To E.L. Konigsburg, with love and pluses

E. L. Konigsburg, who passed away today at age 83, wrote a lot of books with long titles. T-Backs, T-Shirts, COAT, and Suit. Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. The names were long enough, obscure enough, that I felt I had to read the books to find out what all the parts meant. The stories went in directions I never would've predicted, like down into Jericho Tel, where dwelt the late Tallulah Bankhead, an actress I knew about only from an episode of I Love Lucy. I loved her books because I never knew what I'd find in them, and it would probably be something new.

But, probably like most of us, I loved her best for her 1967 novel From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. When you're ten, and you're starting to wonder just what you could manage if adults weren't there at every step, a story of two kids (spoiler alert) successfully running away and managing to be fairly comfortable feels very worth reading. When they're normal kids who argue deliciously over grammar, who want their situation to be dramatic but also want clean underwear, who get an A and wonder where are the pluses, that's even better. Every line of the book is infused with personality, with observations on life that have stayed in my consciousness for the (wow) twenty years since I first read the book.

I reread it for the zillionth time this evening, and the view from this particular Saturday is different from the one my younger self saw. What innocent characters, not to realize how frightened their parents are. But also, what an innocent book, one in which two actively sought children can hide in a public place. Mrs. Frankweiler (just slightly younger than Mrs. Konigsburg was at her passing) seems prouder of the two runaways than she is worried for them. As a child reader, though I had no intention of emulating Claudia and Jamie (I lived in northern New Jersey, but it would never have occurred to me to hop a train to Manhattan by myself), I enjoyed indulging in a story that told me it was possible.

Claudia wanted to "come back different" from her adventure. She did, and so did I.

The ducklings have made way for me

There's a lot going on right now, and there's been a lot going on this week. I can't make much sense of it all, beyond the renewed realization that I'm part of a great community, both within Boston and within the larger world. The degree to which people who have their own concerns are checking up on each other is pretty amazing.

But this is a children's lit blog, and Boston is a children's lit town. If there's one thing I can make sense of on this stir-crazy afternoon, it's my own experience with Boston in a children's lit context.

When I first learned that there was such a thing as a graduate program in Writing for Children and decided for a variety of reasons that the full-time program at Simmons was the best option, I had one significant reservation: I would have to live in a big city. That thought had me pretty intimidated... until I'd lived here about three days. This place turned out to be pretty small. The public transit surpassed that of any other places I'd lived, and nearly anything was walkable in the right shoes.

And in between classes that examined children's books from every angle, there were places to go! There were author talks! Children's lit panels! Workshops! Summer Institutes! I started a list of cool authors and other children's lit professionals I had the chance to meet or hear speak, and before I hit the end of my two years in the Simmons program, I'd abandoned the list as too unwieldy to maintain. I did internships here with two children's publishers and a review magazine. I've shared my own writing with small groups and large ones. I became a children's bookseller here, a vantage point from which I've seen and embraced both figurative and physical changes in the landscape of the children's section (middle-grade's gotten huge!). Here, I've come to forget that it's weird when most of my reading pile is intended for readers years younger than I.

Marathon Monday has always felt a little surreal as routine acts like crossing Beacon Street become challenges. It's also become a day when I realize how comfortable I've become with the Boston area. I know where the runners are running, and I know how to find alternate routes. (I took the E-Line home and walked to avoid the crowds early Monday afternoon. Six years ago, that option would've meant nothing to me.) This year, things have stayed surreal.

I've always said that Bostonians are obsessed with Boston; Make Way for Ducklings flies off our shelves. This week, that's been even truer, and this week, I feel like we're all Bostonians.

"Liberty and justice for all, including chickens"

I just put down Clementine and the Spring Trip, the sixth installment in Sara Pennypacker's series. I love the Clementine books enough, and find them similar enough to the writing I'm inclined to do, that I've kept reading beyond what's strictly necessary in order to recommend them. What I remember from book to book is that Clementine's hilarious, that she's creative, and that many readers may be able to relate to her difficulty in sitting still. But revisiting the series today reminded me of another thing about Clementine that gives her depth and makes her stand out from other funny chapter book heroines: her truly independent way of thinking constantly leads her to conclusions that show her empathetic heart.

Clementine wisely thinks of herself as having sections like the fruit that's her namesake, and even while she's having fun on a trip to Plimouth Plantation, some of those sections are thinking about what's right and what's wrong. If the Pilgrims left England because of rules they found unfair, should the third graders let the fourth graders make rules about noisy eating? And what of the chicken destined for the soup pot?

The decisions Clementine makes might not be the ones every kid makes, but I love (and I suspect kids love) the way she arrives at them on her own, often through very funny logic. That's what has me sighing spontaneously after every few pages, "I love Clementine."

with apologies to e.e. cummings

june and september, october and may
have poetry too (or so they say)
but time to discover a line that sings
and remember to look beyond prosy things
is easier found in a chosen month, fillable
best when obsessives consider each syllable
not just for meaning, but also for feel
for when words have a peal, they can move you to peel
and you may come home with a smooth round sound
as small or as big as a thought you've found.
For whatever we read (be we you, you, or me)
there's often a self that's inside poetry.

maggie and milly and molly and may went down to the beach(to play one day) and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and milly befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were; and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone. For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15406#sthash.5jV6BCEx.dpuf

maggie and milly and molly and may went down to the beach(to play one day) and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and milly befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were; and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone. For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15406#sthash.5jV6BCEx.dpuf

maggie and milly and molly and may went down to the beach(to play one day) and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and milly befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were; and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone. For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15406#sthash.5jV6BCEx.dpuf

The puppy-sized elephant in the room

Friends, I know you've been questioning whether you can trust me. I know I've presented you with information whose truth is questionable, and even included unverifiable quotes. I know it's easy to wonder whether you can ever believe anything again, and that's too big a question for me to answer for you. But I can answer the original question. Yes, you can trust me.

Just not on April Fools' Day.

Another celebrity picture book, sort of

John Green, dad to now-three-year-old Henry and future dad to Eleanor-or-Alice, is moving into the sort of books his own kids can understand this decade. Dutton just announced a three-picture-book deal with Green and Jon Klassen, who will illustrate the (purportedly hat-free) trio. The first book, due out in Spring 2014, will star a puppy-sized elephant who frets whenever his mother, a potbellied pig-sized elephant, leaves the room. Green says the idea came to him during a game of peek-a-boo with Henry. “I realized that the first step to imagining people complexly is to understand object permanence,” he explains.

Green hints that the picture book will contain a few nods to Nerdfighter parents. “I can neither confirm nor deny that the puppy-sized protagonist will shout ‘French the Llama’ when his mom comes back,” he says. “This is first and foremost a picture book for young children, though. If there’s one thing I can promise, it’s no one will use French as a verb.”

It’s so easy for celebrities outside of the picture book world (and yes, Green’s writing is very much outside the picture book world) to write one as a novelty, but I don’t think that’s what this will be. It seems like he respects picture books and understands that they take more than five minutes and a vague sense that childhood is charming. Green has a long track record of taking on widely varied projects and approaching them thoughtfully, and I trust him to do the same with this.