What’s happening in the library?

It’s the Year of the Writer so I’ve been on the lookout for books in the library which reflect the craft of writing, including fiction focused on the creative writing process, letters and letter writing, and diaries. Every now and then I’ll be highlighting a few of them.

Picture books:

Dear Mrs. LaRue: Letters from Obedience School — by Mark Teague. Ike LaRue, a Scotty dog, writes letters from obedience school to his owner, trying to convince her of the hardships he’s enduring, though the illustrations humorously belie his stories.

The Jolly Postman — by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. We have a new copy of this classic in the library (though how long the letters remain intact is uncertain). Famous nursery characters engage in physical correspondence which children can take out of the envelopes and play with, e.g., in the Three Bears’ envelope is a ’sorry’ note from Goldilocks, and the giant receives a postcard from Jack.

Meanwhile — by Jules Feiffer. While reading an exciting comic book and ignoring his mother yelling at him to come downstairs, Raymond notices how comic books use the word MEANWHILE inside a box with three dots after it to change the scene of a story. So he wonders what would happen if he wrote his own MEANWHILE — on the wall behind his bed. Raymond immediately finds himself on a pirate ship in desperate danger. He manages to find a quill and scroll and a quick scribble of MEANWHILE lands him out West, dodging bullets. Raymond keeps jumping from dangerous scene to dangerous scene using MEANWHILE until he finally thinks to shout out THE END!!!

It Could Have Been Worse — by A.H. Benjamin. Another picture book which could be used to demonstrate a simple narrative technique to keep a story moving along, e.g., alternating bad news / good news. A mouse is on his way home and as bad things keep happening to him (tripping, falling, etc.), he keeps thinking how it could have been worse. Only the reader sees how MUCH worse — via the illustrations which show the predators who are foiled at his every small mishap. Similar to Colin McNaughton’s Good News! Bad News! — which literally uses those alternating phrases, e.g., “Good news! It’s a beautiful day. Hooray! / Bad news! It’s a school day. Boo! / Good news! You’ve got the day off. Hooray! / Bad news! To go to the dentist. Boo!”…

Chapter books and novels:

Tales from the House of Bunnicula series — by James Howe (and illustrated by Brett Helquist, who also illustrated the Lemony Snicket books). In the first installment — It Came From Beneath the Bed — Howie Monroe (a dog) has been given a “real cool notebook” by his uncle Harold (also a dog). The book alternates between Howie’s Writing Journal and his actual attempts at creative writing (improved by advice from his uncle). Good early chapter book demonstrating the writing process. Others in the series, in which Howie continues his apprentice creative writing, include Invasion of the Mind Swappers from Asteroid 6!; Bud Barkin, Private Eye; Howie Monroe and the Doghouse of Doom, and Screaming Mummies of the Pharoah’s Tomb II.

Stink and the Incredible Super-Galactic Jawbreaker — by Megan Mcdonald. Another beginning chapter book about the power of writing. Stink writes to a candy manufacturer to complain that the super-galactic jawbreaker he bought didn’t break his jaw. The company responds by sending him a huge box of them. So Stink decides to write other manufacturers and complain about their products — and, of course, receives free stuff in return. Unfortunately his new obsession causes him to almost lose his best friend — making him realize what’s more important in life. The power of idioms to communicate is also humorously conveyed — both in the text and in comic-book pages throughout illustrating idioms such as “sour grapes”, “getting out of the wrong side of bed”, “two heads are better than one”, “put on your thinking cap”, “as cute as a bug’s ear”, “costing an arm and a leg”, “making a mountain out of a molehill”, “feeling like a heel”, etc.

Bambert’s Book of Missing Stories – by Reinhardt Jung. A framed narrative for upper primary students featuring Bambert, a lonely invalid, who survives by writing stories. For the last chapter of his Book of Wishes, he wants a true story, which means a story that has gone out in the world and been re-written by real people. So he uses balloons to set his stories free and waits for them to return, one by one, from the world. And they do — from Ireland, Russia, Spain, Poland, France, Germany, Bosnia, England, and Italy — and we get to read them. However, the truth is that Mr. Bloom who lives downstairs and takes care of Bambert has been using his stamp collection to make it seem that the stories have come back from all over the world. In the end Bambert dies by falling out of the window while trying to recover his 11th balloon. Mr. Bloom writes the last story in which Bambert is reunited with his beloved characters. NB: Booktrusted (UK) has a webpage of ideas for using Jung’s book in classrooms.

Non-fiction books on writing:

There are several books about writing written by popular authors — available in our primary and/or secondary libraries.

Even if you don’t particularly like the kinds of books Stephen King writes, you will still enjoy On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, his half-autobiography, half-writing-manual, published in 2000. You’ll learn about his former drink and drug addictions, his journey from poverty to riches, and how he almost died while walking down a road in Maine in 1999 when a van hit him. You’ll also hear his thoughts on how to write and what makes a good writer.

– If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.

– Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life.

Everything I Know About Writing — by John Marsden 1993). I haven’t had a chance to read this one myself, but it looks great. Section Three even includes a list of 600 writing topics for a variety of assignments.

Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on creativity – by Ray Bradbury (1990). Nine essays on writing by a master.

– And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right…. Secondly, writing is survival. Any art, any good work, of course, is that. Not to write, for many of us, is to die.

– You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. For writing allows just the proper recipes of truth, life, reality as you are able to eat, drink and digest without hyperventilating and flopping like a dead fish in your bed…. The micro-arsenic-dose swallowed here prepares you not to be poisoned and destroyed up ahead. Work in the midst of life is that dosage…. Which means writing as cure.

– Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.