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MRBP #5: That must be fun

This was first pub­lished in August  of 2014. On our count­down of Most Read Blog Posts, it’s num­ber 5. In which we look at the idea of “fun” in con­nec­tion with writ­ing chil­dren’s books.

The oth­er day I was hav­ing my annu­al eye check­up. Lisa, the young tech­ni­cal assis­tant was going over my basic data sheet.

LISA:  It says here you are a writer. What do you write?

AVI: Nov­els for kids.

“That must be fun,” she says and moves on to my med­ical history.

“That must be fun” is the most com­mon response folks artic­u­late upon learn­ing what I do for a liv­ing. I sus­pect it con­veys a whole range of infer­ences, such as: since your writ­ing is about kids, the work can­not be hard; that books for young peo­ple are about light­weight sub­jects; that writ­ing for young peo­ple means your life is like a young person’s life, which is to say, with­out much respon­si­bil­i­ty, ergo fun. This hap­pens, I sus­pect because what is embed­ded in adult mem­o­ry about their read­ing when young—if they did read—are books which they recall as frivolous.

At an ear­ly stage of my exis­tence, the pre­em­i­nent shared read­ing expe­ri­ence among us young, would-be writ­ers was The Catch­er in the Rye. Mov­ing along a time line, it became A Wrin­kle in Time, then The Bridge to Ter­abithia. No doubt, oth­er writ­ers can ref­er­ence oth­er titles that caught and held their emo­tion­al intel­lect enough to make them say, “I want to do that.”

Books

In short, the book which pro­vides the great­est impact is the one full of com­plex ideas, char­ac­ters, and emo­tions, a book which artic­u­lates and echoes the com­plex ideas, char­ac­ters, and emo­tions of the young read­er. There is noth­ing wrong about books that are fun. More pow­er to them. I do believe, how­ev­er, it is the hard book that opens the mind and keeps it open.

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