Josephine Nobisso’s Show; Don’t Tell: Secrets of Writing
illustrated by Eva Montanari
Any veteran of creative writing workshops or critique groups has heard this lament: too much telling! Not enough showing!
Descriptive writing’s tough even for an adult struggling to commit thoughts, observations, memories or imaginings to paper. How can a child be expected to master a skill that eludes so many grownups?
Nobisso does a better job than I would’ve expected with a topic that aims so broadly over their heads. Gingerbread House has sent me several of her picture books, nearly all of them bedecked in shiny stickers for the numerous awards she’s won. This one bore a record six.
But it's the surreal illustrations, acrylics done in graphic novel format, that are key to making sense of Nobisso’s patient, meticulous advice for dispensing with vague words like “nice” or “weird” in favor of greater precision. A lion, duck, penguin and other critters hover around the narration, taking wild stabs at the instructions, chiding each other, and somehow muddling through the literary dreamscape. Each critter’s speech even gets its own font, among the many visual clues that carry us through the more abstract patches.
The activities--including a sound chip and nylon mesh for kids to describe--may take repeated reads to slowly drive the lesson home. Hey, if good writing were easy, maybe we’d all be published.
There are no fancy tricks, Nobisso insists in her forward, just an old-fashioned insistence on picking the right nouns and adjectives. Yep, grammar’s the key to great writing. That may not sound magical, but it's vital to learn that there are no shortcuts.
Rating: *\*\*\
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