The truth about Santa

Lucy and Alice, Christmas 2008I wrote this last year for Cozi, after my daughter Lucy asked for the truth about Santa. My good friend Holly Cupala reminded me it was the season to repost. I hope you enjoy!

Dear Lucy,

Thank you for your letter. You asked a very good question: “Are you Santa?”

I know you’ve wanted the answer to this question for a long time, and I’ve had to give it careful thought to know just what to say.

The answer is no. I am not Santa. There is no one Santa.

I am the person who fills your stockings with presents, though. I also choose and wrap the presents under the tree, the same way my mom did for me, and the same way her mom did for her. (And yes, Daddy helps, too.)

I imagine you will someday do this for your children, and I know you will love seeing them run down the  stairs on Christmas morning. You will love seeing them sit under the tree, their small faces lit with Christmas lights.

This won’t make you Santa, though.

Santa is bigger than any person, and his work has gone on longer than any of us have lived. What he does is simple, but it is powerful. He teaches children how to believe in something they can’t see or touch.

It’s a big job, and it’s an important one. Throughout your life, you will need this capacity to believe: in yourself, in your friends, in your talents, and in your family. You’ll also need to believe in things you can’t measure or even hold in your hand. Here, I am talking about love, that great power that will light your life from the inside out, even during its darkest, coldest moments.

Santa is a teacher, and I have been his student, and now you know the secret of how he gets down all those chimneys on Christmas Eve: He has help from all the people whose hearts he’s filled with joy.

With full hearts, people like Daddy and me take our turns helping Santa do a job that would otherwise be impossible.

So, no. I am not Santa. Santa is love and magic and hope and happiness. I’m on his team, and now you are, too.

I love you and I always will.

Mama

 

Spread the word! 125,000 free books for low-income teens

I posted this on readergirlz this morning, but thought I'd put it up here, too. It's such a good cause!


BREAKING NEWS! First Book is giving away more than 125,000 brand-new books to low-income teen readers.

They’re great books, too, donated by generous publishers. Among the three dozen choices are P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast’s HOUSE OF NIGHT series and Alyson Noël’s SHADOWLAND.

We need your help getting the word out about the A Novel Gift campaign. Right now! Right now! As in, now!

Let's get organizations serving these teens registered with First Book so they can be matched with inventory during the holidays.

Here’s what we need you to do:

Post to Facebook and tweet your beak off about these books using the hashtag #novelgift.

Here’s a tinyurl link to their registration page: http://tinyurl.com/2a5mwpj.

Or you can link to this blog post: http://readergirlz.blogspot.com/2010/11/novel-gift-over-125000-free-books-to.html

Then, get in touch with every group you can think of that works with young adults–schools, after-school programs, church youth groups, community centers, etc.—and let them know that these books are available now. 

The five-minute online registration these groups can use is here:
http://booksforkids.firstbook.org/register/.

First Book is also eager to answer questions, either by email to help@firstbook.org, or by phone at 866-READ-NOW or 866-732-3669.

If you participate, drop us a note at readergirlz@gmail.com to be included in our blog roll of thanks to run December 31.

Be a part of A Novel Gift! OK, go! And thanks, sincerely, from First Book and the readergirlz teams.

Don't check that box!

I'm the devastating beauty in the middle. The bowl cut will come back. It will!The New York Times has a trend story today on the rising numbers of parents choosing to have their kids' school photos retouched: black eyes expunged... cowlicks flattened...yellow teeth brightened.

I first noticed these retouching options a couple of years ago and laughed. Who on earth would pay $8 extra for that?

A lot of people, apparently. 

Oh, how I wish they wouldn't. We spend enough time as grownups ruing our imperfections. Why pass this mania onto our kids, who are, as a rule, at their most adorable?

My 10-year-old went paint shopping with me last year. The guy behind the counter said, "Was it crazy hair day at your school, too? My daughter had that yesterday."

"Nope," my kid said. "Mine always looks like this."

Likewise, my 6-year-old is still trying to figure out how to part her hair, and she thinks it looks mighty fine when she splits it down the middle and leaves her bangs gaping over her forehead like a barn door.

I love this. I even love how kids look with black eyes and scratches. There are usually good stories that go with those--I have a scar under my lip from jumping off the bunk bed backward. I also have strong memories of going to school with a face full of scabs because I fell down while running at top speed up and down hills at a Civil War battleground memorial.

That's real life. It scratches you. It sometimes scars you. And it sometimes looks different from the business we see on TV and in magazines. But it's nothing to hide or feel bad about. We're lovable in spite of and usually because of our imperfections.

Save that $8 for something else, folks--a trip downtown for a cup of hot chocolate sipped outside under the holiday lights. Or for people in Haiti who are still homeless, and still trying to stay alive without enough food or basic sanitation.

The kids are all right, just as they are.

Wisdom from Patti Gauch

Patricia Lee Gauch

My SCBWI chapter invited Patricia Lee Gauch to Washington state for a retreat a couple of years ago, and I got to see first-hand what a fine teacher she is: gentle but demanding, and full of information distilled from a phenomenal career in children's literature.

Patti is not only a published author herself (Christina Katerina and the Box, Thunder at Gettysburg, and The Knitting of Elizabeth Amelia), she has edited some of the finest writers in the business: Brian Jacques, T.A. Barron, Andrew Clements, Jane Yolen, Janet Lisle, Katherine Erkskine, and Barbara Joosse.

She's worked with artists Eric Carle, David Small, Ed Young, Loren Long. Three books she  edited have won Caldecott Medals: Owl Moon, Lon Po Po, and So You Want to Be President.

She's also an unbelievably generous and conscientious editor (though she's retired from her post as executive editor at Philomel Books). Here's an anecdote I received from a fellow SCBWI member who'd submitted to Patti.

Three years after submitting a query and chapter to her, I received a two-page hand-written note and my chapter back with another half-page of her suggestions, sent from her home address. The submission had somehow gone astray and in cleaning out her office (she’s leaving Philomel next month) she ran across it. On retirement, most editors would have probably moved all their stacks to someone else’s desk or upended their drawers into a dumpster. Not Patricia Lee Gauch. I’m relieved to hear she will still be teaching. 

Patti will speak on a panel about picture books at our national conference in New York Jan. 28-30. You do not want to miss it. She was kind enough to answer a few of my questions beforehand:

People keep saying it’s a hard time for picture books. How can people who love the form improve their odds at getting published?

The truth is, there have been too many picture books published for many many years. The shelves of Barnes and Noble and Borders, as well as independent book stores, are packed with picture books.  If they have too many books, they have to file them spine out: What mother or grandmother is going to search for a picture book to purchase by the uniqueness of a spine! The face-out-books have a good chance of being chosen by Grandma or Mother, but how many spots are there for face-out books. 

In addition: over time, too many books have been published that are simply not up to the standards of earlier picture books. You don't have to go back to Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel to find great picture books. Books like  Andrew Henry's Meadow by Doris Burn, Harry the Dirty Dog and my own children's favorite: The Sugar Mouse Cake, both by Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham, are great books from that middle period. Too often in recent books, the text is weak, an excuse for some artist's interesting art.  I think there are still great picture books being created--look at Mo Willems' books--I love his sense of humor or Kevin Henkes' books--what a genius; Loren Long (Toy Boat, Otis) is both writer and artist, and it works.  But there is probably some kind of adjusting going on--maybe editors and publishers are reconsidering what a picture book can be; maybe they are going to raise standards!  That would serve everyone. Certainly writers have to come to grips with what a good picture book is in order to write in the best traditions!

A lot of people start out writing picture books before they are aware of the many other forms of children's literature. In your experience, what sort of writer should focus on picture books? And what sort might focus elsewhere? 

A poet or someone who sings or plays a musical instrument has a leg up in writing a picture book.  But, in truth, anyone with rhythm in their bones and a keen sense of Poohish understatement may be capable of writing a picture book.  Because the text will fill 28 single-spread pages, the text of a picture book runs horizontally. The writer needs to read it out loud, almost as she or he writes it, allowing that the shape of the book, how the pages of a book are turned, is all part of writing a good picture book. 

And, yes, writers of picture books need to think pictures.  Talking heads is never a good idea. Most of all, though, it comes down to a writer taking time to encounter--consciously or subconsciously--a great idea! In the Sugar Mouse case, a lowly castle baker has a pet mouse that dances for him each night to a little music box. What a set up!  

When the baker enters a contest to decide who will be the royal baker, all of that set up comes into play, as the baker's mouse fills in for a broken sugar mouse on the baker's cake! You can imagine what happens when, during the actual contest, the castle cat, as well as the queen, discovers that a real mouse is part of the frosting. What a marvelous melee! What a great idea!

What picture books do you recommend every aspiring picture book author read? Which ones best capture the form?

What a good idea to come to understand great form. For originality, look at the oldies like Mike Mulligan and Millions of Cats.  Or look at the young books of Rosemary Welles, who is not only gifted in her art, but knows how to tell a great picture book story.  Think Noisy Nora.  Kevin Henkes writes a wonderfully original slightly longer picture book: Lily's Purple Plastic Purse is a great example. 

Jane Yolen writes in such a wide variety of forms, that she is a good model; notice how in Elsie's Bird, her beautiful text absolutely transcends. It is her powerful use of words that capture true emotion that makes it unforgettable.

Check out Christina Katerina and the Box by me; I wrote this so long ago, I forget it is mine, but it uses a buoyant form, that same Poohish understatement, and creates a sassy character that is hard to forget.  Of course there are other books.

You have worked with the best people in our industry, and you’ve written your own books. If you had to dispense three bits of wisdom you gleaned from writing and editing such amazing talent, what would it be? 

  1. Understand that a picture book is a high art form, not a lowly one, just because it is for young children. Respect the form, and look at the best already published picture books for rhythm, form, and originality of idea. The best teacher is a great book.
  2. The originality of idea is key.  Don't rehash ideas that have already been written. Take off your shoes, think, imagine--brainstorm until you come up with a truly original idea.
  3. Poohish understatement.  Bred on the wry understatement of Winnie the Pooh and Wind in the Willows, the best picture book writers go to that classic narrative and dialogue for telling a story, asides to sidekicks, comments on their adventures, whatever it is. It is an art. Arnold Lobel wrote with that wry understatement in Frog and Toad, but so do many of the best.)

Thank you, Patti, for this interview!

Here's Patti's entry in Wikipedia (she's been in the New Jersey Literary Hall of Fame since Snooki was in diapers). And here's a great tip from a talk she gave at a Highlights Foundation workshop.

Jane Yolen is in the house!

Without the mighty badge of the SCBWI national blog team to hide behind, I'd never have the guts to approach Jane Yolen for an interview.

She's Jane Yolen! Author of more than 300 books! A Caldecott Medalist and Golden Kite winner! Likened unto Hans Christian Anderson! Also, as far as I can tell, she is bionic. There is otherwise no way to explain how she writes so many fabulous books.

You might already know these things about Jane, though.

But did you know that she coined the acronym B.I.C. for "butt in chair"? Did you further know she was the second author ever to join the SCBWI? And that she was the organization's first regional adviser? She  founded and for a decade ran the New England region.

You can see her in person, and if you're a bolder sort than I am, you can actually speak to her at the SCBWI conference in New York (January 28-30), where she will talk to us about picture books. If you haven't signed up, what the dickens are you waiting for?

Jane was kind enough to answer some of my questions. So please read on to learn all about the new BIC, because yes, people, there is a new authorial acronym in town:

How do you keep your storytelling fresh? Three hundred books! That’s amazing! And when you get to 365, I’m going to declare it the year of Jane Yolen and read one of your books every day.

I love that, and will hold you to it. I have 29 books (at this moment) under contract, all but two of them totally written, so I have a big jump on that number!

Since I have a low threshold of boredom, I like to try to write new and different things all the time. Not only does that keep what I write fresh, it means I reinvent myself on a monthly, even weekly basis. I truly believe it's one of the reasons I have had a successful book publishing career since 1963 when my first book came out.

Writers often are told to stick to one format. You’ve had incredible success writing everything from board books to novels for adults. Is it hard to shift? And does your story dictate the form, or vice versa?

The story always dictates the form, though sometimes I haven't a clue as to what that form is going to be. My recent graphic novel FOILED began life as a short story. My picture book LETTING SWIFT RIVER GO started as a novel. When they didn't work properly, I let them alone until I finally knew what they had to be.

Is it hard to shift? It's like being in school. You never got your math course confused with civics, now did you? [Martha's note: I viewed math as a civil rights violation. Is that the same thing?]

Once I am working on something, I am back in that particular zone. (Though I have to admit big novels tend to bleed into one another which is why I don't write them at the same time.)

What advice would you give to discouraged picture book writers who hear that sales are much lower than they used to be? Is this a temporary dip? Or the way things will be from here on out?

I think we are in the middle of several revolutions right now. The big birth bump has moved up into middle grade fiction, but that's a trend that will reverse itself, not just once but many times in a writer's life. More importantly, we are in a Delivery System revolution and no one knows just how that is going to shake down. But story will still exist. I promise you that.

You’re known for the advice “butt in chair,” or B.I.C. Besides BIC, is there any other acronym that we can use to get our work to the next level?

HOP--Heart on the Page. Really. Don't think about trends, marketing, money while you write. Just get onto the page what your heart tells you. Write the book, damn it. The rest will follow. . .if you are good enough or patient enough or lucky enough. But writing the book has to come first; writing the book in your heart.

Thank you, Jane! And now HOP to it, folks. Sign up for the winter conference, polish up your manuscripts, and join us in New York for the time of your life.

Here's Jane Yolen's official website and her blog. Be sure to check out her book trailers.

And here's a biography of her on YouTube, which includes a reading of HOW DO DINOSAURS SAY GOODNIGHT and a really charming interview of Jane.

For a longer interview, stop by Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. And finally, people talk about Jane on Twitter quite a lot. Check out what they're saying here.