Does this picture not crack you up? PLEASE tell me I’m not the only one who finds this totally hilarious. (From Publishers Daily). These are Random House employees who celebrated The Cat in the Hat’s 50th birthday at a companywide meeting last week. I really would like to have one of those hats!

The Cat in the Hat was released on March 1, 1957. I found this article from USA Today full of interesting tidbits:

• “The Cat in the Hat was a product of the postwar baby boom. In 1957, 29 million children were in kindergarten and elementary school.
• “Geisel was asked to use only 223 words from a list of 348 words for beginning readers. He ended up using 236.”
• “Geisel thought he could write the book in a week, but it took him a year and a half.”

A year and a half to write a 236-word book! Now that’s INSPIRING!

I’ve started a new category on this blog, children’s books. I thought about going back through my archives and updating my posts to include this category … but nah! I’ve got a little spring fever.

So I’m going to be writing about children’s books more, as I READ more children’s books — and I’m also starting to act more like a kid — which comes in handy since I’m usually surrounded by them.

Today has been warm and sunny, and the girls and I have been practicing cartwheels in the backyard. At my age, this began with some stern directions:

“Girls, do you know what to do if I fall and can’t get up?”

“Dial 911?”

“Yes, but first see if I can talk. If I can still talk, then just go get the phone and call Daddy. If I’m out cold, then call 911 and tell them our address.”

Ah, the joys of aging!

I’ve been trying to reread some of my favorite children’s books, and today I started on From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E.L. Konigsburg. This is about two kids — a brother and sister — who run away from home to hide out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

I loved this book as a child, and now it’s fun to see WHY I loved it.

Today, I read a couple of great similies in chapter two, both in the same paragraph:

The bus bounced along like an empty cracker box on wheels — almost empty. Fortunately, the bumps made it noisy. Otherwise, Claudia would have worried for fear the driver could hear her heart, for it sounded to her like their electric percolator brewing the morning’s coffee.

I also browsed my new issue of The Christian Communicator, which came in the mail today. There was a nice interview with Shannon Hill, a fiction editor with WaterBrook Press. She offered 12 pieces of advice for writers, whether they want to write for WaterBrook (the Christian fiction line owned by Random House), or other publishers.

Her tip #8 included this:

Being well read is a must for editors and writers. At writers’ conferences I ask, “What are you reading?” You don’t have to be reading what you’re writing. It could be Graham Greene or the latest John Gresham or a Harry Potter novel. It tells me something about what you enjoy or what inspires you.

Well, if I were to meet this editor at a writers’ conference, I would have to confess this whopping mouthful of a title: I’ve been reading From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

And turning cartwheels in my backyard.

I was a sophomore in high school when Sarah, Plain and Tall was published, so I missed out on reading this delightful children’s book. I bought it for my girls for Christmas, and we found time over the cold, quiet weekend to read the book together.

What a beautiful story.

I won’t tell you about it — you can read a review here. But I wanted to tell you how interesting it was the way we responded to reading this book together. In this story, Sarah likes cats, and she likes to draw. My daughters and I talked about how nice Sarah must be, since she takes care of animals — and how God loves people who are kind to animals.

While I read, the girls got out some crayons and drew. My six-year-old drew a picture of our fluffy prodigal cat (who ran away but came home), and my nine-year-old drew a variety of little pictures.

When I finished Sarah, Plain and Tall (which was quite short, only 67 pages!), I felt like reading more — so I read the girls a couple of stories they’d written a year ago, when our hamster died. They loved hearing me read their own words, just like I’d read Patricia Maclachlan’s.

Then they each got busy writing something new — which they couldn’t wait for me to read. If you’ll indulge me a minute, here’s what they wrote (along with their pictures):

A Story of Briar Rose (by daughter, age 6)

One day, a little sweety pie named Briar Rose the great pie.
She is not really a pie, but we call her that because she’s really qute.
One day when Mama was reading Sarah Plain and Tall, Briar Rose interrupted my story I wrote when I was in kindergarten by doing something very qute.
She was in the side of the under the couch laying down.
Oh how she loved the warm air coming out of the vent.
Oh how I can’t stand how qute she was!
I could not even sit down because guess what Briar Rose sat down instead.
One time Briar Rose ran away from home. And did not come back for a very long time. We missed her so much. But one day she got sick, and had to come back. We took her to the vet and we saw our grandmother. She had a ear enfeckshen [the cat, not the grandmother] and she tilted her head when she walked. Now it is still tilted.
And still very qute.

(Oh, I almost hated to have to tell her that “cute” is spelled with a “c,” but the teacher in me must do these kinds of things.)

You Can Learn Your Pictures Too! (by daughter, age 9)

Practice these pictures. You can practice drawing, saying, writing, and find these pictures in places around your home. Try to find them in stores too!

Star, Rain, Teddy Bear, Flower, Blue Circle,
Ice Cream Cone, Grass, Rose, Pictures, Potato,
Milk, Juice, Water, Lake, Chick, Swan,
Snow Man, Rabbit, Grapes, Yellow Triangle,
Book, Ball, Jelly Biscuit, Punch, Shirt, Pants,
Skirt, Dress, Rocks, Inchworm, Hearts (Blue and Red)

What would we have missed, as a family, as a mother and daughters, if we’d watched TV instead? Since I can’t stand kid shows, I would have most likely been in a separate room doing my own thing, while they sat in front of the TV.

Or even if we’d watched a movie together, a good family movie, they still wouldn’t have responded with their own pieces of writing — I don’t think. Although watching movies together can be a good bonding activity, it still doesn’t even come CLOSE to the interactive joys of reading together.

I guess that’s why I’m so nuts about books!

I’d love to collect a bunch of parent/child literature responses like mine here — parents who read out loud to their children and experience something exciting — and then teach a workshop of some sort (when my kids are older).

In contrast, here’s an article from today’s Scottsman’s News: Children’s TV is Linked to Cancer, Autism, Dementia. Yes, TV does more to our children than make them fat and lazy; it can damage their minds and bodies.

Read with your children!!! 🙂

When I was at the SCBWI conference (which I’ll be talking about forever!), I sat in a session with one of the Scholastic editors, and she said, “Andrew Clements is one of the most talented writers of this generation. Kids love his books! I wish we could clone him!”

Hmmmm … (a writer I need to learn something from, it seems.)

I happened to read his book, The School Story right before I went to New York, and it was fascinating. It’s about a little girl, Natalie, who wants to be a novelist. Her mom is an editor for a large children’s publisher, and Natalie sees the stack of unsolicted manuscripts that her mom never has time to read.

So a friend of hers, Zoe, offers to become her agent, and the story is so cute — giving me a behind-the-scenes peek at what an editor’s job is like living in NYC. Now I’m curious to read Frindle, which was Andrew Clements’ first novel, published in 1996. It became a New York Times bestseller. What is it about that book kids love so much?

I visited his website, and I found his bio page so inspiring, especially this last sentence. (Brought tears to my eyes even.)

Clements says:

Sometimes kids ask how I’ve been able to write so many books. The answer is simple: one word at a time. Which is a good lesson, I think. You don’t have to do everything at once. You don’t have to know how every story is going to end. You just have to take that next step, look for that next idea, write that next word. And growing up, it’s the same way. We just have to go to that next class, read that next chapter, help that next person. You simply have to do that next good thing, and before you know it, you’re living a good life.

The tag line on Clements’ website says, “Writing for children is a great privilege.” I couldn’t agree more.