With Apologies to Screenwriters

This morning I read a book about a boy who gives his sister a "makeover" with permanent markers and chewing gum. The story alternates between the boy's mother scolding him, and other people the boy knows who've made mistakes, too. It's like a series of cinematic jump cuts, and the only way you know which scene you're in is a subtle background difference. It was really confusing.

This cinematic element reminds me of Richard Russo's article "In Defense of Omniscience" from Bringing the Devil to His Knees, which I recently reread. Part of Russo's argument against first-person narration also advises against the old "show don't tell" rule. He writes:

"The trick is to know when to tell, when to show. It should be remembered that we're storytellers, not story showers, and fiction writing is not film. Novels are not pre-screenplays. In a screenplay everything much be shown. There's no such law in fiction. And, often, telling the reader things is a test of what the writer actually knows, and it can also reveal what he or she doesn't know."

Smart words. Except Russo's last book was first-person present. Although his forthcoming book is third-person. Maybe it's similar to the best counter I've heard to the "show don't tell" rule: you show when you need to show, and you show when you need to tell. For first-person versus omniscient: You use first-person when that character needs to tell their story, and you use third-person when that character isn't capable of telling their own story.

I Get Outsmarted by a Second Grader

I haven't seen "Up", but from the trailers the movie looks suspiciously like a children's book from 1990, titled "Wilbur's Space Machine".

I read the book this morning for Rolling Readers. Before beginning it, I told the kids I thought the story seemed a lot like a new movie. It only took until page 6--which showed a square porched house, an old man, and a nuisance neighbor boy--for a girl to pipe up with "Up"? On my first read through, it had taken me until page 13.

Sustenance

On my last Rolling Readers meeting before the kids went on spring break, they told me I often pick books about food.

"You make us hungry and it's not even eleven o'clock."

I thought about it, and realized they were right. I try to pick books from many cultures, and since food is such a large part of any culture, these books often include food. Also, food's a fun topic for children's book writers to base stories around. It's fun for literary writers, too.

I recently wrote a story about a guy who eats a five-pound burrito. An all-food literary journal, Alimentum, has just picked it up. I promise not to read the story to the second-grade class, and make them hungry for Mexican food.

Second-graders Shock Me. Then I Outsmart Them.

(Go Terps!)

Time moves fast. I realized this today when, after reading a book about an acrobat who walks a tightrope between the Twin Towers during the buildings' construction, a student raised his hand and asked about the buildings. I said they were no longer standing, and he asked why. I asked if he remembered September 11, and he looked confused. The teacher told me the kids were born in 2000 or 2001, so wouldn't remember the terrorist attacks. I was totally shocked. Every week I read to these little people, and while I know they are young, I never realized they were that young. I guess I didn't comprehend that anyone hadn't lived through this day that affected us all so profoundly. So I ended by telling the boy that some not-very-nice people had destroyed the buildings.

Since these kids are so young, I was able to outsmart them with the second book, which was about a girl who misbehaves. One of the things she does is show her underpants to a boy on the playground. It probably would've been okay to read, but I didn't want to risk it so I skipped that page. How did I do it without arousing suspicion in some very bright second graders? I taped the pages together with removable tape, and glided right past it, from the girl lying to her class about having 100 beavers as pets to lighting Joey Whipple's shoes on fire. They didn't suspect a thing.

Pants on Fire

There's a liar in my Rolling Readers class. I've suspected it for a few weeks now, and today the evidence became overwhelming.

I like to engage the kids in the stories by asking related questions. If the book includes a toy factory, I'll ask if anyone's been to a factory. If the book's about Karate, I'll ask if anyone practices karate, or another sport.

Today, I found out this kid can play three musical instruments (guitar, piano, and trombone), has marched in a parade, owns a boa constrictor, and has seen a Yellow-spotted Bongo plant. When I questioned him on this last one, he gave me an emphatic head nod.

"Uh-huh. I have."

I told him I thought the Yellow-spotted Bongo was made-up. To which he dropped his head and said, "Oh."

I don't have kids. I've never studied child psychology. But I have a feeling that in some way, lying is part of being a kid. You're learning what you can do with words, and having fun making things up. I make things up every day at Starbucks. It's a smashing good time. I don't remember if I was a lying kid.

I wonder if this kid likes the attention he gets from telling each fantastical lie. Maybe he doesn't get enough attention at home. Still, it could escalate into bigger and more significant lies, and Wall Street doesn't need any more of those. Would it be too bold to read this book next week?

Stop Me If You've Heard This One

In reading to a classroom every week, I like to encourage questions and interaction from the kids. With both of today's books, two separate kids put their hands up early on and proceeded to predict the rest of the story in detail. Successful kids books are pretty formulaic--a moralized ending; good illustrations; onomatopoeia; scene and/or word repetition; and candy, fuzzy animals, or bodily functions--and I guess by second grade you know the drill. Predictable endings in adult books, by and large, suck. But these kids didn't seem to mind knowing how it would turn out; they were content to be along for the ride.

Three, Two, One...

Last week, I talked with some girls about the importance of reading to children. Today, I returned and helped record them on DVD reading aloud a book they'd selected for a young person in their life. We set up the cameras is a small, unused inmate room, the walls of which were cinder blocks painted light cream. It looked exactly like my dorm room with a smaller window. When I realized the similarity, for a second I wanted to also draw other parallels, perhaps in simile form. Freshman year had been tough for me. But then I pulled myself out of my melodramatic funk and realized this small room wasn't some self-imposed prison. It was, literally, a prison.

The girls all did wonderfully. Some were nervous, asking me if their hair looked okay. One had a book with lots of silly words and for a minute she was stressing out, saying, "I don't know these words!" I assured her the kid didn't know them, either. And if she mispronounced something, who cares? From Rolling Readers, I've found that any mistake can be covered up with some personality and a funny voice. Which applies for oh-so-many other things in life.

Persistence

So I read to this second grade class Friday mornings. I love it, the kids seem to like the books, and the teacher gets a break. Between pages, I try to make the stories interactive by asking questions and letting the kids comment, which they’re always eager to do. So much so that I can’t call on all the hands before turning the page, otherwise I’d be there all day.

But these kids are not to be discouraged. If I don’t call on them, they’ll persist in raising their hand after every page. When I finally do, they ask me to go back one, two, three, FOUR pages, so they can make their comment. Sometimes what they’ve been waiting so long to say is a personal story, a question, or an observation.

I used to find this a little frustrating. We are trying to move FORWARD in the story! But now I like that they’re so engaged. And even more, that they will not be silenced. I could skip their raised hand for fifteen minutes, but they will not relent until I call on them. Then they will speak their piece and then fold their hands, completely satisfied. I’m hopeful for our future.

The Trashy Magazines of Children's Books

Last year's crop of kids couldn't get enough of the Black Lagoon book series. This year, only one student had heard of them. But by the time we'd read two, The Teacher from The Black Lagoon and The Cafeteria Lady from the Black Lagoon, they were hooked.

These stories are sensational. They frighten kids (in the way kids love to be frightened) about a teacher who bites a student in half to demonstrate fractions, or grossing them out with soufflé of science experiments.

If this is what it takes to (initially) interest them in reading, I'll buy Mike Thaler's oeuvre.

Back to School

The public schools are back in session, which means I'm back reading to Mrs. Jefferson's second grade class. I reprised the Arthur book Say Cheese! because it's a fresh crop of kids who haven't yet heard me exclaim, in a bicycle-on-a-bumpy-road voice, "This is n-n-n-ot w-w-w-hat I had in mind!"

Afterwards, I asked what books they'd like to read this year. I got some wonderful responses: Strawberry Shortcake, the Max and Ruby series, and Pokemon, which is a chapter book and too long for our thirty-minute sessions. But I admire their zeal.

Stories

I recently discovered an HGTV show called "If Walls Could Talk". If you love stories like I love stories, you might want to check it out. The dramatic recreations can at times be a bit corny, but the stories they tell about people's houses (typically the home's history, which also typically incorporates past owners) are fascinating.

The theme of storytelling continues. Today I read a Little Bill book to my Rolling Readers class. Basically, everyone in Little Bill's family has their "thing" (the father, jazz records; the mother, kitchen heirlooms; the brother, baseball cards). Little Bill doesn't. Upon learning of Bill's frustration, his great-grandmother asks him to make up a story for her. What follows is a silly, nonsensical story about a "something" becoming a "no big thing." I read those pages and thought, "This is like ninety percent of my writing."

I have been remiss in thanking Veronika, my mom, and Bryan for their editing assistance (in both English and Spanish) on a story I submitted to the Napa conference. The manuscript is by no means done, but it would be utter crap without each of your help. Muchas gracias!

Beginnings

Check out this first line:
"When you're in Ms. Frizzle's class, things never happen the way they're supposed to."

Great, huh? It's from a Magic School Bus book, one I read this morning to my second-graders. They really enjoyed this story. I tried something new this week and just read one longer book rather than two shorter ones. It also allowed more time for comments and discussion, which was nice. This book is about warm- and cold-blooded animals, and in some sense I just love the idea of an artsy type helping kids learn science. Bryan would be so proud.

Tell Me a Story

For better or worse, you can keep a lot from a child. In my classroom this morning for Rolling Readers, rather than explain that I hadn't brought the promised Indiana Jones book because I've been laid up with a nasty stomach flu, I simply said I'd brought something else that I thought they'd like. Not a question was asked. My stomach was a conflagration, but I was still able to do all the characters' voices to perfectly hyperbolic pitch. Next week? Indy for sure.

A belated congratulations to my workshop mate, Brian, who recently placed a story.

Happy long weekend!

"Black Lagoon Favorites" by Mike Thaler

My first children's book review!

At this morning's Rolling Readers session, I read the stories in Black Lagoon Favorites, which follows a young boy's wild, worst-case-scenario imaginings of his school's employees. The kids in Mrs. Jefferson's class loved them, and in fact had requested these Black Lagoon stories. Before starting this reading gig, I was stressing about choosing books that would be age-appropriate. Second-graders are usually eight or nine years old. Would a book intended for six-to-eight be an insult? Would nine-to-twelve be boring? It turns out what matters to these kids is, beatifically, a good story.

Rolling Readers

Whoever devised free association as a writing method must have been a parent. My first Rolling Readers story session was this morning. It’s a pretty casual thing; I read stories to a second grade class in Mira Mesa and we occasionally stop and talk about the stories (today: Say Cheese! (an "Arthur" book) and Falling Up). It’s a wonderful group of kids who couldn’t wait to raise a hand and tell me something, whether it applied to the story or not. In asking the kids if they wore bicycle helmets, I got accounts gnarly skateboard crashes, of a bike being pushed into a lake by a parent with an SUV and questionable driving skills, of a loose bike seat. It was all wonderful stuff.

Going into the story session, I was nervous. What if the kids didn’t like me, or my books, or the voices I used for each character? I’d planned on bringing several books that the kids could choose from, and Bryan suggested I add Owen Meany to the mix. Because I apparently have an above-average Owen Meany voice (you know, the boy with the “wrecked voice”), and who doesn’t love John Irving? (Full disclaimer: at a recent baby shower, we brought Crime and Punishment for the tyke, when everyone else had picture books.)

To stave off fear, I considered picturing the kids in their underwear. But I realized I could get arrested for something like that. It turns out my fear was unwarranted. The kids all remembered me from our initial meeting. They were having a snack when I arrived, and showed me their green Vietnamese Jell-o, and confessed they sucked the coating off their white cheddar goldfish and then discarded them. We were fast friends. Then I began lobbing stories their way, which they returned with random stories of their own. I left the session with requests for several other books, and have two weeks to fill them.

Storytelling--click on image to read

Rolling Readers
Patti Christensen
Patchwork Players