I’m in the odd position of loving children without being very good with them. You know how there are those adults who really get how children think? I’m not one of them. But Beverly Cleary sure is.
(So is Emily, judging by her ability to articulate what she likes about SMASHED POTATOES. Plus, children always like Emily. I’m kind of like my dad: I tease kids in the one way I know how, and they either like it or they don’t, and if they don’t we’re both stuck.)
I was thinking about this lately because a few recent reads have had these little snatches of expressing something about childhood or adolescence. John Berger, observant as always, offers these small asides of descriptions in FROM A TO X, the adult novel I can’t stop talking about because I’m so proud I read one — like, “He already had a man’s voice but not the pace of a man’s voice.”
Or this one, which is now one of my favorite all-time descriptions of youth:
What the young know today they know more vividly and intensely and accurately than anyone else. They are experts of the parts they know.
There was a really good example in EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT BEING A GIRL I LEARNED FROM JUDY BLUME, too. Berta Platas kind of mentions in passing an actual event from her own childhood:
I even sighed over Randy, the guy in homeroom who had a crush on me and gave me my first Valentine ever. I read it so many times that I can still recite the little Hallmark poem inside, and the signature, “Your friend forever which is Randall.” Sigh.*
Who could make up a Valentine like that? I mean, I guess a really good writer could. But I sure couldn’t. I love kids.
* (And yes, the inclusion of the “Sigh.” is an example of what I was saying about this book, about being startled by what strikes me as the sloppiness of the writing. It’s just kind of… all like that.)
Posted in Blume, Judy, Cleary, Beverly, Why I love it
“your friend forever which is Randall”! HEE! I’ve probably mentioned this before, but one of my roommates is a 7th grade English & Social Studies teacher, and one of our favorite household activities is reading the assignments she brings home to grade – there’s such a perfect, clear, basic logic to how they think, even when they’re totally and completely incorrect.
I still remember in fourth grade, there was this kid in my class who had a crush on me and he wrote I love LA everywhere, insisting he meant the city – but I knew he meant me (those are my initials).
As long as when said children talk, they use contractions. Ann M. Martin? Definitely one of those authors who doesn’t get how kids really talk or think. (Well…all the “best” kids in her books are Shirley Temple clones!)
Lenore: HAHAHA. That is such a classic kid thing to do — publicly declaring love, and yet refusing to own it.
Actually, I did something similar at the camp I attended at age 11. For reasons I can’t recall, I instantly hated this girl in another bunk, which was called Brumby. One time I loudly said to a friend in her earshot, “There’s someone I really hate in Brumby.”
And then this girl had the gumption to declare, “I know who it is. It’s me.” Which for some reason made me backpedal to deny it, and after that we were best friends for the duration of camp.
Maybe after denying his crush on you enough times, he grew to really love the city of Los Angeles.
Sadako: C’mon, I mean, they say things like “Silly billy goo goo” and “hi-hi”! What more are you looking for?
Actually, I went through my own “hi-hi” phase in high school, and was ashamed of myself. No idea where that came from, besides some sort of years-delayed BSC mind control.
Yeah, I think he might just be the mayor of LA now
Okay I still say hi-hi. But I contract my speech, damnit.