BOOK SIGNINGS

When do they work?

THE ELECTRIC GRANDMOTHER

I have such a strong memory of watching this part of this strange movie, based on a Ray Bradbury book, as a kid:



I'll never forget the grandmother pouring milk from her finger! It wasn't just strange, it was a little creepy but at the same time the grandmother was very warm and loving. What a strange combination! I don't think you can find that in a movie today. The same goes for books. I posted below about In The Night Kitchen. It's strange, but fun and memorable. "Wacky" as my mom called it. Everything has to be so safe or a bunch of people will complain. But there has to be room somewhere for that kind of material so that children today can end up carrying around powerful memories like I do. Memories like that are important. Not everything has to be happy--it can be a little unsettling or off kilter at the same time. At least I think so.

ATTENTION PROBLEMS

I posted this part on the BRG but I wanted to talk about it for a bit as well. I developed a tick from being so stressed out from the pressure of trying to keep up with the other readers in the 4th grade. I remember reading the same sentence over and over again and I just couldn't focus! I really would try. What really did help was when my mom read to me. I'll talk about that part later. Below is what I asked my mom about:

ME: When was did you first notice that I had attention problems?

MOM: I began to notice that you had a little attention deficit when you were pretty young. But I would not have used that term. I just remember being aware that it seemed noteworthy that I had to ask you a half dozen times if you wanted orange juice or tomato in the morning. I recall being sort of astonished that you wouldn't answer. You were always pretty wired at home. Do you remember asking us to count laps as you ran around the house? Your uncle Ted was probably the first one to comment on your temperament. You were tiny, I mean maybe just weeks old when he held you and said, wow she is very alert. Your hair stuck up like you had been electrocuted. I mean you were wired. You were well behaved in school but let it all hang out at home. You were never mean or destructive, just lively and we did enjoy you.

ME: Was this apparent at home or just in school?

MOM: Your fourth grade teacher (who had a hyperactive son) was the first professional to mention it to us. Or maybe the third grade teacher said it in a very vague soft way. But Mrs. A. referred you to a neurodevelopmental pediatrician

ME: I remember going to a doctor to be tested but I was never told what it was for. I thought it was some sort of intelligence test. It really stressed me out. Why didn’t you guys explain what it was for? Or did you and am I just not remembering?

MOM: I am afraid I don't remember what I told you about why you were going. I usually try to explain things so I would imagine we said it was because the teacher thought you were having trouble paying attention. The funny thing is, that you were first referred for a test to see if you had auditory processing problems. That came up negative. And the Dr. who wrote an evaluation on you, left it up to us, to decide if you should be tried on stimulant medication.

ME: Bridget was a huge bookworm. I really didn’t like reading all through school. I don’t remember you forcing us to read but I do remember having to read a number of books during the summer months as a requirement to get into the next grade. I always tried to get the smallest book possible. You really can’t make someone be a reader I guess! Were there any tricks you tried on me? Or did you just let me be?

MOM: I do think I tried to get you to read. We went to libraries and bought books and encouraged you to read during the summer for fun. But it just wasn't fun for you. I wonder if you would have liked books on tape when you were younger. You seem to enjoy them now. You could have listened while you did other things. I would tell parents of kids who don't seem to enjoy reading to try that.

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In the 4th grade I was brought to a very stern, scary-type doctor who made me answer questions such as: "Repeat after me: Ball, dog, blue shoe." Then I'd do so. Then he'd say: "Remember those three things. Fifteen minutes later he'd ask me to repeat them again. I wouldn't remember them. Was it a memory problem or did I never process the objects to begin with? I was very good with the visual parts of the tests.

Even in college, I'd drift off very quickly when I wasn't interested. So I stopped going to lecture halls entirely. What was the point? I managed to get mostly As and Bs anyway. I studied on my own. After years of dealing with attention problems I'd found ways of dealing with them. But there are many times when I miss pieces of conversations and I pretend that I don't. I MUCH prefer doing publishing business via internet than over the phone because I can concentrate better. Some editors understand this better than others.

In The Night Kitchen - Too Strange?

When I asked my mom what some of my favorite books were as a kid she said, "You of course loved the wild and wacky, In The Night Kitchen," This spurred me to find this video:


And then of course I had to read the comments, some of which irritated the heck out of me:

That IS a weird book. I've come across it once b4 & thought what the??? Your comments on the book are hilarious! Well done!

At first i thought YOU had written the warped book, I kept looking at the cover to see if it really was an authentic main stream published book! Was the author on weird drugs? Is the author head of a pedaphile club?? Fantisy is fun in kids books, but this is more of a nightmare

zaniebobanie 2 years ago
It's sort of a classic -- same guy wrote "Where the Wild Things Are" -- but a very strange classic.

VMKPRO 2 years ago
Glad you liked it. An Owen classic...

DadLabs 2 years ago
Highest Rated Comments
I love this book. It was one of my favorites when I was little and is still one of my fav children's books. I love the illustrations, and the surrealism. Because he's naked on like 4 pages makes it inapropriatte?? Come on. It's a children's book, and it's not like it's graphic. You prudes need to grow up.

NotanEmoJasmine 1 year ago 6
I know this comment is a year old but I just had to say something. Sendak has discussed this book due to all the idiodic controversy and purpsely drew the chefs with hitler mustaches baking the kid in an oven as a hidden haulocaust referance because of his Jewish heritage.

Excellent, very funny review. Exactly our reaction to the story when we first saw it! We have it animated on the "Where the Wild Things Are" DVD (animated version) and our son (2 yrs old) watches it over and over and over! We weren't sure if it was all a bit too surreal but he loves it

leepharps 2 months ago
this is funny but the author is the same guy who wrote where the wild things are so... yea

Lubydo 2 months ago
thumbs up!

billshots 1 year ago
@NotanEmoJasmine THANK YOU

trembleweeds 1 year ago
LMFAO, that was beyond hilarious!!!!!!!

desolate2 1 year ago
this is hillarious

trishiz0 1 year ago
That made me laugh so hard that someone actually came into my room and asked what was wrong. Hilarious.

ChowakeePsycho 1 year ago
Just a small correction, those 3 bakers were actually supposed to look like Oliver Hardy, not Hitler.

This is a sick homo book. they even got hitler chefs in it. OMG!

phantastickyle 2 years ago
they showed his penis in a kids book....

Fantastic. I love how the discomfort just multiplies with every page.

weird book
heatherbreyerhorse
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I really hope that YouTube does not represent the cross population of America. Unfortunately, after working in retail for so long, I'm afraid that it does.

MY DEVELOPMENT AS AN AUTHOR

I've decided to put up some of the interview with my mom in pieces. This is because I want to talk about some of it! AND it's a long interview.

QUESTION:
I remember when I asked you to read my first attempt at a novel. You said something like: “Bridget is the writer in the family. You should stick to art,” or some such. You later explained why you said that. You really thought my writing would be terrible and was trying to save me from embarrassment. But this is why I ALWAYS ask you for advice on my writing before anyone else--because you are honest and I value your opinion. I think we have the same taste in writing and art. Sometimes honestly is hard to swallow, but it always works out for the best. What did you think of my early writing attempts? You can be honest. I won’t cry.

ANSWER:
"I think you struggled with writing in school for the same reason that sometimes made it hard for me to figure out what you were trying to tell me in everyday conversation. You tended to start telling me something as if I was inside your brain. I remember having to ask lots of questions to figure out where your ideas were coming from. This is a really simplistic example; "Mom, she was there when it happened." And I would be totally puzzled and have to say, who what where and when. Consequently your writing was confusing. I think you also had trouble organizing. Remember your little index card to help with a math test. You were allowed to bring one index card with some helpful facts to a math test. You filled both sides with microscopic letters and numbers with no spaces between them. It was like looking sanskrit . Your notebooks came home with huge holes where you must have erased right through the paper. I used to marvel at them. Basically your attempts to help yourself learn, produced chaos. So I was astounded when you began to write coherently. when you were in your twenties. I think that part of your brain just matured late."

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I remember in school wanting to write stories and thinking I had a lot of great ideas. I'm talking about way back in elementary school. We would get assignments like: Write a story about Santa Clause. I never remember more instruction than that. Isn't that strange? I think that is part of the reason why I didn't have the skills necessary until later in life to craft something with a story arch--beginning, middle, and end. I mean, if I didn't like to read and DIDN'T then what examples would I have had to compare to? It wasn't until after college that I decided I wanted to write a novel. The light bulb went off in my head that perhaps I needed to read some novels first! I really didn't read at all unless I HAD to! Strange, right? Even stranger is that I sat down and wrote 250 pages in less than a month. I'm not saying it was anything great but I was able to focus enough to do it. I also got past the first hurdle in the submission process. But when I asked my mom about writing in school she said I was stubborn and didn't want to take directions. Of course I don't recall what I did as a 7 year old but maybe she's right. Maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe I really have matured in my 20s! Is that possible for a brain to continue to grow?

So all of this does have a point. Kids who have attention problems who seem hopeless perhaps are not. This is a message I want to spread.

KIDS SPEAK OUT ABOUT E-BOOKS!

A reader, Michelle Markel, alerted me to her blog post about kids speaking out about e-books (100 or so, grades 4-8) "An overwhelming majority spoke wistfully of the tactile pleasures of traditional books. They liked holding old fashioned books in their hands, looking at their covers, rifling through the pages to see how much they'd read, they even liked smelling them. Paper books made it easier to "get into" the story (the glare of the electronic screen was a distraction). They liked keeping books on their shelves, looking at their spines, holding on to them as a keepsake." Read the whole thing here!

INTERVIEW WITH MY MOTHER - SCHOOL SOCIAL WORKER

Finally! My mom has come through! I sent her a bunch of questions and she answered them.

My mom has been a social worker for 27 years and for 20 of them has been a school social worker (MSW, LMSW). I had my own "issues" growing up so I thought it would be interesting to get her perspective. I was right! I am really fascinated by the answers. I learned something about myself and I hope people will learn that there's hope for kids with attention problems.

I'm including only PART 1. I don't have time to stick the "questions" back in but maybe I will when I get home! (she took them out) Enjoy.


ME: Bridget and I are two years apart (I’m older) but were very different in terms of reading skills. Bridget devoured everything. I remember she’d be curled up in a corner reading Anne of Green Gables while I’d be out running in circles or painting a picture. Did you do anything different with us education-wise?

MOM: You, Bridget and Kaila all loved being read to. Dad and I and your two grandmothers all loved to read to you. Even though Bridget is the only one who turned out to be an avid reader, I still have hope for you and Kaila. I think you all have the capacity to love literature. Some people are just late bloomers. Sorry I am jumping ahead. I'll get back to your early years. You never wanted to skip our reading before bed routine. And it just so happened that you had the exact same taste in children's books as I had. I never dreaded reading to you because I loved the books myself, even the ones we read over and over again. We were lucky to be able to afford to buy luscious books with big beautiful art work. Even though we frequently went to the library, we always bought you books for Christmas

ME: I remember you used to read us a lot of picture books. Can you name us some of your favorites? What were some of Bridget and my favorites?

MOM: One of my favorites was Chris Van Allsburg's The Wreck of the Zephyr. I can still picture the illustrations even though it has probably been twenty years since I have looked at the book. I also loved the sense of mystery and wonder it provoked. It's funny but something about it reminds me of a picture of an imaginary scene we had hanging in my childhood home. I used to stare at it and imagine going there. I called it "babyland". I guess the connection was just that it stirred my imagination. We did not own picture books with colorful illustrations

You of course loved the wild and wacky, In The Night Kitchen. And when I was desperate to get you all to sleep, I would choose the lilting refrain of Goodnight Moon. I loved the colors in those illustrations.


ME: Was there anything you got sick of reading?

MOM: The only books I used to get bored reading were the ones which I guess were supposed to teach kids vocabulary. I remember one that was given to you that was sort of like a picture encyclopedia, with pictures of everyday objects and little bears thrown in to make it more kid friendly. I really avoided books with crappy illustrations.

ME: Kaila (my third sister and seven years younger) seemed to be a little different than us. What were some of her favorite books? I remember she liked a book about a bear by himself. It doesn’t seem like a book that Bridget and I would like. Perhaps this is because we had each other and Kaila WAS by herself… in a way?

MOM: Bridget loved the Berenstain Bear books. I think Kaila did too. Kaila did love Bear by Himself. It was such a quiet little book. I liked it too, I guess because I agreed with the message, which was that sometimes you are your own best company. I think so many kids think they are "losers" when they are alone. But this book put a real positive spin on being alone.

ME: I remember that you read both picture books and novels. It was a mixture. I really loved that. Why did you decide to do that?

MOM: Bridget and Kaila both liked to collect the Berenstain Bear books. Bridget especially loved reading chapter books together. It probably took us quite awhile to get through some of them. I think she liked looking forward to the next chapter. We read the Roald Dahl books, BFG, and Witches. We also read Robinson Crusoe and another book--So Far from the Bamboo Grove--together. She remembers that Aunt Carol got us a signed copy of that one. Bridget did think that made it special. I think going from picture books to novels was a natural progression as you got older and developed bigger vocabularies. Its funny, you didn't like to read on your own, but you did have a good vocabulary and always did very well on standardized tests.

ME: Dad also used to make up stories sometimes and I think both Bridget and I loved that. I think it really encouraged us to be creative. Do you remember that? Did you ever participate?

MOM: Yes, Dad did enjoy making up stories. He would be a natural at that. He is the best one in both of our families at recounting funny things that have happened to him , in a very entertaining way. I think you are too by the way. You have a knack for mimicking people. I did make up stories too, but I think Dads were more memorable. You may not recall this, but I did tell you a made up story about walking upside down. i really used to love looking at the ceiling and pretending to walk on it.

ME: Did your parents read to you when you were little?

MOM: My mother always read to my brother and I. We had an old anthology of children's literature. I think I just loved the fact that we were all snuggled up together peacefully. We had her undivided attention in such a positive way. I could tell that she was enjoying it too. That is what I enjoyed most about reading to my children. The stories in those old books were less memorable than the time spent together. However, I do remember the first book that was ever given to me..

ME: I know there wasn’t a good selection back then and books were only printed in 2 or 3 colors, but do you have any favorites from then?

MOM: My sister gave me Eloise. I just loved it. I think it was the first book that I could call mine. It had a lot more illustrations than the old books and they were colorful and funny.

STREET ART FOR PROMOTION?

Have any of you seen the movie EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP?


(This is HUGE and beautiful!)

If not, I won't get into particulars but it's based on the London street artist Banksy. This is some of his art:


I entertain myself by documenting NYC street art:




(This was all done with drips of paint on the sidewalk!)













You never know what you might see and some of the stuff is really creative. I have an idea for my own stencil - a 1950s woman winking - but I won't say more about that.

I do have a point to all of this that is children's book related believe it or not. Is there ever a way to use street art to promote a children's book? OF COURSE you do not want to promote or encourage kids to vandalize! But are there kinds of street art that one could do that are removable and not damaging to the environment that could work? Some might be very effective for teen books. A long time ago when my book Show Dog came out I thought of putting up "Wanted" posters in the subways. Like--"Lost Show Dog" and then the flyer would advertise the book. That's kind of street art-ish and completely removable.

I just thought I'd throw out the idea since this type of art is very "in"!