Get the Job Done

     Dr. Dial-Driver's Creative Writing for the Popular Market is the final creative writing course left for those RSU English majors who made their minor Creative Writing. It's basically genre fiction, which is fun to explore. That two-thirds of the class are computer-science people is a pain (this class was originally called Writing Video Games), though it provides examples of what we're trying not to do.
     This flashfiction assignment was ghostwriting practice; we were given a random selection of six elements - plot, character, character relationship, setting, and scraps of dialogue and background info. Then we had to turn them into a two-page Western. I was definitely thinking of a Clint Eastwood/Firefly vibe while working on this.

     “Remember those days when we were together? Before you changed?”

     Jack McClain rode through the dusty town of Yatesville, the scalding sunlight roasting everything in sight. It didn’t improve his mood much. Replaying his wife Maggie’s forlorn questioning about their relationship wasn’t helping with the current task at hand, either. That task was to apprehend one Garth Boggs. Yatesville was a three-day ride from their homestead, but bounty hunting was a job. It was difficult to balance when there were problems at home to sort out. Glimpses of corruption of various types were seen in almost every building he passed as he pulled up at the saloon. As long as the drinks kept coming, his relationship with Henry the barkeep were fine. When they weren’t – things were strained, likely because of that time years ago when Jack had to pull Henry into the ranks of the freshly-incarcerated. It was about a year before he and Maggie were hitched – most men would reckon her as pulchritude if it weren’t for that scar ‘long her cheek. So he laid a claim, her drifting days were finished, and it had worked out pretty well. The dubious business dealings of the Yatesvillains wasn’t his problem; keeping a low body count of uninvolved persons was.

     “What the hell’s this?” Jack frowned at his beer after tasting it. ”Don’t look normal.”

     “New truck at a discount. Cain’t say properly th’ name, sold by some German fella out of St. Louis.” Henry slid his Remington revolver across the tabletop and whipped out the lopped-off Winchester underneath the bar. The cowhands in the corner – the only other souls in the establishment at the moment - quit their hand of poker and slunk under their chairs.

     Boggs had entered the saloon.

     Jack whipped around, slinging the mug of beer into Boggs’s face while scooping up the Remington. Blood dripped from a gash over Boggs’s forehead into one eye, and it mixed with the tears and beer droplets running down his face. None of that kept him from swinging the Bowie knife towards Jack’s throatal region.

     Henry emptied the Winchester into Boggs’s hip, and Jack had already pegged his right arm. He was beginning to unholster his Smith & Wesson, just in case, when Henry vaulted over the countertop and snapped Boggs’s left arm.

     “Damn - what’d ya do that for?”
     “You know how much those mugs cost to replace?” Henry snorted. “And it’ll cause you trouble, explainin’ the condition he was hauled up to Wichita in.”

Jack ignored this reply and hoisted Boggs’s unconscious form towards the livery stable where he’d kept the farm wagon, staggering and almost faltering under the weight. Once the cargo was deposited, he retraced his path back to the saloon.

     “You’ll need that, I reckon,” he said to Boggs, flipping the outlaw’s hat into the wagon bed. “No need t’ git overheated any more’n can be helped.”

     “Thank ye,” Boggs whispered.

     “Changed for the better, I hope, Maggie,” he muttered as the horse plodded along some time later, not realizing he was speaking aloud. “Or at least that’s a start, anyway, ain’t it?”

     “It’s a sight better than leavin’ me daid,” Boggs answered from the back. “Who’s Maggie?” 

     Jack ignored him. 

Lost In This Moment

     For Dr. Dial-Driver's Pop Market. This flashfiction assignment was a romance, and the structural commands were that it had to be exactly one page long. So I snuck around the double-space-everything-in-MLA-format rule by writing half of this story in poetry, because poetry can be single-spaced. Because it's me, I knew that the title would be influenced by country music somehow, so the title is borrowed from a Keith Anderson song that Big & Rich later covered. The cover is the better-known version of the tune.

While the swing goes on in the predestined way –

endlessly pacing, like all such furniture must journey –

the background  fills with our friends’ chatter,

someone’s klutzy dog makes quite a clatter,

and I’m one lucky dog with a brand-new fiancée. 

Clasped hands and hearts on that old porch swing; Desiree,  

is it this song that’s such an enchanter?

Don’t answer aloud – let your gaze say

while the swing goes on.

Years from now, this moment will stay

in my favorite memories, thinking of last Saturday,

and though in years ahead we’ll weather paint splatters

and deal with your mom – drat her -

but they’ll be counterbalanced by moments of play  

while the swing goes on.

      This was the rondeau that Mike wrote for his wife Desiree in their hotel room one night on their honeymoon. He had proposed to her while they were at a Fourth of July party hosted by friends; they were snuggled on the creaky porch swing in the Allans’ backyard, and it finally seemed like the right time to ask – they’d survived their first year of school, (they’d figure out the transfer details later) and there was family housing. Most people would say they were crazy, but if their grandparents had made it work so young, why couldn’t they? He set her guitar back into its case (he’d been using as a desk) and tucked the poem between the strings where she’d notice it first thing. Then shaking his head, wonderstruck that this was real life, he slipped under the covers. She grunted sleepily and loosened her grip on the comforter. 

20 Dog-Eared Recollections about "Wishbone"

    This is a BuzzFeed-style listicle because I ran out of time to edit an essay for Dr. Mackie's Creative Nonfiction before the portfolio was due. It was about the PBS show Wishbone, and all the previous drafts were sprawling avalanches of information that scared off most readers. I guess I got a little carried away in my enthusiasm for the subject. Listicles make absorption of information easier to digest.

     1, The 1990s were a great time to be a canine TV star. There was Beethoven the St. Bernard, Moose the Jack Russell Terrier (Eddie from the TV show Fraiser, Skip from the film My Dog Skip), Buddy (from the movie Air Bud, Comet from Full House), and Soccer, narrator/protagonist of the children’s show Wishbone.

      2, Soccer beat out over a hundred dogs during the audition for the lead role. The occasional backflip seen on the show was real; and likely was what won him the part.

     3, Like all stars, Soccer had stunt doubles. Their names were Phoebe, Slugger and Shiner. A dog named Bear was used for the publicity photoshoots.

     4,  Producer Rick Duffield owned a Jack Russell Terrier himself, and he’d been playing with the idea of a children’s show starring a talking dog for a while, but hadn’t ever quite figured out how to make that work. Then his gaze fell upon an anthology of world literature sitting on the bookshelf, and all the puzzle pieces fit together – the dog would narrate classic novels and plays, bookended by the real-world adventures of his people.

     5, Those people were mainly his owner, Joe Talbot, Joe’s mother Ellen, his best friends Samantha Kepler and David Barnes, and Ellen’s best friend/next door neighbor Wanda Gilmore.

     6, There were fifty episodes run on PBS stations between 1995-98, divided into two seasons. Reruns aired until 2001.

     7, Because one parent seemingly had to die in every story starring kids or dogs, Joe’s father Steve died years before the show began due to a rare blood disease.

     8, In real life, the actress who played Ellen (Mary Chris Wall) was actually the mother of Jordan Wall, who played Joe.

     9, None of the main cast ever really had any noteworthy credits after this show ended.

     10, The voice of Wishbone, Larry Brantley, won the part during a callback after an improvised five-minute monologue while watching Soccer be mesmerized by a tennis ball in the corner of the room.  

     11, Almost all the episode titles were puns. (Examples: “A Tale in Twain” was a two-part Tom Sawyer, “Furst Impressions” was Pride and Prejudice, “Bark to the Future” was H.G. Wells’ Time Machine, and Henry IV, Part One became “The Prince of Wags.”)

     12, The literary imaginings inside Wishbone’s head were put together as theater productions, and used a core group of Dallas/Fort Worth-area theater professionals as these players.

     13, The show went well out of its way to break down the barrier required for suspension of disbelief, frequently showing clips explaining how certain visual effects were made during the credits. And the setting of a video game based on the show was the set’s backlot.

     14, These behind-the-scenes clips can be found on YouTube, and there is an entire channel dedicated to showing full episodes.

     15, Eight different spinoff book series were created between 1995-2001, totaling 77 titles in all, continuing the adventures of every viewer’s favorite Oakdale residents.

     16, The sports teams of Sequoyah Middle/High School, where the kids attend, are known as the Bulldogs, and their colors are blue and yellow-gold. Wishbone filled in as the team mascot at one point.

     17, Guest stars included pre-fame versions of Jensen Ackles (best known for Supernatural) and Amy Acker (of Angel and Dollhouse).

     18, Other guest stars were Shelley Duvall from The Shining and, playing himself, Dallas Cowboys fullback Daryl “Moose” Johnston.

     19, Wishbone was replaced by another dog-and-book-related series, an animated TV adaptation of Norman Bridwell’s Clifford the Big Red Dog series.

     20, The Clifford show got a short-lived spinoff titled Clifford’s Puppy Days, whose head writer was Suzanne Collins (of Hunger Games fame). 

Some Writer

     I really enjoyed writing this essay for Dr. Dial-Driver's Children's Lit class.

     In her foreword for the 60^th Anniversary edition of E.B. White’s children’s classic Charlotte’s Web, multiple Newbery Medal-winner Kate DiCamillo (Because of Winn-Dixie; The Tale of Despereaux) writes that White “loved barns and pastures, dumps and fairgrounds, ponds and kitchens. He loved pigs and sheep and geese and spiders” (vi). He also loved subjects as diverse as “rain, harnesses, pitchforks, springtime, fall, spiderwebs, monkey wrenches and Ferris wheels” (vi). Because of this love for the common bits of everyday life, “every word of this book shows us how we can bear the triumphs and despairs, the wonders and the heartbreaks, the small and large glories and tragedies of being here” (vi). In case the reader didn’t catch this aspect on the first reading, DiCamillo is humorously pointing out that another thing White loved was creating atmosphere-enhancing lists, which can be seen everywhere from the description of farm implements and junk cluttering Zuckerman’s barn (13-14) to Fern and Avery’s summer activities (42-44) to the ingredients of the meals Wilbur and Templeton consume (too many examples to mention all of them).

     Charlotte’s Web is a novel about friendship, which also says a lot about good writing, while also being about growing up and facing death, of which there is plenty on a farm. In 1947 White wrote an essay outlining the “Death of a Pig,” published in the January 1948 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. White begins this essay by stating that the traditional farming practice of butchering a hog for wintertime is natural and accepted without question: “It is a tragedy enacted on most farms with perfect fidelity to the original script. The murder, being premeditated, is in the first degree but is quick and skillful, and the smoked bacon and ham provide a ceremonial ending whose fitness is seldom questioned” (Essays of E.B. White 17). On this specific occasion, one ad-lib interrupted that ancient script’s flow – the pig never showed up for his last supper: “I found myself suddenly cast into the role of pig’s [sic] friend and physician – I had a presentiment that the play would never regain its balance and that my sympathies were now wholly with the pig” (17). This particular pig died of a sickness a short time later, despite White’s best efforts of swine-nursing, and thus depriving him of tasty ham and sausage. But soon afterward he began work on his second children’s novel, which starred a pig protagonist.

     Of course, like his earlier children’s novel Stuart Little and his later children’s novel The Trumpet of the Swan, the animals in Charlotte’s Web can speak English. Can animals really talk? It’s a popular idea in the minds of many, and the wise Dr. Dorian doesn’t completely rule out the possibility when talking with Mrs. Arable: “I have never heard an animal say anything. But that proves nothing. It is quite possible that an animal has spoken civilly to me and hat I didn’t catch the remark because I wasn’t paying attention” (110). Perhaps White was consciously echoing the words of G.K. Chesterton from Chesterton’s famous defense of fairy tales in “The Ethics of Elfland,” part of his book Orthodoxy:

I have always been more inclined to believe the ruck of hardworking people than to believe that special and troublesome literary class to which I belong. I prefer even the fancies and prejudices of the people who see life from the inside to the clearest demonstrations of the people who see life from the outside. I would always trust the old wives’ tales against the old maids’ facts. (Orthodoxy 53-54)

     Still, facts must be dealt with and arranged appropriately. And as Melissa R. Cordell explains in an article on the backstory of Charlotte for the October 2008 issue of children’s magazine Highlights, White “filled a folder with sketches of spiders and notes about spiders at work” (32), and a lot of these notes wove themselves into the tale, including “Charlotte’s description of the seven parts of her leg, what happened when Charlotte’s children hatched, and how her foundation lines differed from her snare lines” (33). College professor Sue Misheff summarizes the work in her 1998 essay “Beneath the Web and Over the Stream,” for the academic journal Children’s Literature in Education, by saying, “Within this fantasy lives a very down-to-earth spider who weaves a bit of magic into her otherwise realistic web which essentially saves her friend from certain extinction” (133).

     Chesterton would agree that a spider’s web is magical; when queried with such unanswerable questions children wonder, such as why birds lay eggs or gravity makes apples fall in autumn, “we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o’clock. We must answer that it is magic” (quoted in Elfland 57). So would Dr. Dorian, though he uses different language: “A young spider knows how to spin a web without any instruction from anybody. Don’t you regard that as a miracle?” (White, Charlotte 110)

     Another everyday miracle for any writer is having a good editor, and most people in general would considered blessed with a spouse they could both work well and get along with. For White, his wife Katharine filled both of these roles admirably, though she did not officially edit his work. As he wrote in a March 1954 letter to a little girl named Shirley Wiley, “My wife is an editor. An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do, but who has escaped the terrible desire to write” (Letters 358). And writers need editors for the simple reason that White cited when replying to a student’s query: “I can’t explain myself. Everything about me is mysterious to me and I do make any strong effort to solve the puzzle” (Letters 372).

     Still another everyday miracle is the concept of stories themselves, and the immense power they hold. Western author Louis L’Amour said of them in “In the Beginning, There Was the Story…”, a short essay from his reference work The Sackett Companion: “The story was man’s first and best means of transmitting knowledge or information, of preparing the child as well as the adult for what might come” (261). White uses the power of story, in part, to model what desirable behavior looks like and educate readers through new vocabulary, while keeping his adult viewpoint that sees humor in the commonplace. As Charlotte says to Templeton on page 140, “’Humble’ has two meanings. It means ‘not proud’ and it means ‘near the ground.’ That’s Wilbur all over.” In this approach, White creates what Misheff calls “a safe space created by a reasoned approach to a problem” (Misheff 138).

     Even though Charlotte dies, because death is inevitable for all creatures, life goes on for Wilbur, and he must learn to deal with the pain in order to grow and mature (Misheff 137). DiCamillo says this is part of Charlotte’s promise to Wilbur, in addition to being White’s promise to his readers: “Things will continue, life will go on. It will be beautiful, astonishing, heartbreaking. And as long as you keep your eyes and heart open to the wonder of it, as long as you love, it will be okay” (Foreword vii). This is a very important lesson to learn, which can be taught somewhat by sitting at the typewriter and bleeding, so sayeth the Hemingway quote familiar to nearly all English majors. Life’s experiences will teach this lesson to the readers in one way or another at some point in their lives, but books like this one can play an early role in understanding this lesson, which is part of why children’s literature possibly occupies the highest place in storytelling, which in my opinion is the highest form of teaching tools in existence. 

      White also has quite a bit to say about the importance of good writing in general, not to mention common sense, throughout this work. But in terms of finding out what this advice is, we must study his actual words. “If you are engaged in writing a theme about my works, I think your best bet is to read them and say what you think about them,” was the advice he gave a high school student named Arthur Hudson (White, Letters 372). So that is what I tried to do.

     There is the main plot device of the words “SOME PIG,” “TERRIFIC,” “RADIANT” and “HUMBLE” appearing in the threads of Charlotte A. Cavatica’s webs in Zuckerman’s barn and the fairgrounds, of course. No one understands how words could appear in a spider’s web, because it seems utterly fantastic. But again, Dr. Dorian serves as a voice of reason: “I don’t understand it…None of us do. I’m a doctor. Doctors are supposed to understand everything. But I don’t understand everything, and I don’t intend to let it worry me” (108-10). Since “doctor” comes from the Latin “to teach,” this bit of wordplay in that statement about “having to understand everything” is doubly worthwhile. After all, isn’t part of the reason that professors and teachers continue to seek out new perspectives and knowledge of their subjects because they wish to learn more?  And if we tried to understand everything, we would quickly go crazy, an observation which Chesterton expands upon in his earlier Orthodoxy essays “The Maniac” and “The Suicide of Thought.”

     Another bit of humorous observation about writing occurs during the initial barn-wide planning meeting, where Wilbur protests that he’s not terrific, only to be quickly overruled by Charlotte’s snarky-yet-sensible reply: “That doesn’t make a particle of difference. Not a particle. People believe almost anything they see in print” (89). This is sadly true, and can be seen by reading the political coverage in newspapers or on Facebook. People are quite easy to fool.

     In an essay remembering his Cornell professor William Strunk, White describes his own process of writing this way: “I write by ear, always with difficulty and seldom with any notion of what is taking place under the hood” (White, Essays 256). Is that comment a little strange, coming from the editor/co-author (with Strunk) of The Elements of Style, one of the most influential books on writing in history? Kind of. But at the end of the day, the words that White hammered out just worked. They connected with people, and explained clearly the simple, often-forgotten parts of life’s daily existence in a rural setting. And that’s what counts. Perhaps with the closing lines, he was hoping they could be his epitaph: “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both” (184). I know that I would be honored to have people say about me.

Works Cited

Chesterton, G.K. “The Ethics of Elfland.” 1908. Orthodoxy. Ignatius Press, pp. 51-70, 1995.

DiCamillo, Kate. Foreword by Kate DiCamillo. Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White. 60^th Anniversary edition. Illus. Garth Williams. 1952, HarperCollins, 2012, pp. v-vii. 

Cordell, Melinda R. “E.B. White and His Spiders.” Illus. Meredith Johnson. Highlights for Children, Vol. 63, No. 10, October 2008, pp. 32-33. EBSCO. Accessed on 28 September 2016. Web.

L’Amour, Louis. “In the Beginning, There Was the Story…” The Sackett Companion. Bantam Books, pp. 261-262, 1988.

Misheff, Sue. “Beneath the Web and Under the Stream: The Search for Safe Places in Charlotte’s Web and Bridge to Terbithia.” Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 29, No. 3, 1998, pp. 131-141. EBSCO.  Accessed on 29 September 2016. Web.

White, E.B. Charlotte’s Web. 60^th Anniversary edition. Illus. Garth Williams. 1952, HarperCollins, 2012.

--------------. “Death of a Pig.” The Atlantic Monthly, January 1948. The Essays of E.B. White, 1977. Harper Colophon Books, pp. 17-25, 1979.

--------------. “Will Strunk.” 1957. The Essays of E.B. White, 1977. Harper Colophon Books, pp. 256-262, 1979.

--------------. “To Arthur Hudson.” 1 April 1955. Letters of E.B. White, Revised Edition, 2006. Edited by Dorothy Lorrano Guth and Martha White.  Harper Perennial, p. 372, 2007.

--------------. “To Shirley Wiley.” 30 March 1954. Letters of E.B. White, Revised Edition, 2006. Edited by Dorothy Lorrano Guth and Martha White.  Harper Perennial, p. 358, 2007.

BIbliography of Suggested Reading for Teens

     For Dr. Dial-Driver's Children's Lit class. This bibliography, too, was extremely difficult to narrow down to ten examples. I tried to be diverse when it comes to genres.

Rawls, Wilson. Where the Red Fern Grows. Doubleday, 1961.
     Billy Coleman lives near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and he diligently saves up for two years in order to buy a pair of coonhound puppies, which he names Old Dan and Little Ann. His grandpa helps him teach the dogs to hunt raccoons, becoming one of the Ozarks’ most accomplished hunters. After Dan dies following a mountain lion attack, loyal Ann dies from a broken heart, and the Colemans move out of the mountains at Mama’s request, settling in Tulsa.
     The chief heartbreaker of all dog-story-tearjerkers, this ought to be required reading for Oklahoma children due to the local setting. Loyalty is the chief virtue expressed in these pages, though there are many virtues scattered throughout. I was five when I first heard this story, which was plenty old enough to understand it. Wilson Rawls wrote his books for “people,” and hated the idea that publishers marketed them as children’s literature. Therefore everyone ought to read it, as an example of true love and the power of patient hard work. Especially teenagers.

Kaye, M.M. The Ordinary Princess. 1980. Doubleday, 1984.
     In the far-off kingdom of Phantasmorania, there is a seventh princess born to the king and queen, her royal highness Amethyst Alexandra Augusta Araminta Adelaide Aurelia Anne – and the seventh princess is always the prettiest, the most graceful, the most blessed of all the fairies. Everyone knows that. But everyone also knows how contrary fairies can be – and this is what caused this princess to be ordinary, of all things. An ordinary princess would be an embarrassment to the kingdom, so Amy becomes a scullery maid in the royal castle of the next country over, where she eventually falls in love with a man-of-all-work.
      This was mystery author M.M. Kaye’s only fairy tale, but it works supremely well, mainly because it has such an emphasis on the ordinariness of life, while at the same time clearly being a fairy tale and containing all the classic ingredients. These elements are treated with respect, unlike so many things which claim to be modern fairy tales (glaring at you, Shrek).

Schaefer, Jack. Shane. 1949. Bantam, 1975.
     In 1880’s Wyoming, the Old West was dying quickly. This novel is narrated by a man named Bob Starrett, who was eleven when a dangerous stranger rode onto their farm one day, signed on as a hired hand and then found himself defending the group of local homesteaders in the middle of a range war with a devious cattle rancher.
     It’s a straightforward and formulaic Western plot, but the writing quality alone makes it worth reading for the strength of Schaefer’s descriptions. Bob Starrett is one of my top ten narrators across all books ever.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. 1960. Grand Central, 2010.
     This tale set in a Depression-era southern Alabama town chronicles Scout and Jem Finch’s childhoods dealing with their father Atticus’s occasionally absent-minded parenting, in addition to the trials of public education and racism. Character and setting are much more important than plot.
     Scout Finch is probably my favorite narrator of all time, and Atticus is one of my favorite characters. This is a classic of southern American literature, and therefore almost has to be read at some point. Lee deals with a lot of big questions in this novel, and doesn’t provide all that many answers, which appeals to teenagers everywhere. If the reader has writerly ambitions, then studying Lee’s Go Set a Watchman shows how important the revision process is.

Goldman, William. The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. 1973. Del Rey, 1987.
      In the country of Florin, long before Europe and just before glamour, but after America and blue jeans, lived the most beautiful woman in the world. She was a farm girl named Buttercup. Forced to marry Prince Humperdinck against her will, she is kidnapped and then reunited with her first love, Westley. Once Buttercup is recaptured, Humperdinck brutally murders Westley. He is resurrected (this is a fairy tale, after all) and teams up with Buttercup’s original kidnappers to break her out of the castle. The novel ends on a wonderfully ambiguous note, as they’re running away as fugitives with their end unknown.
     There’s the first sentence, to start with: “This is my favorite book in all the world, although I have never read it.” So many quotable quotes. So much more character depth than in the movie. This is a fairy tale for grownups, which claims neither to be more nor less. It is presented as an abridgement of a longer satirical Florinese history by fictional author S. Morgenstern. To paraphrase an A.A. Milne quote (from Once On a Time), the reader will either love this style of narration, or he/she will not. It’s that sort of book.

Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing. 1598. The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Orgel and A.R. Braunmuller. Penguin, 2002, pp.365-400.
      After the conclusion of a civil war, many people gather at the house of a rich man named Leonato. His daughter Hero is engaged to Claudio, whose best friend is Benedick, former lover of Hero’s cousin Beatrice. Everyone schemes to get Benedick and Beatrice back together. Complications ensue.
     William Shakespeare is one of the greatest storytellers in the history of English. His comedies are the easiest for modern readers to understand, and Much Ado follows most closely the formula of a modern comedy. And Benedick and Beatrice are amazingly snarky, slinging insults at each other with gleeful abandon. There is also the brilliant Joss Whedon film adaptation.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 1953. Simon & Schuster, 2013.
     In a bleak dystopian future, humanity is enslaved by addiction to technology, books are banned, and firemen create fires. After making the acquaintance of his quirky neighbor Clarisse, fireman Guy Montag comes to question everything he knows about his life and his society, to the point of becoming a wanted fugitive.
     The idea of dystopian literature is to serve as a warning of what society could become. Thus, while it may be uncomfortable to read, it is an important genre to be aware of, in order to avoid the futures described in the books. Bradbury’s Fahrenheit, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 together make up the triumvirate of essential dystopian literature.

King, Stephen. On Writing. Scribner, 2000.
     Almost everyone has read at least some of Stephen King’s works while a teenager, so why not read about the man behind the stories? The first half is a memoir, detailing his life from childhood up until the struggling early years of his marriage. The back half is a “how to write well” book. Both of those genres are necessary sometimes.

Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park. 1990. Ballantine Books, 2015.
     A billionaire with no common sense creates a theme park featuring live cloned dinosaurs. During a cold opening of the park as a final measure of readiness before allowing the general public, a traitorous employee sets a catastrophe in motion which severs all power and communications, letting all the dinosaurs loose from their enclosures. Lots of people are eaten over the weekend.
     While mostly a bit of thriller fluff, there are some profound questions raised by this novel, mainly dealing with the role of science and technology in our world. And a quote from Dr. Ian Malcolm is interesting: “In the information society, we expected to banish paper. What we actually abolished was thought.” Loads of academic jargon make this somewhat difficult to wade through, so I would estimate high-school-age as a target audience.

Montgomery, L.M. The Golden Road. 1913. Kindle Direct Publishing, 2012.
     This novel meanders here and there, so there isn’t much a plot. It follows a group of friends and the adventures they had together just before going their separate ways as they grew up, narrated by the adult version of one of the characters. That makes it a perfect read for panicking high school graduates going to college to destress with as they reflect on memories made. This is another book with the target audience of “people.” I love most of Montgomery’s works, but this is my favorite of hers. 

BIbliography of Suggested Reading for Children

     I LOVED Dr. Dial-Driver's Children's Literature course. This assignment was really difficult, because there are so many wonderful choices to pick from, and we could only use ten examples.

Eastman, P.D. Are You My Mother? 1960. Random House, 1993. 

     A small baby bird gets lost after falling out of his nest, and he has to look for his mother. Once he finds quite a lot of things which are not his mother (including a dog, a cow, and a gigantic Snorting Power Shovel), he gets back home in time for a warm hug from Mom and a yummy worm dinner. 

     This is one of the Beginner Books series, so if your child is learning to read, this would be a good bet. P.D. Eastman’s pictures are spectacular, though, so this would be a great choice to read aloud to toddlers, as would his other books.

Bond, Michael. A Bear Called Paddington. 1958. HarperCollins, 2014.

     This is the first of the Paddington series; each of the chapters-work-as-short-stories variety like P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins books. Paddington is a small bear adopted into a rather bland London family, and he gets usually himself into a variety of strange and sticky situations. Literally sticky situations, since he loves marmalade. However, things always work out in the end.

     I would guess this is written for seven-year-olds just starting to read “big chapter books” on their own. They work well at introducing that indescribable quirky British sense of humor, which is their chief merit. If anthropomorphized animals are not a family’s cup of tea, then they should skip these books.

Barrett, Judi. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Illustrated by Ron Barrett.1978. Aladdin Paperbacks, 1982.

     A grandfather tells his grandchildren a tall tale about the small town of Chewandswallow, which had no grocery stores, because the town got all its food from the sky, because they didn’t have normal weather. Eventually, something went wrong, and terrible storms forced the evacuation of Chewandswallow, because it wasn’t safe to live there any longer, what with the tomato tornadoes and five-ton pancakes.

     Food connects people of all ages, and everyone has their favorite food they wish it would rain (like milkshakes or gumdrops, according to the Barney song.) The pictures add a wonderful dimension to this tale, which I would estimate as appropriate to first introduce anywhere from four to seven, depending on if it were read aloud or not. The imaginative concept appeals to a child’s mindset very well, and it could be used to learn about the different food groups, as well as the idea of tall tales and their history.

Rawls, Wilson. Where the Red Fern Grows. Doubleday, 1961. 

     Billy Coleman lives near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and he diligently saves up for for two years in order to buy a pair of coonhound puppies, which he names Old Dan and Little Ann. His grandpa helps him teach the dogs to hunt raccoons, becoming one of the Ozarks’ most accomplished hunters. After Dan dies following a mountain lion attack, loyal Ann dies from a broken heart, and the Colemans move out of the mountains at Mama’s request, settling in Tulsa.

     The chief heartbreaker of all dog-story-tearjerkers, this ought to be required reading for Oklahoma children due to the local setting. Loyalty is the chief virtue expressed in these pages, though there are many virtues scattered throughout. I was five when I first heard this story, which was plenty old enough to understand it. Wilson Rawls wrote his books for “people,” and hated the idea that publishers marketed them as children’s literature. Therefore everyone ought to read it, as an example of true love and the power of patient hard work.

Wallace, Bill. Upchuck and the Rotten Willy. Aladdin Paperbacks, 1998.

     Chuck, a young orange kitten, has just lost his friend Louie, who got smushed by a car on the highway. And then an enormous monster of a Rottweiler moves in down the road. And then his best friend Tom moves away. And then, to top it all off, his Person Katie moves to somewhere far away and cagelike called “College.” What’s a lonesome, scared cat to do?

     This is a terrific first-person narrative starting around age seven, illustrating well the emotions of life as only Bill Wallace can. It deals with loneliness, abandonment, the changing of life-seasons, in addition to offering some humorous insight on dating and emphasizing the power of friendship, especially the friendship found in overlooked corners.

Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. Shiloh. Atheneum, 1991.

     Eleven-year-old Marty Preston lives in the extremely rural town of Friendly, West Virginia, where he comes across the new beagle of infamous-dog-mistreater Judd Travers. Marty and his little sisters nurse the dog, now called Shiloh, back to health, trying to decide if it’s ethical to steal Shiloh in order to prevent certain future cruelty by Judd.

     This novel is appropriate for readers around nine, because they would likely have a deep bond with their pets by then, and the beginnings of an understanding of empathy and the complexity of this world we live in. The first-person tone draws the reader in, and if he or she is of a writerly turn of mind, they can study how that first-person POV can be used to describe the rural setting, poverty, and ethical dilemmas within. Real life is often very gray, and this novel explains that while keeping a kid-appropriate tone.

Brink, Carol Ryrie. Caddie Woodlawn. 1935.

     Caddie Woodlawn and her brothers grew up in Wisconsin after their parents moved to Boston, and this novel tells about some of their adventures growing up. It doesn’t really have a plot, but it’s the kind of book that doesn’t really need one.

     This is included because it is clearly historical fiction, as the author makes note of in the introduction, and that is a good genre to be introduced to. She is retelling the childhood of her grandmother, based on the stories that she heard as a child. If Laura Ingalls Wilder is seen as too girlish for boys to think they’d enjoy, this might be a good alternative. Girls could appreciate Caddie’s indecision between wanting to be a tomboy at times, and a lady at other times.  

Sachar, Louis. Holes. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.

     After being accused of stealing a pair of sneakers, Stanley Yelnats gets sent to a juvenile detention facility in the Texas desert, where he gets to know his coworkers as they dig holes “to build character.”  Interspersed with the mystery that follows is a history of the outlaw Kissin’ Kate Barlow, a former schoolteacher who turned rogue after her romance with a black man was discovered.

     The braided nature of these interweaving stories is a very interesting stylistic technique to take notice of, and given the complexity of the issues raised (mainly juvenile delinquency, the justice system and interracial relationships) I would say a reader should be around eleven or twelve before tackling this one. Those subjects are handled in an age-appropriate way, but given the general meanness of the characters to survive, some thick skin must have already been developed.

Pyle, Howard. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. 1883.

     A retelling, perhaps the first aimed at children, of the legendary antiheroic character of Robin Hood, from his first coming to Sherwood Forest to his death by treacherous arrow. Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian and the Sherriff of Nottingham are all here, as well, as is King Richard the Lion-Hearted.

      What kid doesn’t like adventure? Pyle’s book abounds with it, though the reading difficulty might present problems unless the reader was an especially-determined nine-year-old. This would be a good candidate to read aloud for younger children, giving a chance to practice comprehension skills by asking them to summarize the action at various points throughout each chapter.  

Neville, Emily. It’s Like This, Cat. Illustrated by Emil Weiss. 1963.

     This Newbery Award winner tells how a 14-year-old named Dave deals with problems of early teenagerdom, including hero worship, fights with his father and first love. His cat, who was given to him by a family friend named Kate, serves as a sounding board in figuring out all these problems.

      This would be appropriate for readers about eleven, I would estimate, because parents aren’t perfect, and they have as many flaws as anyone. There are scenes of smoking, if I remember right, some interest is taken of the opposite sex, and the characters wander around New York City entirely unsupervised a vast majority of the time. Knowing some history of what was going to happen later in this decade, this novel gives a better picture of the day-to-day life of those growing up in this era, and reminds readers that human nature is much the same everywhere. The first-person narration is used well to highlight the urban setting, providing literary-minded readers a glimpse (especially in contrast with Shiloh) of how the basic tools of writing can be used in interesting ways. 

About "Space Jam"

     For Dr. Mackie's Creative Nonfiction, this prompt was to write about one of our favorite movies.

     There are a lot of movies I love, that I’ve learned a lot of storytelling technique from by repeatedly studying them. Unfortunately, they usually tend to get blow aside as either “low production quality” or “kids movies” or something like that. And sure, they aren’t all masterpieces. In fact, they usually tangle themselves into pretzels that defy any one genre, skipping easily through several, and meaning every one. Movies like The Princess Bride; is it an adventure? A fantasy? A romance? A satire? A fairy tale? It’s all of those, and it’s honest about being all of those things. The Big Green is a 90’s sports movie, certainly. But it’s also about hope, the job of teaching, the power of small-town community and an interesting conundrum of illegal immigration. Space Jam is the one I’m going to talk about for this assignment, though.

     A diabolical theme-park owner named Swackhammer sends a group of tiny aliens called Nerdlucks to capture the Looney Tunes in order to enslave them and increase attendance. The Looney Tunes come up with an escape plan by challenging the diminutive Nerdlucks to a basketball game. However, the Nerdlucks steal the talent of NBA superstars, transforming themselves into the terrifying Monstars. Meanwhile, Michael Jordan has retired from basketball to try playing professional baseball in order to make good on a promise he made as a child to his father. So Bugs, Daffy, Elmer and the rest kidnap Michael to get him to help win the game. The Looney Tunes defeat the evil aliens, the NBA players get their talent back, and Michael Jordan decides he’s terrible at baseball and goes back to the Chicago Bulls to win another couple championships. That’s pretty much the entire plot.

     On some level, it could be called historical fiction, given that it explains Michael Jordan’s first retirement to try (and fail at) playing professional baseball. Of course the reasoning was changed, as this decision remains somewhat in mystery, though it likely had something to do with his father’s murder and outrageous gambling debts. On another level, it’s an extended screwball comedy, since it features most of the classic Looney Tunes characters going through their daily lives. And then there is the science-fiction part of the story, since aliens blast onto Earth in order to enslave the inhabitants. And oh, yeah, it’s a sports movie on top of everything else, with cameos from most of the top players of the time, and featuring Bill Murray and Danny DeVito for good measure. If a cynical viewpoint was to be taken, it could be said that this movie was made solely for advertising merchandise. And it was, of course; even the characters mention this. But it doesn’t take itself seriously, while fully admitting that none of these rules it’s following make any sense. Because of this, it works. This could be because a more three-year-old Wesley-approved movie could not have been made if it were manufactured for me alone in mind, but this report doesn’t have to be subjective. The greatest basketball player in the world is teaming up with Bugs Bunny to save the world from a bunch of aliens. Yes, please!

     It came to theaters when I was three, and while I don’t think I remember watching it in theaters, Mom said I hid in her lap when the Monstars first appeared. I also know that I saw it for the first time in the theater because she says we were grocery shopping one day not long after and I recognized a song the PA system was playing(R. Kelly’s “Fly Like an Eagle” or Seal’s “Fly Like an Eagle” cover) as being from the movie, which she then recognized after I urgently explained the connection. I can also clearly remember dancing maniacally to the soundtrack in one of the apartments we lived in. The soundtrack has Bugs Bunny doing a rap song, of all the insane experiences worth listening to at least once. There are the detractors who gleefully point out all the paper-thin plotting, the lack of acting ability from Jordan, or complain that the Tunes themselves act nothing like themselves. Have they watched some of those shorts in a while? The Tunes can be mean, and there can be sex jokes hidden in many of them.

     Lola Bunny is an original character expressly designed to give Bugs a love interest, less-than-expressly to sell merchandise, and possibly to give girls a role model of Bugs’ standing to admire. I think all of those goals were met. The appeal of Lola was obvious: she was fantastic at basketball, and independent and determined. Besides that, she became the girlfriend of Bugs Bunny, so that automatically got about a thousand bonus points. (I hung out with teenagers all the time, so some of their attitudes I must have picked up by osmosis.) “She’s hot!” Tweety says. Feminists can complain that she never really does anything – and they kind of have a point – but that’s missing the point, really. In the first place, the story is balanced the way it is already, and to shift anything would have thrown everything out the window. Secondly – and this is by far the most important – was the purpose of the story wasn’t to create a masterpiece, it was to fire the imagination, one of the highest callings I can think of for story in any medium. So Lola isn’t exactly much else than a bit of cheerleading damsel in distress in the movie. In kids’ imaginations, she played a bigger role; maybe she single-handedly saved everyone. Maybe she and Bugs went on dates and antagonized Elmer Fudd together. Anything was possible. And the thing is, that same principle applies to every single character. All those gaps in the movie can be filled in by each viewer, bringing them into the story like few others can match.

     Obviously people can’t be squashed flat into a pancake and reinflated, lassoed through golf holes, dynamite can’t be used to blow up the backboard, and arms don’t stretch like rubber bands for thirty feet. But this is Looney Tune Land, and so that’s all fine and dandy. After all, if trains can pummel Yosemite Sam and Wile E. Coyote can fall prey to goodness-knows-what perils from ACME, then all these Space Jam quirks are fine. They’re animated, and they know it. Depth perception doesn’t exist, so all kinds of adventures can happen. (This doesn’t work quite as well in 3-D Land, unfortunately.) A story usually covers the same welcoming (because it is well-trodden) plot, and so we learn to recognize these details and find comfort in their sameness.

     The familiar threads of story material are easily recognizable; the average townspeople need the stranger to come in and save the day from a force of marauding evil. This stranger has to face his past and overcome it in order to vanquish the threat. The stakes are dire. The average townsperson has friends and a lovely lady to back up his efforts to fight the threat courageously; indeed, all the townspeople exhibit immense courage and fortitude. In the end, through seemingly impossible odds, the threat is defeated. Everything goes well from there (that we know of). There. Now what movie (or book) did I just describe? It could have been nearly any Clint Eastwood movie, it could’ve been It’s a Wonderful Life, it could’ve been Pixar, it could’ve been Much Ado About Nothing. In the same way, a sport of almost any kind is a comforting thing, because there is a fixed set of expectations and outcomes, with a bewildering amount of variation possible within those set guidelines. One team will always win, the other will lose. The basketball will not be kicked, and it will go through the basket. Even though it’s a movie, and therefore prone to break the rules a little in order to create more dramatic tension, all that excitement of the movie is enhanced by knowing the framework the scene of the climatic showdown is staying within.

     This could go on for a while, but I should really wrap this up now so it doesn’t stretch on for thirty-plus pages (because it totally could). I love Space Jam because it fires the imagination and acknowledges that anything could happen. Are their imperfections? Yeah, all those critics have some good points. But they are forgetting that at the core, the movie has “it. Whatever ‘it’ is, you’ve got a lot of it,” Michael tells the Tunes on leaving. I would call this “heart.”