THE FUNNIEST PEOPLE IN BOOKS, VOLUME 3: 250 ANECDOTES
By David Bruce
Dedicated with Respect to Ed Venrick
Copyright 2008 by Bruce D. Bruce
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Cover Photograph
Photographer: Lev Dolgachov
Agency: Dreamstime
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The Funniest People in Books, Volume 3: 250 Anecdote
Chapter 1: Activism to Critics
Activism
• Norman Mailer was an activist, among his many other activities. During the Cold War, he was arrested in New York for civil disobedience when he appeared with 1,000 other citizens to protest a law requiring people to go to fallout shelters whenever an air raid drill was held. When the air raid drill siren sounded, many of the protesters unfurled umbrellas that bore the legend “Portable Fallout Shelter.” Mr. Mailer was also a parent. At the Elliott Bay Bookstore, he once did a reading. Afterward, he signed many books. In line with a parent was a small boy. Mr. Mailer talked to the boy and asked him if he could do something for him. The boy replied, “You could help me with my term paper.” Mr. Mailer laughed, then said, “Oh, no, my son already asked me, and I told him no, too.”
• Some people really take politics seriously. Jack Huberman, a Canadian, became an American citizen so he could vote against George W. Bush in the year 2000 election. Mr. Huberman is the author of the books The GOP-Hater’s Handbook: 378 Reasons Never to Vote for the Party of Reagan, Nixon and Bush Again (published in 2007) and The Bush-Hater’s Handbook: A Guide to the Most Appalling Presidency of the Past 100 Years (published in 2003).
Advertising
• In 2007, a notable hoax was perpetrated by the publishers of the Lemony Snicket books, which are subtitled “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” In this hoax, a new organization, the “Happy Endings Foundation,” was set up in order to promote happy endings in books for children. According to the foundation, “[S]ad books are bad books.” Therefore, members of the foundation wish to get rid of the Lemony Snicket books, even employing two gerbils to shred such books. The hoax was successful, being written up in some book blogs, and of course it garnered even more publicity for the Lemony Snicket books after journalists began writing that it was a hoax. As hoaxes go, this one was clever, and I encourage more hoaxes such as this, even though it may mean encouraging more shameless publicity for books that are so famous and so often purchased that they don’t need it.
• A few decades ago, advertising copywriter Edward S. Jordan wrote an automobile advertisement designed to appeal to women (aka “girls” in the first half of the 20th century) who loved the outdoors: “It’s a wonderful companion for a wonderful girl and a wonderful boy. How did we happen to think of it? A girl who loves to swim and paddle and shoot described it to a boy who loves the roar of the cutout.” Lots of letters from women poured in and praised the ad. A woman from West Park, Ohio, wrote this letter: “I don’t want a position with your Company. I just want to meet the man who wrote that advertisement. I am twenty-three, a blonde, weight 130. My wings are spread. Just say the word and I’ll fly to you.”
Advice
• Daniel Handler is often thought to be the real Lemony Snicket, author of the children’s book series called A Series of Unfortunate Events; however, Mr. Handler says that he is merely Mr. Snicket’s representative. For example, he often appears at book events that Mr. Snicket is supposed to appear at but does not. One day, Mr. Handler appeared at an event and said that an exotic bug had stung Mr. Snicket in the armpit, thus keeping him from appearing in person. To prove that this had happened, Mr. Handler bought the exotic bug—trapped in a glass—with him. He also gave the children who had hoped to see Mr. Snicket in person some excellent advice designed to keep them from ever having an exotic bug sting them in the armpit: “Never raise your hand, especially not in class.” By the way, Mr. Handler’s parents understood how to get him to read. They would read to him at night a suspenseful story and stop reading when they reached a cliffhanger. Then they would leave young Daniel with strict instructions not to turn on the light and read after they had left. Of course, young Daniel would turn on the light and start reading as soon as his parents had left—as they knew he would.
• Barbara Feldon, who played the role of Agent 99 on TV’s Get Smart, is friends with artist Jan Stussy, whom she calls “the most prolific artist” she knows. She once asked him about his creation of art, “How did you develop the courage?” He replied, “When I was in the 10th grade, I realized that if you simply make the first mark, the rest will just happen. Whether it’s that first mark with a brush on a canvas or pencil to paper, boldly make it and then let yourself free-fall. Art creates art.” Hearing this, Ms. Feldon, who is now the author of Living Alone and Loving It, added writing to her other creative endeavors, and she often tells herself, “Make the first mark.”
Agents
• Humorist Alan Coren thought that he wasn’t selling enough books, so he complained to his agent, who told him that very few subjects would definitely sell books, and those subjects were cats, golf, and Nazis. No fool, Mr. Coren titled his very next book Golfing for Cats—on the cover was a picture of a swastika. Newspaper columnist Stephen Moss believes that another subject that will definitely sell books is God—whether the book is pro or con on that particular subject. And yet another subject guaranteed to sell books is how to lose weight. Therefore, Mr. Moss is planning to write a book titled How I Found God and Lost Weight on Life’s 18th Hole. On the cover will be a picture of a cat—beside a picture of Hitler.
• Playwright Arthur Miller could be forceful. After writing All My Sons, he mailed the play to his agent, Leland Heyward, who had not read it one week later. This made Mr. Miller angry, so he went to his agency, demanded that the play be returned to him, and announced that he was leaving the agency. Fortunately, the agency secretary was intelligent. Not wanting Mr. Miller to leave the agency, the secretary asked for permission to allow another agent there to read his play. Mr. Miller agreed, agent Kay Brown read and loved the play, and she called Mr. Miller the very next day to tell him that his play was terrific. She was not exaggerating. All My Sons won Drama Critics Circle Award. For the next 40 years, Ms. Brown was Mr. Miller’s agent.
Alcohol
• If you want to hear some good stories about writers who drink lots of alcohol, talk to Joseph Tartakovsky, associate editor of the Claremont Review of Books. Among his stories: 1) Cratinus, an Athenian poet of the 5th-century BCE, died of grief after seeing a cask break into pieces. It wasn’t just any cask, of course—it was filled with wine. 2) Tennyson was not sure what to do after receiving a letter asking him to become poet laureate of Britain. Therefore, he wrote two letters—one accepting and one declining—then he drank a bottle of port. He decided to accept. 3) Sergio Leone, director of the spaghetti Westerns starring Clint Eastwood, once asked Norman Mailer to write a script for him. Mr. Mailer locked himself into a room with a typewriter and a case of whiskey. He wrote for three weeks, occasionally stopping to sing, to curse, and to order ice cubes. The script was never filmed.
• Kingsley Amis had much experience with drinking way too much, and if any man was an expert on hangovers, he was. One of the things his excessive experience with excessive drinking taught him was to “not take an alkalizing agent such as bicarbonate of soda” when he had a hangover. One dreadful morning he took some bicarbonate of soda, which he chased with some hair of the dog: vodka. His companion decided to do an experiment: “Let’s see what’s happening in your stomach.” The companion poured what was left of the vodka into what was left of the bicarbonate of soda. Mr. Amis writes, “The mixture turned black and gave off smoke.”
• Famed portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh did research on his subjects before taking their photograph. For example, the evening before taking the photograph of author Ernest Hemingway, Mr. Karsh visited Mr. Hemingway’s favorite bar, La Floridita, and sampled Mr. Hemingway’s favorite drink, a daiquiri. The next morning, Mr. Karsh arrived at Mr. Hemingway’s home to take his photograph, and when Mr. Hemingway asked him what he wanted to drink, Mr. Karsh thought that he had the perfect answer: “Daiquiri, sir.” Unfortunately, Mr. Hemingway responded, “Good God, Karsh—at this hour of the day!”
• Kingsley Amis enjoyed drinking alcohol a lot, and he drank a lot of alcohol. He even wrote three books about alcohol: On Drink, Everyday Drinking, and How’s Your Glass? He once attended a stand-up (not dinner) party at which he was offered his choice of red wine or white wine. However, he explained that drinking wine without eating food upset his stomach, but that he would enjoy spirits. Unfortunately, his host said, “Sorry to hear that. I’m afraid there’s nothing else in the house.” Mr. Amis says, “My stomach took five minutes to change its mind.”
• Some people know their wine. British wine writer Oz Clarke once sampled a red wine without being told anything about the vintage. He sniffed, and he tasted, and he finally declared that he knew that the wine was a Paul Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle, but that he could not decide whether it was from 1982 or 1983. As it turned out, the mystery red wine he was drinking was a blend of a 1982 Paul Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle and a 1983 Paul Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle.
• Michael Harrington, who wrote many, many books, including The Other America, on the divide between the American rich and the American poor, enjoyed conversation, including arguments, and beer at the end of a day’s hard work. During one such conversation, he raised a glass of beer and remarked, “The great thing about beer is that it’s one of the few good things in life that the rich do not begrudge the poor.”
• The Irish grandfather of Dinty Moore (author of The Emperor’s Virtual Clothes)—yes, he’s a real person and that’s the name he pays taxes under—smuggled booze from Canada during Prohibition. In one memorable case, he put nuns on his boat then traveled across Lake Erie to Canada. On the trip back, the nuns were carrying bottles of booze under their habits. Why would nuns do this? They were Irish, and they liked a drink now and again.
• Some high-proof drinks can affect you much more than you might think—and much quicker than you think, too. One day, Kingsley Amis shared with two friends a one-half liter bottle of 140-proof of Polish Plain Spirit. He spoke twice. First, he said to a friend, “Cut out that laughing—it can’t have got to you yet.” Shortly thereafter, he said, “I think I’ll go to bed now.”
• John Steinbeck and Nunnally Johnson were drinking at Chasen’s one day when Robert Benchley walked in. Mr. Steinbeck didn’t know Mr. Benchley, and so he asked Mr. Johnson who had just walked in. Mr. Johnson answered, “His name is Robert Benchley. I don’t think you’d care for him. He drinks”—then Mr. Johnson fell off his bar stool.
Animals
• Children’s book author Peg Kehret started her writing career at age 10 with a self-published newspaper titled the Dog Newspaper. The first issue mainly told the story of her dog, B.J. (short for Big Job). B.J.’s story was exciting. He had been born in Germany during World War II. Peg’s uncle was an American soldier there, and he and his company discovered a mother dog with some puppies. The mother dog and all of her puppies except for one was dead, and the American soldiers decided to take care of the one puppy that was still alive. This was a Big Job in wartime conditions, hence the dog’s name, but the dog survived and thrived. When the war was over, the soldiers decided to pay for the dog’s transport to the United States, and they drew straws to determine who would get the dog. Peg’s uncle won. The first issue of the Dog Newspaper was a big success, and Peg sold 12 copies at a nickel each (and wrote in longhand 12 copies of the issue). Unfortunately, the newspaper quickly folded after a few more issues because the dogs in Peg’s neighborhood simply weren’t that interesting. Of course, Peg tried to get interesting copy; she even interviewed all of her neighbors about their dogs. Unfortunately, she learned only things such as this: “All Fluffy does is eat, sleep, and bark at the mailman.” Like an investigative reporter, Peg tried to dig more deeply, and she asked, “If your dog could talk, what do you think he would say?” Unfortunately, the answers to that question were almost always “Feed me” and “Let’s play.”
• Children’s book author and illustrator Denise Fleming believes that the title “Maker of Things” is appropriate for her. Besides making books, she, together with her husband and daughter, made a garden, complete with a small pond, designing it to be very friendly and inviting to wildlife. Living in or visiting the garden have been bats, bees, box turtles, bugs, chipmunks, fish, frogs, moles, possums, rabbits, raccoons, shrews, snakes, squirrels, toads, and woodchucks—even a skunk! Many of these animals have appeared in her books, including some visitors who made their home under her porch, resulting in a book titled Mama Cat has Three Kittens.
• H. Allen Smith wrote Rhubarb, a novel about a cat that is the fortunate inheritor of a professional baseball team. While writing the novel, he started to make the mistake of neglecting the cat and focusing instead on the human characters. One way to keep the cat involved in the story was to have the cat jerk its tail—so Mr. Smith put a sign over his writing desk to remind him to keep the cat in the story. Later, he wondered what would have happened if he had died during the writing of the novel and people saw the sign: “Jerk That Tail!”
• Jane, a daughter of children’s book author Sid Fleischman, grew up loving all living things. As a young woman, she wanted to make a garden where a family of snails lived. Rather than kill the snails, she gathered them up and put them in coffee cans, then she took them to a park and let them loose.
Art
• When he was a child, L.A.-based artist Gronk spent a lot of time in a public library. At one point he even decided to read all the books in the library, beginning with the books with titles that started with A and going through the alphabet to the books with titles that started with Z. Of course, a librarian figured out what he was doing, and she suggested a different approach, saying, “I know what you’re doing—you are trying to read A to Z. But you need to start with the Greeks.” He did read about the Greeks, and the Greeks had an impact on his art. In the mid-1980s, he created the character of La Tormenta, who has appeared in many of his works of art. Gronk says, “The Greeks had Medusa, Medea, Electra. Well, I created my own: Tormenta. It’s an American mythological character. She’s in thousands of pieces from print work to live stage. I even did her as a cookie at a Chicago art fair. She’s a very strong woman but glamorous at the same time.”
• Artist Beauford Delaney taught author James Baldwin how to see. They were standing together on a corner in Greenwich Village, and Mr. Delaney pointed down and told Mr. Baldwin, “Look.” Mr. Baldwin looked and saw nothing but a puddle of water, so Mr. Delaney told him, “Look again.” This time Mr. Baldwin really saw what was there: Floating on the water was some oil, and reflected in the oil was the city. Mr. Baldwin says, “It was a great revelation to me. I can’t explain it. He taught me how to see, and how to trust what I saw. Painters have often taught writers how to see. And once you’ve had that experience, you see differently.”
• Readers of James Thurber tend to love his drawings of people and dogs and life. For a long time at The New Yorker, Mr. Thurber would create the drawings, then throw them away. However, his officemate, E.B. White, fished some drawings out of the wastepaper basket, liked what he saw, showed them to his boss, Harold Ross, who also liked them and started publishing Thurber’s doodles in The New Yorker.
• Edward Gorey’s books, of course, are filled with the grotesque and the macabre. Author Alexander Theroux once interviewed him and asked him why his work focused on “stark violence and horror and terror.” Mr. Gorey replied, “I write about everyday life.”
Autographs
• A nine-year-old boy knocked on Mark Twain’s hotel door to get an autograph, not knowing that Mr. Twain was ill. The boy was about to be sent away when Mr. Twain called from his sickbed and asked that the boy be sent in to see him. He then wrote in the boy’s autograph book, “So live, that when you come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.”
• Sid Fleischman, author of the McBroom comedy series of children’s books, knew that he had made it as an author when a group of kids lined up to meet him—the line of kids included his own seven-year-old daughter, Anne, who wanted his autograph.
Bathrooms
• While attending Eastern Washington State College, young adult author Chris Crutcher got to know a true eccentric named Dumbo Banger. Mr. Banger purchased a seat belt from a NAPA auto parts store and affixed it to his toilet. Whenever a friend visited and had to sit on the toilet, and Mr. Banger did not hear a click, he would knock on the bathroom door and tell the occupant to buckle up because of liability problems should the occupant blast off. Mr. Banger appears as the character named Lionel Serbousek in Mr. Crutcher’s book Stotan!
• Author Peg Bracken once heard that it’s worthwhile to know why a person gets up in the morning, so when she was in college reporting for the school newspaper, she interviewed the Dean of Women and asked her why she got up in the morning. The Dean of Women replied, “To go to the bathroom.”
Books
• Independent bookstore owner (and essayist) Paul Constant is aware of this fact: “Books tend to attract freaks.” He is aware of repulsive freaks, as when an old man returned a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf because it was “defective”: the introduction had been written by a Jew. On the other hand, some freaks can be charming. Mr. Constant once witnessed a young woman on a bus who was so engrossed in reading Dostoevsky’s The Idiot that she didn’t even notice that right in front of her a fistfight had started.
• Jane Cummings and George Clarke lived in the house of the parents of poet E.E. Cummings; they were E.E.’s aunt and uncle. Frequently, Jane would read aloud novels such as Treasure Island or The Old Curiosity Shop to the family in the evening. One volume about the Tower of London, where important political prisoners were imprisoned—and sometimes tortured, murdered, or executed—was especially popular with George. After they had eaten dinner, he would request, “Jane, let’s have some ruddy gore!”
• Humor writer H. Allen Smith once went to a dude ranch, where a friend of his bragged to all present that Mr. Smith was a best-selling author. A cowboy (not a dude) listened to the talk about Mr. Smith’s book, then said, “Never read but one book in all muh life … book called Riders uh the Purple Sage … never gonna read another’n long as I live.”
• One of the advantages of cheap paperback books is that they are disposable. On a long journey by car, Peg Bracken and a friend got bored as someone else was driving, so her friend started reading a paperback thriller, and as she finished each couple of pages, she tore them out of the thriller and handed them to Ms. Bracken to read.
Bores
• Playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan once was given a great deal of advice on a theatrical production by a bore who spoke at great length, finally winding up by saying, “But I fear I’ve been intruding on your attention.” Mr. Sheridan replied, “No, no—I’ve not been listening.”
• The philosopher Aristotle, many of whose lecture notes have come down to us, had a sense of humor. When a long-winded bore told him a long-winded story, then asked him if he were bored, Aristotle replied, “No, indeed, for I was not listening to you.” (Some good anecdotes are attributed to more than one person.)
Censorship
• Occasionally, one of young people’s author Bruce Coville’s books is challenged in a school or library—that means that someone wants the book not to be assigned reading for a class or wants the book to be removed from the library bookshelves. Often, people think that these attempts at censorship will result in an increase in book sales because of the resultant publicity; however, Mr. Coville disagrees because of what he calls “gray censorship”—censorship that is not noticeable and does not make headlines. He acknowledges that the publicity will result in more sales in the town in which the attempt at censorship occurred, but he says that for 100 miles around that town, teachers will think twice before teaching that book and librarians will think twice before ordering the book for their bookshelves. He is afraid that often teachers and librarians will avoid using or ordering his book because they want to avoid controversy. By the way, Mr. Coville had an early experience with controversy when he was his high school’s salutatorian at the time when Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy were assassinated and the Vietnam War was going on. He wrote a passionate speech and submitted it for approval, but he was told by his advisor to write another speech, which he did. This tame speech was approved. However, when Mr. Coville stood up in front of the high school students, he delivered his original, passionate speech. No one stopped him, and afterward, a different class advisor shook his hand and told him, “That was a h*ll of a speech!”
• When advertising copywriter Edward S. Jordan was a young boy, he complained to his mother about the boring, moralistic books boys his age were supposed to read—books about families with an alcoholic father, a mother who took in washing to earn a little money, and a son named Joe who gazed longingly through bakery windows at apple tarts. His mother agreed that those books were badly written, adding, “Joe should drop some arsenic into his father’s coffee. It works faster than whiskey.” She also said that she was going to give him a book to read that she had purchased and that lots of other people had purchased because the Brooklyn Public Library had banned it as being immoral. A man who smoked and drank and swore wrote the book, and he was going to be rich—because the library had banned his book, lots of people were buying copies. She then gave him the book—it was Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• When young people’s book author Susan Beth Pfeffer was a senior in high school, she worked on the school newspaper. Another student on the paper wrote an editorial advocating that if a student had a study period as the last class of the school day, the student ought to be allowed to skip the study period and leave school early. The teacher advisor for the paper sent the student writer to talk to the principal, who forbid—in a very obnoxious way—the student writer to publish the editorial. Years later, Ms. Pfeffer used the incident in her novel A Matter of Principle and based the principal in the novel on the principal who was a censor in real life. (It is difficult to censor the future, and if you try to censor during the present time, you may be mocked during a later time.)
• Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, a play that is seemingly about the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, which resulted in the hanging of 19 people and the crushing of another person by heavy rocks. Actually the play is about the 1950s Joseph McCarthy witch hunt that destroyed the lives of many suspected Communists. Mr. Miller himself was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), where he was told to name friends and acquaintances who might be Communists. Mr. Miller declined to do this, and he was charged with being in contempt of court. (Fortunately, he did not have to serve time in prison, as the charges were later dropped.)
• In 1954, psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Wertham published an attack on comic books, which he blamed for the ills that affected the society of the time. In the book Seduction of the Innocent, he claimed to have surveyed a number of children in reform school and discovered that most of them read comic books. Stan Lee, the creator of such comic-book heroes as Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four (with an assist from the artists who first drew these superheroes), responded, “If you do another survey, you’ll find that most of the kids who drink milk are comic-book readers. Should we ban milk?”
• Graham Greene was Catholic, but the Holy Office, headed by Giuseppe Cardinal Pizzardo, banned his book The Power and the Glory. Years afterward, Mr. Greene had an audience with Pope Paul VI, who told him that he was reading The Power and the Glory and who was surprised when Mr. Greene informed him that the book had been banned. Pope Paul VI told him, “Some parts of all your books will always offend some Catholics. You should not worry about that.”
• One way to censor a book is to steal it. During the 1979-1980 school year, a student checked out four books from a library in Montello, Wisconsin. Judy Blume, who is frequently the target of censors, wrote three of the books. The books were never returned, and librarians concluded that the parents of the student had stolen the books so that no one else could check them out and read them.
• Voltaire was controversial and thought to be impious. Because of the attacks against him, he lived at Ferney, close to the border with Switzerland, where he could escape if necessary. While on her deathbed, Queen Maria Lecszinska wanted his impiety to be punished. However, her husband the King answered, “What can I do? If he were in Paris, I should exile him to Ferney.”
• Sometimes, people try to censor books before they have read them. Some parents once tried to have the book Making It with Mademoiselle removed from a school library, but when they actually looked at the book, they discovered that it was a sewing book from Mademoiselle magazine.
Children
• One of Humankind’s greatest inventions is law. Even people who seem to live outside the law invent their own laws, although they may call them rules instead of laws. As a child, Maya Angelou ran away from home and found a car in a junkyard to sleep in. When she woke up, she found a number of children looking at her. They were runaway children who lived in the junkyard. The children accepted Maya into their group and told her of the rules they had created for themselves. No. 1: No stealing, as stealing would bring police. No. 2: Each child slept alone, in his or her own junked car, unless it was raining—only a few cars were able to keep out the rain. The children lived by collecting the deposits on returnable bottles. They washed their clothing at a Laundromat. On Fridays, they went to one child’s home (when the family was at work) and took baths and ironed their clothing. They also made money by entering and sometimes winning jitterbug dance contests. Maya stayed with the group for one month before moving on.
• When she was a child, young people’s author Peg Kehret suffered from polio, being completely paralyzed from the neck down until one day she felt an itch in her leg and reached one hand down to scratch it. She was so excited that she yelled, “I can move my hand!” Nurses came running to share in the excitement and the happiness. For a while, as Peg regained more mobility, she moved around in a wheelchair she named “Silver” after the Lone Ranger’s horse—she even learned to pop wheelies in the wheelchair! Peg learned to walk again and was able to return home, grow up, get married, and write books. Eventually, she wrote an autobiography titled Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio about her experiences with polio. One boy started crying after he had finished reading the book. When his mother asked him why he was crying, he replied, “Because the best book I’ll ever read is over.”
• Essayist David Sedaris occasionally writes about relatives such as his brother, aka “The Rooster,” who lives in North Carolina; however, he doesn’t think it would be right to write about people such as The Rooster’s young daughter, his niece. Mr. Sedaris says, “I think it’s perfectly OK to write about your parents, but I think it’s creepy to write about your children. So, I told myself I would not write about Madeline. But when I went to my brother’s house last spring, I was thinking, ‘God, I hope she doesn’t do anything memorable. Please let her be boring.’” Of course, this doesn’t mean that he thinks any less of Madeline because she won’t be source material for his humorous essays. Instead, he admits that “when other people say, ‘Well, my niece is the best,’ I feel sorry for them a little bit, because I know that they’re wrong.”
• Beverly Cleary has written many, many books for children, including the Newbery Award-winning Dear Mr. Henshaw; however, she didn’t start out as a reader. Of course, her mother read many exciting books to her that made her eager to learn to read, but the books at school were boring and not what she wanted to read. Fortunately, her mother kept many books, including children’s books, around the house, and one boring, rainy Sunday, Beverly picked up The Dutch Twins by Lucy Fitch and began to read it. That was the kind of book she had always wanted to read. The characters were children much like herself, and their adventures were funny. She read the entire book in one day—she was allowed to keep on reading past her bedtime—and she soon became an avid reader.
• Children’s book author Seymour Simon grew up as a city kid in the Bronx in New York City, and the five-story apartment house he lived in seemed remote from nature. Fortunately, he lived near a vacant lot, so he saw such things as trees, weeds, wildflowers, birds, bugs, and cats hunting for mice, and so he likes to think that he grew up as a country kid, too. As a grown-up author, he wrote a book titled Science in a Vacant Lot. He worked for years as a junior high science teacher, and his love of science keeps him from running out of ideas for book topics. He says, “Our world and the universe are so full of wonders and marvels to observe and explore—and of course to write about!”
• Cynthia Rylant grew up in a coal-mining family in West Virginia, which meant that she didn’t have much money, but she didn’t let that—or other disadvantages—stop her from becoming a writer of books for children. No library or bookstore was near where she lived, so one of her major literary influences became comic books. Another influence on her writing was her ramblings around where she lived—and the animals she met. Believe it or not, this upraising gave her a superpower: Whenever she writes a new picture book, she knows immediately whether it is good or it is bad. How does she know?” She explains, “I just know.”
• When he was young, young people’s author Robert Cormier hated to wear eyeglasses, and one day he thought of a simple way to get out of wearing them: He simply told other people that he didn’t need them any more. This worked for a while, although he had to work extra hard in school because he couldn’t read what his teacher wrote on the chalkboard. Unfortunately, one day his father waved at him from across the street, and because young Robert was so nearsighted, he didn’t recognize his own father. Quickly, young Robert started to wear eyeglasses again.
• As a youth, Edgar Allan Poe was quite a swimmer. When he was fifteen years old, he swam six miles up the James River, against the current—a feat that he thought was the equivalent of swimming “twenty miles in still water.” He also once saved a young friend named Thomas Ellis from drowning. This deed is not as good as it might seem at first, for Thomas explained that “having thrown me into the falls headlong, that I might strike out for myself, he presently found it necessary to come to my help or it would have been too late.”
• Mem Fox, an Australian children’s book author, has had some interesting experiences with very young people. After Mem had published her very first book, Possum Magic, and had not yet published a second book, one small girl held her hand and told her, “I’ve got all your books at home.” And when Mem traveled to an isolated school on the west coast of South Australia, a small boy asked her if she had really written Possum Magic. She admitted the fact, and he sighed and said, “I’m sick of Possum Magic.”
• In 1985, author T.C. Boyle discovered that the local branch of Crown Books carried only mass-market books, not trade paperbacks of the type that he wrote. Therefore, his wife and five-year-old daughter paid a visit to the bookstore. His wife, who remained anonymous, complained that she was disappointed that books by her favorite author—T.C. Boyle, of course—were not carried by the bookstore. All seemed to be going well until his young daughter added, “Yes, and he’s my daddy!”
• As a young schoolboy, Samuel Langhorne Clemens got into trouble with his teacher, and she sent him outside to find a switch that she could use to hit him. Young Samuel returned with a wood shaving that would definitely not hurt if it were used as a switch. Later in life, Sam became better known to the world as the celebrated humorist Mark Twain.
• When poet Robert Frost was growing up, his favorite book was Tom Brown’s Schooldays, which was one of the books that his mother read out loud to her children. Young Robert loved the book so much that he wanted his mother to read and reread the other chapters, but he wouldn’t let her read the ending. Why? He wanted the book to never end.