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Title: Words With Wings

Author: Nikki Grimes

Date: Wordsong; 2013

Main Character: Gabriella/Gabby

I am always amazed at how books I read one after the other share similar themes, plots or characters.

On the first leg of my trip to Amarillo, TX last week, I decided it was time to dive into Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard. Bachelard (1884-1962) was a European philosopher whose research was devoted to the domain of intimacy. I’ve only completed the first chapter of the book so far, but in this chapter he describes our relationship to houses both in dreams and daydreams and how the presence of a house in daydreams, literature or poetry through our intimate connection with them, provides a sense of protection. While dreams have been studied, daydreams are more difficult to capture and analyze but Gaston says still of significance.

“Poetry comes naturally from a daydream”.

He describes daydreams as creative and full of life. One who is bored to tears has no daydreams! “And the poetic daydream, which creates symbols, confers upon our intimate moments an activity that is polysymbolic”.

And, on the next flight, I happened to pick up Words With Wings by Nikki Grimes.

Words With Wings is the story of Gabriella (Gabby) who is adjusting not so much to her parent’s separation and to a new school as to her ability to constantly daydream. Gabby admits her mother cursed her from the beginning in naming her after a winged creature, the Angel Gabriel. How then could words not manage to have wings for her?

The first daydream Gabby shares takes he from her breaking dishes to hide from the noise of her parent’s arguing to the safe corner of her grandmother’s house. She goes back to the house of her childhood before feeling enough security to take us through more of her daydreams, all of which are ignited by a single word. Like most children, Gabriella doesn’t quite realize the power in her gifts but readers recognize the beauty of her daydreams and the comfort then provide her.

Nikki Grimes is a writer whose words have wings. She’s one of the few who write in open verse that actually manages to say more with fewer words.

Mine: Pretend.

Mom’s: Practical.

All we have in common

is the letter P.

In her new school, Gabby has this new teacher, Mr. Spicer (based on the real life Ed Spicer) who understands children and nurtures creativity. He’s that elementary teacher we’d want all our children to have.

I enjoyed how Grimes honored daydreaming, something that most people other than Bacheland, take very much for granted. I’d love to have a poster of the cover of this book to remind me to take my 15 minutes a day to sort through my daydreams.

Nikki Grimes also wrote Bronx Masquerade, Jazmin’s Notebook, The Road to Paris and other over 40 other books. She’s won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Works and the Coretta Scott King Award. Words With Wings is a 2014 ALA/ALSC Notable Children’s Book; Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book and a Junior Library Guild selection. The book made the Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2013 list; Pennsylvania Keystone to Reading Elementary Book Award Finalist list and the Nerdy Book Club finalist list.

themes: writing; daydreams; school; friendship

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Bachelard, Gaston, and M Jolas. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994. Print.

Must be something going around... my lazy day is today. Well, not really as I'll be attending a night meeting and writing on that. So until then, I'm cleaning off my kitchen table, reorganizing the office, and daydreaming about a couple projects.

When I was at school, one of my favourite fantasies was that of being a telepath. I loved being able to carry on secret conversations in my head during school lessons, while seeming to have my nose in a maths book. And, since nothing is lonelier than being the only telepath in the world, I created a group of people to be telepathic with – inspired no doubt by stories where this really happened, such as John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids and ITV’s The Tomorrow People. 

Being able to speak with other people effortlessly across great distances was appealing in itself, but the fact that it was a secret and exclusive ability was just as important. This was brought home to me a few months ago, when I was watching a DVD of The Tomorrow People. In one scene, a Tomorrow Person was exploring the enemy hideout, but was simultaneously in telepathic contact with his friends back in TP headquarters. Watching this, it suddenly hit me that what had been a magical skill in the 1970s had now been rendered commonplace and dull – because, well, everyone has a mobile, don’t they? And what is telepathy but a swish hands-free mobile with unlimited credit? I could barely watch it after that. 

But why? What led to my disenchantment? A few explanations occur to me. 

Simple snobbery. As hinted above, it may be that magic keeps its allure only when it’s the preserve of the few – and when it’s a secret. It seems to be standard practice that children in books who discover they have supernatural powers will decide that it's necessary to keep it from the mugg– er, ordinary people. Sometimes the excuses they give for doing so are flimsy in the extreme. Do they really believe they would be a) experimented on by the government or b) put on display in a travelling circus, if people discovered their precious ability to turn into shrews, or make balsa wood taste of cheese? Not for a minute: they just want to be in a Sekrit Club. 

Habituation. I still feel a thrill every time I take off in an aeroplane, and can’t understand people who profess themselves bored at the prospect of living out one of mankind's most ancient dreams. But apparently it does happen. Maybe I’m more vulnerable to this in the area of mobile technology?

The puncturing of the mystery. I'm no techie, but if I put my mind to it I could probably get quite close to understanding how mobile phones work. Does knowing that there’s a scientific explanation detract from the glamour? Shouldn’t it rather add to it – being evidence that even the most commonplace things, like gravity and electrons, can add up to something pretty darned marvellous? 

I don’t know how far any of these explanations really hit the mark; but another of my regular daydreams is quite useful here. In this one I imagine what would happen should I be plonked down in, say, Restoration London. These daydreams usually start off quite well, with people being amazed and impressed by my tales of computers, televisions and the like, and Oohing at the luminous hands on my wristwatch. However, I soon find that I’m quite unable to explain how any of these inventions actually work. I usually end up testifying to a committee of the Royal Society and making a pretty poor fist of it: “Er, well, there’s this stuff called electricity, see, and it flows down the wire – no, Sir Christopher, not like water down a pipe,  more like – well, anyway, it comes out as pictures...”

Robert Hooke in particular is not impressed. 

It’s much more satisfactory to have someone from the past – Shakespeare, perhaps, or Isaac Newton – find themselves stuck in my present, and to act as a tour guide. That way I can bask in the reflected glory of several centuries of technological innovation. Not only that, by being seen through their eyes it even regains something of the lustre lost through familiarity. You should see Newton’s reaction (equal and opposite) to the sensation of taking off in a Ryanair flight to Dublin! Best of all, if he comes at me with one of those awkward questions about how exactly jet engines are put together, I have my answer ready and waiting. 

“Google it, Sir Isaac,” I tell him loftily. “Just google it.”