Catching up on a Classic: The Phantom Tollbooth

Here on the TeachingAuthors blog, we've been discussing the classic children's books we never read till adulthood. The series was inspired, in part, by Esther's interview with Leonard Marcus in honor of the release of The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth last month. When Esther first told me about the new book, I felt a twinge of guilt--I'd never read the original Phantom Tollbooth. So I suggested this topic to motivate me to finally read Norton Juster's masterpiece. If you're wondering what classics and must-reads you may have missed, be sure to check out the links in the Writing Workout below.

I wasn't reading yet in 1961 when The Phantom Tollbooth was first published, but that was no excuse for my not reading this classic. When, as an adult, I became interested in writing for children, I began reading voraciously in the field. Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, which Mary Ann blogged about on Monday, was one of the many children's books I came to as an adult that I fell in love with. (Unlike Mary Ann, I'm somewhat of a Math geek, which made me love L'Engle's book all the more!) Yet, despite a number of fellow children's literature enthusiasts telling me that Tollbooth was one of their all-time favorites, I never made time to read the book, until Esther's interview with Leonard Marcus inspired me to do so a few weeks ago.

I'm happy to report that I thoroughly enjoyed the book. The wordplay and puns are great fun, but the Math geek in me was especially happy to see the book's celebration of numbers. I was also impressed at how Juster wove important themes about the value of education and action into such an entertaining read. One of my favorite paragraphs (among many) was:

"You must never feel badly about making mistakes," explained Reason quietly, "as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons."

I believe the combination of entertainment and enduring themes contributed to making The Phantom Tollbooth such a classic. I'm grateful to Leonard Marcus for bringing this book back into the spotlight. In case you missed the short video in which Norton Juster, Jules Feiffer, and Leonard Marcus discuss the book's creation, I've embedded it below, or you can watch it at YouTube here.

Are there any classic children's/young adult books you missed reading as a child or teen? If so, please share their titles in the comments below. And if you need suggestions of children's/YA books now considered "must reads," see the Writing Workout below. 

Writing Workout:

Reading the Best Children's Books

How well-read are you in the field of children's and young adult literature? Last year, Elizabeth Bird at School Library Journal's Fuse#8 blog took a survey of her readers to come up with a list of the top 100 Children's Novels. The Phantom Tollbooth is #10 on that list. Now that I've read it, I can say I've read all the top 10! However, I see that there are two in the top 20 I haven't read yet: #16 Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh and #18 Matilda by Roald Dahl. Time to check those out.

If you are a picture book fan, you can see the results of her poll for the top 100 Picture Books, put together in 2009.

The Persnickety Snark blog conducted a similar poll in 2010 to determine the top 100 Young Adult Novels. (I've read the top 9 there. Hmm. More books to add to my reading list!)

If reader polls aren't your thing, this page links to lists of the best children's books as determined by a variety of organizations, including the New York Public Library, Publisher's Weekly, and the UK newspaper, The Guardian. 

Your assignment for this Writing Workout is actually a Reading Workout: Pick a genre and determine which of the books on these "best books" lists you haven't read yet, then read at least THREE of them! When you're done, come back and post a comment to any of our blog posts sharing your experience.

Happy Writing, and Reading!
Carmela

At Long Last--Tessering!

     What book do you wish you had read as a child?  Are you kidding?  I read everything as a child!!

      A trip to the public library was as much a part of my week as piano lessons and allergy shots.  Plus, there were the biweekly class visits to the school library…and then I remembered.  Until graduate school, I had never read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.

    Why not?

    Simple.  The one copy in the school library was always checked out.  For two years I watched someone else check out the book with the cool “space age” jacket graphics.  Wrinkle was the must read, IT book, for fifth and sixth graders. Madeleine L’Engle was our J.K. Rowling.

     The public library?   It owned multiple copies….all apparently on “permanent” check out.

     Then I went to junior high.  The librarian informed me that “Newbery books are for younger children” with a look that made me feel like a dolt for even asking.   

   Years passed and I went to the University of Tennessee, where an MLIS in children’s services meant reading hundreds of children’s books.  Their library had multiple copies of everything, including AWrinkle in Time.

     I’m glad that I read this as an adult.  In elementary school, I would have seen a quest/adventure novel.  The first line of the book is “It was a dark and stormy night.”   I wouldn’t have understood the irony, but would immediately have been drawn into  Meg Murry’s world.

     Meg sounded oddly like me (probably every girl who has read this book thinks the same thing); she has braces and glasses and no social graces. Her father has simply disappeared, apparently abandoning his family.  Again, I could identify.  My father, the FBI agent was gone on out-of-town assignments for months at a time. Some of the neighbors asked if I really had a father.

     That Meg is something of a math whiz and all the math references would have stopped me momentarily. I hated math and didn’t understand people who did.  But by the time we learn this about Meg, we are already invested in her as a character, so I would’ve overlooked this character “flaw”.

    I know I wouldn’t have understood most of L’Engle’s literary references, and would have skipped over them. They are not essential to the basic story.

   What I would’ve understood was the theme of Conformity is Evil and we should all Do Our Own thing.  I would’ve been reading this in 1966, at the dawn of the "Age of Aquarius," when life was all about Sticking it to the Establishment.  The conformity on the planet Camzotz, would have reminded me of a favorite folk song, Malvina Reynolds’ “Little Boxes.”

  Little boxes on the hillside,

  Little boxes made of ticky tacky, 

  Little boxes on the hillside,

  Little boxes all the same.

  There's a green one and a pink one

  And a blue one and a yellow one

  And they're all made out of ticky tacky

  And they all look just the same.   

      Down with conformity! Up with the individual!

      As an adult reader, I viewed the struggle between the villain, IT and Meg, for the soul of her little brother, Charles Wallace, in more spiritual terms. Reading it then (and now) I focused more on the themes of Good and Evil.  I read this the same year I saw Star Wars, and was struck by the similarity in theme. (“Go toward the light, Luke!”)

      As a writer, I know something about Madeleine L’Engle’s struggle to publish this book, her second.  After 30 some rejections, L’Engle had thrown in the towel. Had her agent not sent it to just one more editor, Robert Farrar, at what is now Farrar Straus Giroux, it would never have seen the light of day.  (This is a story I tell myself every time I get a rejection.) When your rejections include words like “weird” “strange” and the ever popular “unmarketable” you sort of lose hope.

      I am sure that those childrens’ editors found the Cold War themes of totalitarianism, brainwashing and a numb existence, unsuitable for children.  When it was finally published in 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, these themes resonated even more. I don’t believe it was an accident that it became the 1963 Newbery winner. (Newbery committees are notable for thinking outside the box—boxes made of ticky tacky.)

     As a writer, I did have trouble with my suspension of disbelief from time to time.  I accepted that Meg and Charles Wallace spoke like adults (because they were “different”).  I was willing to believe “tessering”, even if the explanation involved math and physics (which I still don’t understand.)  I couldn’t decide what Calvin’s role was in all this (Friend? lLove interest? Set up for future sequels?)  I also couldn’t figure out just why Meg’s father was being held captive on Camzotz.  But these are minor points in a book that has stood the test of time.

     2012 marks the 50^th anniversary of Wrinkle’s publication.  I have not read any of the Harry Potter books (either). I wonder if kids will be as wild about Harry, fifty years hence. I think Meg Murry will be around in 2062.

 Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

Poetry Friday, Thankus, and Ten Days of Thanks-Giving ~

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Howdy Campers—welcome!  Come in, come in...it's 

So pull up a chair, grab a steaming cuppa tea,
and read the words of happy (or appropriately despondent)
poets contributing to today's celebration, below!

Today I'm delighted to offer you a sneak peek preview of TeachingAuthors' First Annual...

This year, Ten Days of Thanks-Giving will run November 20-30. It all began with our own Esther Hershenhorn's post about Thankus, which are thank you notes in the form of a haiku.

It's lovely to sit for a moment (or drive my car without the radio, as I did) and think of the one person to whom you'd like to write a thank you note or poem.

Here's the Thanku I wrote today:
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THANKU TO BARB
by April Halprin Wayland
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When rain pours, when my
nose drips—you wrap around me
like my softest quilt.

WRITING WORKOUT:
Write a Thank You Note or a Thanku poem!

For November 20-30, we'd like to encourage you to take some "thank you time"...to try your hand at writing a thanku, or any kind of thank you note, 25 words or less.

So: to whom are you grateful?  A relative, that wonderful next-door neighbor, your hair dresser, a stranger, a teacher?

If you're a teacher, why not ask your students the same question?  And if you and/or your students are overflowing with gratitude and cannot wait one more minute, by all means leave your thankus or 25-word thank you notes in the comments below or email us at teachingauthors at  gmail dot com!

...and remember to write with joy!

P.S: Did you know that November is Picture Book Month?

Our old dog Rosie, reading her favorite poetry picture book

Thanku poem and photo of Rosie (c) 2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights reserved

The Book I FINALLY Read: The Velveteen Rabbit

I confess: until last Wednesday, November 2, 2011, I’d never read, from start to finish,
Margery Williams’ 1922 classic storybook The Velveteen Rabbit, Or How Toys Become Real.
Nor had anyone, while I was growing up, read it to me.

The above two facts got me wondering “Why?”
I certainly loved listening to stories. And once I learned to read to and for myself, I was pretty much always in the company of a book – a Golden Book, a Honey Bunch title, a fairy tale or a biography of a famous person’s childhood.
Was it because stuffed animals weren’t my thing? (Baby dolls and my very own Suzy Walker claimed much of my day’s play.)

To maximize my first-time reading experience, I made sure to purchase and read the Original Edition, illustrated (beautifully) by William Nicholson and published in 1922 by Doubleday Books for Young Readers to instant success.

Of course, I knew of this beloved classic.                                                    
I recall my University of Pennsylvania Children’s Literature Professor Dr. Huus introducing the book, assuming all of us had read it.
There wasn’t a fifth grade class I taught in which at least one student didn’t name the book as his or her All-Time Favorite.
My writers, both young and once-young, wrote, write and will continue to write, anthropomorphic stories about inanimate toys, lovingly referencing the velveteen rabbit.
I knew the story’s oft-recited line: “When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
If quizzed, I could match William Nicholson’s cover, with its heart-grabbing bunny begging to be hugged, to Margery Williams’ title.
I nodded approvingly when reviewers compared the velveteen bunny to Kate DiCamillo’s china Edward Tulane.
The Velveteen Rabbit was the perfect name for baby stores, toy stores, children's dishware and clothing lines.

I simply hadn’t read the book from beginning to end.

From,

“There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged in the top of the Boy’s stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws, the effect was charming.”

To,

“But he never knew that it really was his own Bunny, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real.”

So, what do I think, now that I’ve read it?

Well, the Adult Reader in me teared up at the story’s Truths. Yes, indeedy, it does take a long time to become Real. And by the time you do, “most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby….but these things don’t matter.”
The illustrations so captured the rabbit’s innocence, ingenuousness, his sense of wonder, his sense of delight. I worried, I cheered, I gasped then sighed. The velveteen rabbit had become a Real Rabbit at last.
One story element that didn’t sit well with me, though?  The appearance of the nursery magic Fairy. The wonders she worked left me shaking my head, and not in a good way.


The Writer in me so admired the old-fashioned telling, the lovely language and how Williams built the story across first Christmas, then Spring, then Summer, then the Anxious Times. There was a recognizable sentiment – for the youngest of listeners, for the oldest of readers, and a loveable character who kept me turning the pages. Much of Williams’ language suited the young, accommodating their sensibilities and concrete intelligence. No wonder the book remains a best-seller today and like a true classic, sold well for the past 89 years. Researching Williams’ life, I learned of her father’s death when she was only 7 and how many of her books explored this life-long issue.
Again, though?  The nursery magic Fairy left me cold. I like Happy Ever After endings just as much as the next writer/reader, but the Fairy-driven resolution was too easy.  Or maybe it was how she appeared, from within a flower that bloomed from the rabbit's tear.  Did the Writer in me see a need for fore-shadowing?

As for that Long-ago Child who lives inside me, she shared she was hooked from the get-go, whether she'd played with stuffed animals or not. She seconded everything the Adult Reader liked and best of all, loved Nicholson’s illustrations.
The nursery magic Fairy apparently wasn’t a problem.  In fact, she whispered, “Everything about her was perfect."

If you’d like to read Margery Williams’ The Velveteen Rabbit, again or for the first time, click here.

Esther Hershenhorn

Cultural Illiterate

I am supposed to be kicking off the next series of posts on "the book everyone read before me."  Well... I'm sure you don't have time to read a novel on this topic, and I don't have time to write one, so suffice it to say that my list is very long.

I have written many times about how I was a voracious reader as a kid and was cured of my habit by being forced in middle and high school to plow through the "classics."  I am a slow reader, a picky reader, and now that I am a grown-up, I choose to use my limited time to read only what I enjoy.  Sue me.

My grandmother shared a room with me from the time I was six to the time I was twelve.  She was functionally illiterate and highly disapproved of the time I spent with my nose buried in a book when I could be sweeping, dusting, or learning to cook.  (To this day, I relish the fact that I don't sweep, dust, or cook.)  My mom also did not read for leisure, though she enjoyed reading aloud to me.  I had a few of the old-time classics on my shelf, and I very much wanted to like them.  Hans Brinker (boring -- but pretty pictures); The Wind in the Willows (talking animals?  only E.B. White could make me believe);  I never even got through Winnie the Pooh.  After several unsuccessful attempts to read my way through the 19th century, and I made my peace and happily cast aside the (not-)dusty old tomes for Mitch and Amy and the Bobbsey Twins.  I must say, I never looked back.

My mom tells the story of changing schools in sixth grade and being enthralled by Moby-Dick as read aloud to the class by her new teacher.  We read Billy Budd in high school, and I promptly crossed Moby-Dick off my to-read list.  My dad (who is a reader's reader) raved about The Last of the Mohicans, and I did make it through that one -- only to wonder why I'd bothered. To Kill a Mockingbird was the only book I forced myself through during this period that was memorable to me for its magnificence.

I actually believe that the male-centricness of the "canon" is a big part of my problem.  While I can appreciate his brilliance, I can't say I'm a fan of macho Hemingway.  Whaling and warring are frankly not relatable or interesting to me.  At some point, I looked at War and Peace and Anna Karenina on the shelf in their thousand-page splendor and realized that, as a writer, I would need to know these stories; but I couldn't hack getting through them.  Thank God for movies!

Of course I could write a whole new post about the movies/TV shows I've never seen (inexcusable in a TV writer)...   The older I get, the shorter my attention span.  Since having kids, I can only consume information in small bites -- while working, while on the elliptical, while someone is talking in my ear.  I listen to a book on tape in the car, and my attention wanders.  Kids' books are the perfect reads for me right now -- maybe forever.

My 1st-grade daughter has just begun to read without prompting, totally for pleasure.  I noticed that she would still prefer to choose a long and potentially tricky picture book (i.e., Eloise) than a chapter book that requires more steady effort.  Like me, she appears to be a serial starter (poor thing).  However, as of this weekend, I think Beezus and Ramona has got her. :)

Happy week, and happy reading to all! -- Jeanne Marie

THE ANNOTATED PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH BOOK GIVE-AWAY WINNER!

Congratulations, Carol Grannick, winner of our TeachingAuthors Book Giveaway of Leonard Marcus' THE ANNOTATED PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH!

Here's Norton Juster's synopsis of the last chapter of THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, as typed by his mother Minnie for his editor Jason Epstein at Random House and shared by Leonard Marcus in his recently published annotated volume:

“Milo then says goodbye to his friends, heads for home and after one more detour in the land if illusions he reaches the tollbooth and his room. The next day when he eagerly rushes home from school to take another trip he finds that the booth has disappeared as mysteriously as it came. In its place is a letter which tells him there are many other little boys and girls who have to use it also and that now he must find the lands beyond by himself. At first he is very unhappy but then he realizes that he doesn’t have time to be because there is so much to do.”

Carol Grannick is now sufficiently equipped to discover The Lands Beyond.

Thanks to all those TeachingAuthor readers who entered. I know they are busily engaged in all that there is to do!

Esther Hershenhorn

P.S. from Carmela: If you missed April's fun Poetry Friday post featuring several Dog Poems, be sure to scroll down or check it out directly here.

Dog Poems for Poetry Friday!

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Howdy, Campers!
~
Every day in October, I played around with poems about two things:
a dog and a gift.  I wrote the obvious, I wrote cliches.  Then I tried to write the not-so-obvious.  I tried standing on my head and looking at the topic in a different light.

Here are some of the poems:
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SURPRISE!
by April Halprin Wayland
~
I am hiding, hiding in a
big box with little holes
trying not to wiggle
my butt or wag my tail!
~
Open me, open me, please--
I am drooling to meet you!
~

HINT, HINT
by April Halprin Wayland
~
Mom—I don't mean to whine,
whimper, howl or growl...
it's just that
the holidays
are coming up
and I'm
really,
really,
really good
at picking up dog poop.

WHEN YOU HEAR GOOD NEWS
by April Halprin Wayland
~
when you yell HOORAY
when you are
Mexican jumping beans
and your eyes are
fourth of July sparklers
that is a gift
from the universe
saying good job, good job
or maybe saying
good dog, good dog
~

THUMP, THUMP, THANK YOU!
by April Halprin Wayland~
Look what I got for
Hanukah! Just what I itched
for—my very own boy!

FAVORITES
by April Halprin Wayland
~
My favorite aunt? Cissie!
My favorite uncle? Stu!
The best dessert?
Cheese cake!
My favorite number? Two!
My favorite holiday?
Hanukah!
The best weather? Foggy!
My favorite color? Purple!
The best present? Doggy!

And those are my Poetry Friday contributions centered around a dog and a gift!

Thanks to Laura Salas at Writing the World for Kids for hosting today!

~

So--how about writing your own dog/gift poems...
and sharing them here with us?

Remember to write with joy!

Poems, photos (of Eli, the photogenic dog) and drawings
c) 2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights reserved

P.S. from Carmela Don't forget! Today is the last day to enter for a chance to win your own autographed copy of Leonard Marcus' just released The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth. Enter here by 11 pm (CST) TODAY!

Kidlitosphere Interview Wednesday is Here Today!

Hi Everyone,
As promised, we're hosting Kidlitosphere Interview Wednesday here today! Below are links to recent interviews related to children's/young adult literature. If you have an interview you'd like to share with us, please post a comment containing the url. The interview should meet the criteria listed at the end of this post.

To start out, I'm excited to remind everyone about Esther Hershenhorn's terrific interview with teacher, author, and children's literature expert Leonard Marcus here on our TeachingAuthors blog last Wednesday. Leonard has just released The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth, which includes not only background information about the writing of the novel but also Leonard's own comments on the text. Read Esther's interview here for some fun (and funny!) behind-the-scenes stories, and be sure to enter for a chance to win your own autographed copy of  The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth. Entry deadline is this Friday, November 4, at 11 pm (CST).

Here's the round-up so far. I'll check back later to add more links as they're submitted.

• Tabitha at the Writer Musings blog shares a link to her interview with author Greg Fishbone on the release of his humorous middle-grade novel The Galaxy Games: The Challengers.
• Myra at the Gathering Books blog shared a link to her interview with Ken Spillman, author of the young adult novel Love is a UFO.
• TeachingAuthors' follower Lois Barr suggested we take a look at the Whole Megillah blog, which recently featured an interesting three-in-one interview with the author, editor, and illustrator of the picture book Sadie’s Sukkah Breakfast, written by Rabbi Jamie Korngold, edited by Joni Sussman, and illustrated by Julie Fortenberry.
• Yesterday, the Cynsations blog featured Lena Coakley's intriguing interview with Hadley Dyer, the newly appointed executive children's editor at HarperCollins Canada. 
• Bruce Black at the Wordswimmer blog shares an interview with author Eric Kimmel on his writing process.
• Dawn Simon at the Plotting and Scheming blog has an interview with picture book author George Shannon.
• Did you know that November is Picture Book Month? There's a special website devoted to the celebration. Every day this month, the site will feature an essay by a picture book author and/or illustrator on the importance of picture books. While these aren't technically "interviews," they're definitely worth reading. I've added the logo and link to the official website in the sidebar of our blog. You can also access the Picture Book Month site directly here. In addition to the essays, the site includes activities and resources for celebrating picture books.

Now it's your turn! Do you know of an interview that meets the following criteria? If so, please post the url in the comments below. I'll check back later to add the new links you provide.

1.The interviews must be with someone in the field of children’s/young adult literature, including authors, illustrators, editors, agents, and librarians.

2. Interviews may feature writing tips, illustration tips, cyber tips, etc., as long as the information pertains to children's/young adult literature.

3. Interviews may be written, audio, or video.

Happy writing (and reading!)
Carmela

Interview Wednesday Here Tomorrow!

I'll be hosting the Kidlitosphere Interview Wednesday roundup here on our TeachingAuthors blog tomorrow. I'll be sharing links to interviews that meet the following criteria:

1.The interviews must be with someone in the field of children’s/young adult literature, including authors, illustrators, editors, agents, and librarians.

2. Interviews may feature writing tips, illustration tips, cyber tips, etc., as long as the information pertains to children's/young adult literature.

3. Interviews may be written, audio, or video.

If you have or know of an online interview that meets the above criteria and would like to share the link early, please post it in the comments below. I'll include qualifying links in tomorrow's roundup. Meanwhile, don't forget to check out Esther Hershenhorn's recent interview with Leonard Marcus here on our TeachingAuthors blog, and enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth.

Happy writing!
Carmela