Sometimes I have lunch with the good folks over at Smarmy and Wonkers Children’s Books. Yesterday I was at Yumi’s Deli with Noah Moore-Rimes, Senior Editor, Picture Book Division.
Noah looked glazed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Slush,” he said. “It’s like alchemy. You can’t make gold out of sushi. You can’t make a Gucci purse out of a pork rind.”
Noah poked at his liver and onion hoagie.
I nodded in sympathy.
And then he pulled some sample form rejections out of his brief case.
“Here,” he said. “This is what one of our assistant editors came up with after a record week of no less than 107 Benny the Bunny stories. And there was a Rufus the Rotatiller one in that stack also. I’m really not sure today’s children need to know so much about plumbing.”
Noah paused a moment. His eyes squinched as if he were in pain. He turned his head and muttered, “I still have problems sleeping after reading Spunky Spleen.”
Noah excused himself, and I began leafing through the papers he left on the table.
Dear Author:
Your book, it rhymed, it galloped along.
All of my staff did break out in song
We clapped our hands and wiggled our feet
Man oh man, do you have the beat.
But story..the story…where did it go.
Without any story…our answer…is…
NO!
Hmmmm…., I thought. I flipped that one over and looked at the next one.
Dear Writer:
After opening Elly Envelope with Leon Letter Opener, and reading your story Benny the Bunny on flourescent orange Penny the Paper, Rita the Reading Glasses fell off of my face. I wanted to reach for Tommy Trashcan, but proper ettiquette prevailed, and Penny the Paper went back into Elly Envelope. Next time you might want to send some more friends along with Stanley the Stamp. Peter, Peter, Postage Meter would appreciate it.
Man, I thought, all those Benny Bunny stories are getting to him.
There was another one in the stack. Oh dear, he must have gotten in a humongous batch of rhymers last week. Poor Noah was clearly on the verge of cracking.
Dear Author:
It’s clear that you can count to eight.
You do it with accuracy.
But you know, that’s really not great
It shows your inadequacy.
Do you find it necessary
when your line ends with brown or clown
to be the Icky Rhyme Fairy
and rhyme it with hound or ground round?
Yes, uneven meter and bad rhymes will get to you, but (shudder) I hope I never get to the point that I want to send out something like the last rejection letter I found in Noah’s stack.
Dear Author:
Although your motives may be pure,
there is one thing of which I’m sure.
Every single word you wrote
is fodder for a billy goat.
Noah never made it back to the table. I paid for our lunches and left.
Stay tuned. At a later date, I’ll give you some tips on how not to make an editor cry/or send you the billy goat rejection form.