All the World) or that a worm and a bird could be best friends (Noodle & Lou)?

What if look around, each of us, at the animals in our houses and yards, the food on our tables, the books on our bedside tables, and we just plain see them in a new way? That’s all I’m going to do today, and you should join me. We’ll leave the grand and daunting to someone else…

(And now for the party favors!)

These really great photos that are all about accessing a child’s perspective.

This one is my favorite:

And then this fine bit of musing by a