Why I write for children…
Below are some answers by Isaac Bashevis Singer (taken from his Nobel Prize for Literature Banquet Speech).
To his sentiments I add my own – they are much more fun books to write!
"…There are five hundred reasons why I began to write for children, but to save time I will mention only ten of them.
1) Children read books, not reviews. They don’t give a hoot about the critics.
2) Children don’t read to find their identity.
3) They don’t read to free themselves of guilt, to quench the thirst for rebellion, or to get rid of alienation.
4) They have no use for psychology.
5) They detest sociology.
6) They don’t try to understand Kafka or Finnegans Wake.
7) They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff.
8) They love interesting stories, not commentary, guides, or footnotes.
9) When a book is boring, they yawn openly, without any shame or fear of authority.
10) They don’t expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Young as they are, they know that it is not in his power. Only the adults have such childish illusions…"
PS Someone make me write and publish some of my stuff for kids please – like "A Message to Send" my first book for 5year olds (and those of us who read with them)
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June 6th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I have been thinking about a little quote I read about children having conversations with the grass -I knew where I had read it, at the back of a book on conversations from the ever fabulous Mara in 2006…it was the section where the Elder of the community had responded. But the book was in the basement stored with many others and today, as I went to clean up and move and found it I was surpised at how the quote was not as specific as I remembered it…indeed it was hidden amongst a lot of words…and that made me laugh even more – you just never know which words of your sayings are going to be the most important to someone else ;) so there is sometimes less need to be TOO crazy critical…
the quote (because this is also why I write for children – and increasingly as I focus on our inner and outer environment and contexts, and learn more about the natural one, want to stimulate more of those conversations)
“I get so sad when I see how we adults cut off the conversations our children have with life – with grass, trees, birds and their own imaginations. Engagement in the conversation of life is discouraged when in fact it is the most essential of our capacities, it is embracing the spirit of true conversations that connects us all to all forms of life….I want to suggest…that life itself can be a conversation – with other people, with nature, and with all life” – Anne W Dosher “How Can We Talk It Through” p214 The World Cafe…
Like Anne, my question is around how can we talk it through – the invitation the openness the practice and the joy of life…that said my questions have changed a bit, evolved – I used to ask ‘why are they not talking’ and then I asked why are we not talking – because I have a role to participate too and responsibility- and now I wonder – not just, how? but ‘shall we?”
June 26th, 2007 at 3:33 am
Hello ))) I know that you don’t like this spam,
Bye.