Book Ende

I recently found a book on the top floor of the library, buried way in the back corner, that I picked up simply because of the author and the title. "A Sense of Wonder: On Reading and Writing books for Children" by Katherine Patterson. I never preview books at the library. I just grab and go and hope that I picked up something enjoyable. This book, it turns out, was meant to be in my hands at that point in time. The next week I was suppose to talk to a group of people about Children's Literature, both the reading and the writing. I ended up doing very little original talking and mostly just quoting from the book, starting with this...

 "An earnest young reporter asked me: ‘What are you trying to do when you write for children?’ ‘I’m trying to write as well as I possibly can,’ I answered. He thought I hadn’t understood his question. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘What I mean is, what is your philosophy of writing for children? Isn’t there some moral you want to get across to them? Aren’t there some values you wish to instill in your young readers?’ ‘I’m trying,’ I said, ‘to write for my readers the best story, the truest story of which I am capable.’ He gave up on me and changed the subject, frustrated and annoyed. He seemed to share the view of many intelligent, well-educated, well-meaning people that, while adult literature may aim to be art, the object of children’s books is to whip the little rascals into shape… But those of us who write for children are called, not to do something to a child, but to be someone for a child."

My question, first to myself and then to my audience, was this: What does it look like, rather than trying to do something to my audience, to be someone for my audience?

The answer, in another Patterson quote:

"When I walk into a room full of well-dressed people, I never walk in alone. With me is a nine-year-old who knows her clothes are out of a missionary barrel, her accent is foreign, and her mannerisms peculiar- a child who knows that if she is lucky she will be ignored and if unlucky she will be sneered at. But the gift of maturity is this- not that I can ever excise that frightened, lonely nine-year-old or that I even want to, but that when I walk into that room I quickly recognize a hundred children just as fearful and desperate as I. And even if they are afraid to reach out to me, I can feel, along with my own nine-year-old loneliness, a kind of compassion, and make an attempt to reach out to them… The reader I want to change is that burdened child within myself. As I begin a book, I am in a way inviting her along to see if there might be some path through this wilderness that we might hack out together, some oasis in this desert where we might find refreshment, some sheltered spot where we might lay our burden down. This is done by means of a story…"


Think of the stories that were your favorites as a child. Do you remember the sound of your Mom or Dad’s voice reading it to you? Or the colors and shapes in the pictures that signaled to you, the child, everything that was going to take place in the words surrounding it in just one glance? Maybe you remember feeling that you were that main character, that his or her problems were your problems and if you could just get to the end of the book and figure out how they fix it, then you’d know to fix it too.  For one reason or another these stories were precious to you. That author met you through that story at the place where you needed to be met, whether the author realized it or not.  Their story met your story.

As a writer, I can’t know who is going to read my book and I can’t know what story they need to hear. The only thing I can do to make sure it's a good story - to make it art. “I’m trying…to write for my readers the best story, the truest story of which I am capable" (Patterson).