The very first book that Sarah and I shared with Mrs. Foley's class and Mrs. Luce's class was one of our favorites, CAKE GIRL, by British writer and illustrator David Lucas. It's an inventive tale about a socially-challenged witch and the cake girl she conjures on her birthday in lieu of the friends who never seem to appear. We've owned the book since it was published in 2009 and it is still in heavy rotation at bedtime -- a cherished favorite of all three of my children. We do tend to read it more around Halloween as witches are on the brain then, but CAKE GIRL isn't a Halloween story. It's part classic fairy tale (with perhaps a slight nod to The Gingerbread Man in that both stories feature a sweet treat come to life) and part the weird and wonderful imagination of David Lucas. I wrote to Mr. Lucas at the start of the year to tell him how much we loved CAKE GIRL and to see if he had any words for our budding kindergarten writers and publishers at the Helen E. James School. Imagine our delight when he wrote back. Here is the inspiring, generous letter from David Lucas that Sarah and I read to both classes a few weeks ago. I might add that his excellent advice is useful to writers of all ages.
Dear
Kindergarteners of the Helen E. James Elementary School,
The
magic of the English language is in the little words - words (mostly) of one
syllable, the names of things that haven't changed in ten thousand years, and
will never change.
Words
like: sun, moon, ghost, king, star, girl, spoon, wolf, boot, chair, house,
giant, queen, cloud, witch, mermaid, horse, tree, fish, coat, bear, mouse, boy,
apple, fork, genie, bird, hat, cat, dog, fairy, tiger, cow, lion, statue,
snake, teapot, frog... simple nouns that are completely timeless, things that
everyone knows.
When
I try and spark ideas for myself, or with children, I mix those up with
adjectives / describing words - words equally simple and elemental and common
to us all: musical, hairy, electric, broken, tall, sad, noisy, ugly, dancing, bread,
clockwork, fiery, magic, stone, ice, golden, cake, laughing, lonely,
upside-down, silver, wooden, muddled, jumping, tiny, metal, pastry, rainbow,
paper, lost, water, angry - that kind of thing.
Then
I pair them up at random: a pastry wolf! a dancing apple! a wooden ghost! a
musical moon! being careful just to avoid anything ordinary,
anything everyday (stone statue, wooden spoon, etc.)
Some
word combinations instantly suggest problems. There are no stories without
problems.
As
soon as I put Cake and Girl together I knew there was going to be
trouble...
It
is easy, really, to come up with ideas that no one has ever thought of before.
I
was working with seven-year-olds the other day in a school in Yorkshire, and a
girl came up with a Pirate Mermaid character. Brilliant!
The Pirate Mermaid had lots of tattoos and big earrings, and she had a couple
of teeth missing I think, and an eye-patch. I
wish I'd thought of it...
I am
always inspired by children's story ideas - how effortlessly imaginative they
are. Children are so much more ready to believe in magic and poetry than adults
and that is something that adults can really learn from. There is magic in the
world - everywhere - but a lot of adults prefer to think otherwise. They want
to think there is no real mystery to life, or that if there are still some
mysteries out there that they'll soon be solved. But people only want to think
that way because they are frightened: magic is scary, and unpredictable and
impossible to control. It never does quite what we expect. But
fairy tales teach us that if you respect magic and mystery then all kinds of
wonderful things can happen.
Happy
writing!
David
If you'd like to learn more about David Lucas and his terrific picture books, we suggest checking out his website--just click here. If only he lived closer so he could visit us at Helen E. James in Williamsburg! But a letter just for us is without a doubt the very best next thing. Thank you, David Lucas.
And as always, happy reading!
--Jen
