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The best fiction for children and adults helps readers make sense of reality. The characters may be imagined, the events fabricated, the setting as distant as another planet or as fantastic as Hogwart's, but if a writer connects with a reader in the hoped-for way, then the reader will find truth in that fiction.
It's because of what recently befell my father that I've been thinking along these lines. At age 91, with a mind as agile as a man half his age, he suffered a medication reaction that brought on weeks of delirium. He emerged from this siege with retrograde amnesia, a disturbing condition that left him unable to access much of his own long history. While he remembered people, he could not recall many important specific places and events. He questioned me at great length about the various members of our wide-ranging extended family, asking who was living and who dead and where each one was residing or resting. And he mourned anew the departed.
Sadly, my father had lost his narrative thread, the ongoing story about ourselves that we spin out in our minds as the minutes, days, and years tick by. As a side effect, at the same time that he succumbed to amnesia he stopped listening to the books on tape that had sustained him ever since his eyesight grew too poor for large-print books. He seemed a character in search of his own story, unwilling or unable to focus on any other.
Time was when my father spent much of his free time reading. As a young child I learned by his example to take joy in books. Lucky me to be blessed as well with a mother who took joy in reading to me! There was magic in the picture books we checked out of the public library, Little Golden Books purchased at the corner candy store, a serial called the Teeny Weenies in the Sunday newspaper.
The books my mother and I shared and the ones I read on my own later helped me sort out and understand real events and feelings. At the age of five I drew courage for a stay in the hospital from the bravery of Madeline during her emergency appendectomy. Ferdinand the Bull showed me that there was strength in gentleness and in being a little different from the crowd. As I grew, I devoured books featuring large families like the Melendy's, the Five Little Peppers, the All-of-a-Kind Family and the March girls, stories which I now understand helped dispel the loneliness I felt in being an "only." Fairy tales mirrored for me in vivid symbolism the emotions I, like children everywhere, had to master—fear, longing, courage, envy. They taught me that even in a sometimes scary world, love could bring happily-ever-after endings.
My audience as an author of picture books is for the most part too young to express direct opinions to me. But I hear often from adults. It has been heartwarming to learn that The Rainbabies strikes a special chord in couples who have struggled with infertility, in parents of adopted children, and in adoptees themselves, and to know that several adoption agencies include it on their list of recommended books. I have been told by those who have lived in Japan that the story of Little Oh rings culturally and emotionally true. And I've been delighted when parents have said that I Love You as Much expresses their feelings for their children, and that kids want to hear it again and again. My wish is that one of my books will hold as much importance for a child as my favorites did for me. Hurry, Hurry Have You Heard, my next release, is a lullaby, a retelling from a new perspective of a story that holds great significance for many—the Nativity.
As for my father, his memories of the past are slowly returning. Always a steady person, he has managed to maintain his equilibrium and sense of humor throughout this strange ordeal. It is my long-range hope for him that after reconstructing his own narrative he will come, once again, to find the magic and meaning in books. •
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About the Author:
Laura Krauss Melmed grew up in New York City. Her thirteen picture books have garnered such awards as the ALA Notable Award, Prix de Bologna, Parents' Choice Award, Oppenheim Toy Catalogue Gold Award, Publisher's Weekly Cuffy Award, and the National Jewish Book Award. Laura lives in Washington, DC with her husband, Allan. They have three young adult children in various stages of launching.
Recent Books by Laura Krauss Melmed:
• Moishe's Miracle, illustrated by David Slonim (Chronicle Books, 2005)
• New York, New York! The Big Apple from A to Z, illustrated by Frané Lessac (HarperCollins Children's Books, 2005)
• Capital! Washington, DC from A to Z, illustrated by Frané Lessac (HarperCollins Children's Books, 2004)
• This First Thanksgiving Day, illustrated by Mark Buehner (HarperTrophy, 2003)
• Hurry, Hurry, Have You Heard (Chronicle Books, coming in 2007)
To contact this author or illustrator, please use the information for his or her publisher provided on our list of CBC member publishers.
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